Alignment-based trust for resource finding in semantic P2P networks

In a semantic P2P network, peers use separate ontologies and rely on alignments between their ontologies for translating queries. Nonetheless, alignments may be limited -unsound or incomplete- and generate flawed translations, leading to unsatisfactory answers. In this paper we present a trust mechanism that can assist peers to select those in the network that are better suited to answer their queries. The trust that a peer has towards another peer depends on a specific query and represents the probability that the latter peer will provide a satisfactory answer. In order to compute trust, we exploit both alignments and peers' direct experience, and perform Bayesian inference. We have implemented our technique and conducted an evaluation. Experimental results showed that trust values converge as more queries are sent and answers received. Furthermore, the use of trust improves both precision and recall. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.