Patent Document ID: 9159056
Application ID: 13545162
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for computing a value V C of a crowd network C, the method comprises: assigning an initial value to V c ; collecting statistics information representing communication activities among a total of n communication nodes in the crowd network; constructing an adjacency matrix A, an incoming message probability matrix X, and an outgoing message probability matrix Y of the crowd network, wherein the incoming message probability matrix X={x ij |i,j<=n}, wherein x ij denotes an incoming message probability of node i to receive info from node j, and the outgoing message probability matrix Y={y ij |i,j<=n}, wherein y ij denotes an outgoing message probability of node i to transmit info to node j, and wherein the incoming message probability matrix X and the outgoing message probability matrix Y are determined at least in part based on the collected statistics information; computing an inbound entropy H in of the crowd network using matrices A and X, and an outbound entropy H out of the crowd network using matrices A and Y; calculating an updated value V C ′ of the crowd network using the inbound entropy H in , the outbound entropy H out , and a pre-defined weighting parameter α; assigning the updated value V C ′ to V c if the updated value V C ′ is greater than a previous value V C ; repeating the constructing, computing, calculating, and assigning steps until the value V C has not been increased in the last n 2 iterations; and outputting the value V C indicating a maximum value of the crowd network C.