Research Series: Exploring Trust and Beyond

Welcome to a new blog series focused on research—both my own contributions and influential studies in my field. This series will explore papers I have co-authored, peer-reviewed research, and significant developments that have shaped my work. Through these posts, I aim to break down complex ideas, highlight key insights, and discuss their real-world implications.

Introducing the First Paper

The first post in this series will discuss my recently published paper, Trust Models go to the Web: Learning how to Trust Strangers, co-authored with Pasquale De Meo and Alessandro Provetti. This work, published in ACM Transactions on the Web, examines how interpersonal and social trust emerge in Online Social Networks of Needs (OSNNs), where online interactions lead to real-world meetings. We present a lightweight web scraping solution that allows us to monitor trust interactions on a national childcare platform and analyze how trust evolves over time.

Key Insights from the Paper:

• Trust in Online Social Networks: How online reputation systems and review mechanisms shape user trust in services like childcare platforms.
• Applying Trust Models: Using the Castelfranchi-Falcone trust model (CF-T) to predict trust evolution based on user interactions and online reviews.
• Data-Driven Findings: Discovering correlations between aggregated trust scores and socio-economic factors, such as per capita GDP.
• Scalability & Technical Aspects: Implementing a scalable scraping architecture to collect and process social trust data effectively.

What to Expect in This Series

This series will cover a range of research topics, including:

1. Breaking Down Key Research Papers – Summaries and discussions of papers I have contributed to, explaining their findings and impact.
2. Influential Studies & Literature Reviews – Exploring significant research that has influenced my work and the broader field.
3. Technical Insights from Research – Deep dives into methodologies, data analysis techniques, and tools used in published studies.
4. Future Research Directions – Speculating on how emerging technologies and methodologies might shape future research.
5. Open Science & Collaboration – Discussing the importance of open-source projects and how researchers can contribute.

Through this series, I hope to provide a valuable resource for researchers, students, and professionals interested in trust models, web data extraction, and social computing. Stay tuned for the next post, where we’ll dive deeper into Trust Models go to the Web and its implications for online trust systems!