The recent development of online arbitration rules in China

Online arbitration is not a newcomer in the realm of arbitration. Some arbitration institutions have developed technological innovation in arbitration but online arbitration is still not yet widely used because it simply serves as a tool to facilitate arbitration proceedings. This article discusses the recently published online arbitration rules by Guangzhou Arbitration Commission in 2015. Online arbitration provides, on the one hand, more flexibility and efficiency to the parties. On the other hand, there are concerns about the validity and fairness of online arbitral awards due to its innovative feature of arbitration rules. By studying the available online arbitration institutional rules, the author intends to find out how to weigh the balance between efficiency and fairness in online arbitration.     

GearBi: Towards an online arbitration environment based on the design principles simplicity,awareness, orientation,and timeliness

Arbitration is a preferred method for the resolution of international business disputes. As of yet, most publications on online arbitration deal with legal issues. In this paper, we present an Online arbitration environment that we believe facilitates the participants in a meaningful way. Our assumption is that an ODR service should be easy to use (convenient), and at the same time provide meaningful support. More specifically we have paid attention to four criteria that we believe are important, viz. simplicity, awareness, orientation and timeliness. The online arbitration service is called GearBi.     

Taking the Fourth Party further? Considering a shared virtual workspace for arbitration

Presently, there is a growing interest in creating global virtual teams for online arbitration, in which collaboration proceeds across time zones as well as across geographical borders. The aim in this article is to study virtual shared workspaces. While trying to operate a constant interplay with collaboration technologies, we will describe new practices totally unheard of in dispute resolution. Virtual shared workspaces are graphical interfaces that allow several actors to interact simultaneously with the same virtual object. They can be used in online arbitration not to mediate, but rather to augment discussions by facilitating pleadings in cases involving complex factual situations, by providing very sophisticated ways to make allegations, to present facts, and to explain evidence. In this article, we analyse the collaboration, implementation and legal issues that arise from the use of this technology during arbitral proceedings.     

Ignorance is no Defence, but is Inaccessibility? On the Accessibility of National Laws to Foreign Online Publishers

The article examines, first, to what extent the legal exposure of online actors to multiple foreign laws creates a legal obligation on states to make their laws easily accessible to them and whether a state by failing to do so breaches any human rights. Second, it is examined what 'easy accessibility' actually entails. The discussion builds upon the premise that the Internet has created an environment where transnational trade or publications are no longer the prerogative of resource-rich multinational companies with large inhouse legal departments to advise them on their respective legal position in different jurisdictions. Yet, there is growing worldwide consensus that online content providers have to comply with the laws of the places where their sites can be accessed. This raises the issue of whether the legal expectation of states on foreign online actors goes, or should go, hand-in-hand with an obligation to cater for the special regulatory needs of foreign actors.     

The legal recognition of online brokerage in UAE: is a conceptual rethink imperative?

The flourish of online brokerage in the United Arab Emirates does not only rely on the technology but also depends on the legal framework and whether it is flexible enough to encompass such modern form of brokerage and allow the smooth running of its procedures. This paper thus explores the main challenges that might face the future of online securities transactions via the Internet, and determines whether or not the current legal framework provides adequate protection to the investors in an online environment. Furthermore, this paper briefly addresses the issue of what the law ought to be in order to enhance the trust and the predictability needed by the relevant parties involved in online brokerage service over the Internet.     

Trust perceptions of online travel information by different content creators: Some social and legal implications

Consumers are increasingly turning to the online environment to provide information to assist them in making purchase decisions related to travel products. They often rely on travel recommendations from different sources, such as sellers, independent experts and, increasingly, other consumers. A new type of online content, user-generated content (UGC), provides a number of legal and social challenges to providers and users of that content, especially in relation to areas such as defamation, misrepresentation and social embarrassment. This paper reports research that examined the level of trustworthiness of online travel information from these different sources. The study used a survey of Australian travel consumers (n = 12,000) and results support the notion that there are differences in the level of trust for online travel information from different sources. Respondents ‘tended to agree’ that they trusted information provided by travel agents, information from commercial operators and comments made by travellers on third party websites. However, the highest level of trust was afforded to information provided on State government tourism websites. These results suggest that greater trust is placed in online travel comments when they are on a specific travel website than when they are on a more generic social networking website. However, respondents were ‘not sure’ that they trusted comments made by travellers on weblogs and on social networking sites. Some 88% of respondents that had not visited UGC websites (or were unsure if they had) indicated that they thought that UGC would be useful in the future – suggesting that they feel that any concerns they may have in relation to legal and social problems resulting from its use will be resolved.     

Online review manipulation by asymmetrical firms: Is a firm’s manipulation of online reviews always detrimental to its competitor?

Online reviews have a significant influence on consumers, and consequently firms are motivated to manipulate online reviews to promote their own products. This paper develops an analytical model to systematically explore the impact of online review manipulation on asymmetrical firms who sell substitutable search products in a competing market. Results show that a firm’s manipulation of online reviews is not necessary to hurt its competitor’s profit. In addition, if firms are free to choose whether to manipulate online reviews, both firms will always choose to manipulate online reviews. Moreover, there exists a prisoner’s dilemma in which online reviews are overmanipulated.     

A user-friendly interface adapter

Most computer systems do not give any indication to users of what input is required. A manual, whether online or hardcopy, must be consulted, or help must be obtained from an expert. This paper describes a ‘black box’ which may be placed between a computer and a VDU to rectify this situation. The user is prompted with possible inputs at any stage during command input. Other features include local command line editing, a command recall buffer and time/date facilities. The system may be adapted for different operating systems and VDUs if required.     

Solving identity delegation problem in the e-government environment

At present, many countries allow citizens or entities to interact with the government outside the telematic environment through a legal representative who is granted powers of representation. However, if the interaction takes place through the Internet, only primitive mechanisms of representation are available, and these are mainly based on non-dynamic offline processes that do not enable quick and easy identity delegation. This paper proposes a system of dynamic delegation of identity between two generic entities that can solve the problem of delegated access to the telematic services provided by public authorities. The solution herein is based on the generation of a delegation token created from a proxy certificate that allows the delegating entity to delegate identity to another on the basis of a subset of its attributes as delegator, while also establishing in the delegation token itself restrictions on the services accessible to the delegated entity and the validity period of delegation. Further, the paper presents the mechanisms needed to either revoke a delegation token or to check whether a delegation token has been revoked. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

参数曲线曲面实奇异点的计算

本文主要讨论了利用Grobner基理论对参数曲线（面）的奇异点进行判断和计算。如果曲线（面）存在奇异点,由定义可知它的导矢（法矢）等于0。因此,曲线（面）奇异点的判定就是方程组的求解问题。由Hilbert弱零点定理可知,若一组多项式方程无公共零点,则其生成理想约化的Grobner基为[1]。在计算时,首先根据Grobner基理论判断 曲线（面）是否存在奇异点。当存在奇异点时,利用区间算法对实奇异点进行隔离和迭代。在确定奇异点的存在性时,根据曲线（曲面）的导矢（法矢）方程的Grobner基直 接进行判断,而不需要求解非线性代数方程组。若曲线曲面存在奇异点,进一步采用区间方法对奇异点进行隔离以确定曲线段或曲面片的正则性。该方法可以得到参数曲线曲面的所有实奇异点且达到任意精度。     

Arbitration without common modifiable variables

Summary The binary arbitration problem (or, the problem of mutual exclusion between two competitors) is the problem of preventing two competitors from simultaneously possessing the same token. A solution to this problem is presented together with a formal correctness proof. The solution is specific in that it combines the absence of common modifiable variables with the absence of auxiliary activities. Hence, its implementation does not require an arbiter on a lower level or a degree of concurrency of more than two. The solution is generalized for any arbitrary number of competitors by applying the binary solution in a binary arbitration tree.     

Online arbitration in the social network world; mobile justice on iPhones

Social networks are increasingly becoming important due to many aspects of everyday life supported and being facilitated through on-line activity. Billions of individuals are enjoying the use of social networks today and, therefore, they are becoming an important innovation in the modern world. However, due to disputes and concerns that are associated with such activities, the social networking world has yet to reach its full potential. When disputes occur in the on-line world, measures need be taken to settle those disputes in the same way that they were created. Through solving these disputes, the social networking world will be assisted in reaching full potential. One way of settling user disputes in the social networking world is the use of online arbitration. There are a number of advantages to using online arbitration as the parties involved will only communicate through the Internet and do not need to travel throughout the process. This helps in lowering the litigation costs to all parties involved. Considering the advantages online, arbitration has and the power that the social networking world bares, it is possible for users' disputes to be resolved and encourage communication between masses of users to build their confidence. With confidence that their disputes can be resolved easily, more users will be willing to publicise their profile for other users to view.     

A shuffle to achieve high efficiency through pre-computation and batch verification

Shuffle is an important anonymous routing protocol, in which a shuffling node (router) re-encrypts and reorders some encrypted messages. It is usually used to build anonymous communication networks. A new shuffle scheme is proposed in this paper. A shuffling node’s costly operations can be carried out offline in advance so that its online efficiency is very high. Moreover, any verifier can employ batch verification to efficiently verify validity of the shuffle. As in practical applications of shuffles like e-voting, there are many verifiers including some entities with weak computation capability, and offline pre-computation is a feasible solution for a shuffling node; our proposal is an effective efficiency optimisation mechanism. So our new shuffle design has an advantage in practical efficiency over the existing shuffle schemes. Moreover, its achievement of desired security properties is formally proved only on the base of the most basic computational assumption inevitable in any shuffle. Application of our new shuffle to e-voting is described in the end of this paper to show its importance and applicability in practice.     

Arbitration (or how to merge knowledge bases)

Knowledge-based systems must be able to “intelligently” manage a large amount of information coming from different sources and at different moments in time. Intelligent systems must be able to cope with a changing world by adopting a “principled” strategy. Many formalisms have been put forward in the artificial intelligence (AI) and database (DB) literature to address this problem. Among them, belief revision is one of the most successful frameworks to deal with dynamically changing worlds. Formal properties of belief revision have been investigated by Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson, who put forward a set of postulates stating the properties that a belief revision operator should satisfy. Among these properties, a basic assumption of revision is that the new piece of information is totally reliable and, therefore, must be in the revised knowledge base. Different principles must be applied when there are two different sources of information and each one has a different view of the situation-the two views contradicting each other. If we do not have any reason to consider any of the sources completely unreliable, the best we can do is to “merge” the two views in a new and consistent one, trying to preserve as much information as possible. We call this merging process arbitration. In this paper, we investigate the properties that any arbitration operator should satisfy. In the style of Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson we propose a set of postulates, analyze their properties, and propose actual operators for arbitration     

A buyer-seller watermarking protocol for digital secondary market

In the digital right management value chain, digital watermarking technology plays a very important role in digital product’s security, especially on its usage tracking and copyrights infringement authentication. However, watermark procedures can only effectively support copyright protection processes if they are applied as part of an appropriate watermark protocol. In this regard, a number of watermark protocols have been proposed in the literature and have been shown to facilitate the use of digital watermarking technology as copyright protection. One example of such protocols is the anonymous buyer-seller watermarking protocol. Although there are a number of protocols that have been proposed in the literature and provide suitable solutions, they are mainly designed as a watermarking protocol for the first-hand market and are unsuitable for second-hand transactions. As the complexity of online transaction increases, so does the size of the digital second-hand market. In this paper, we present a new buyer-seller watermark protocol that addresses the needs of customer’s rights problem in the digital secondary market. The proposed protocol consists of five sub-protocols that cover the registration process, watermarking process for the first, second and third-hand transactions as well as the identification & arbitration processes. This paper provides analysis that compares the proposed protocols with existing state-of-the-arts and shows that it has met not only all the buyer’s and seller’s requirements in the traditional sense but also accommodates the same requirements in the secondary market.     

Online knowledge sharing mechanisms: a systematic review of the state of the art literature and recommendations for future research

Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge, namely, information, skills, or expertise, is exchanged between people, friends, families, communities or organizations. Online knowledge sharing activities are flourishing with the advent of social media and digital life. However, despite of the importance of the online knowledge sharing methods and mechanisms, there is not any comprehensive and systematic study about studying and analyzing its important techniques. Therefore, the main aim of this paper, the comprehensive, detailed, and systematic study, and survey of the state-of-the-art knowledge sharing mechanisms in an online environments is provided. Also, this paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on the online knowledge sharing literatures up to end of 2015. We identified 348 papers, which are reduced to 251 primary studies through our paper selection process. Also, the broad overview of the literature provides insights into potential areas for further research. By providing state-of-the-art information, this survey will directly support academics and practicing professionals in their understanding of developments in online knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques.     

Step-out group signatures

Group signature schemes enable to create digital signatures such that the signers are hidden in a group of potential signers. However, in a case of need it is possible to reveal the actual signer either by a group administrator or collectively by the group members. We design a new kind of signatures that we call step-out group signature where the situation is reversed: any member of the group except the signer may prove that he or she was not the signer. This is a dual solution that is useful in certain scenarios: in many cases it is unnecessary to find the signer, it suffices to eliminate some potential signers (e.g. during prosecutions and court procedures). Our solution is more convenient for implementing personal data protection rules: since the signer is not revealed, there is no need to protect this information. On the other hand, the traditional scheme may lead to serious legal problems: if the legal case is to find out whether Bob has created group signature s, it might be illegal to reveal that Alice has created s.     

一种基于MB 树的网络共享数据查询和检验方法*

网络数据共享机制将数据置于远程网络服务商处并通过外部访问接口进行共享,用户无需保存数据副本,网络服务商负责数据的安全保障,因此无副本情况下数据用户对网络服务商处存储数据的查询和安全效验至关重要。分析目前对远程存储数据查询和检验常用的Merkle散列树方法,就其对大规模数据进行检验时存在验证过程冗余、验证辅助数据量大等不足,提出一种基于MB 树的网络共享数据查询和检验方法,帮助数据用户确认位于网络服务商处数据的正确性和完整性。利用MB 树非叶结点包含多出度、叶结点直接映射数据等特性对数据文件进行抽象组织,避免Merkle散列树的结点数和深度随数据文件块的增多而呈现线性增长的问题,同时缩短检验过程中的查询认证路径,减少检验所需的辅助认证信息,有效地控制了时间和空间消耗。通过实验分析可知,相较于常用的方法（如Merkle散列树）,处理大规模数据时MB 树更易于构建,也能够更加快速地查询和检验数据文件。     

On the stabilization of switched linear stochastic systems with unobservable switching laws

This paper is concerned with the stabilization problem of switched linear stochastic systems with unob- servable switching laws. In this paper the system switches among a finite family of linear stochastic systems. Since there are noise perturbations, the switching laws can not be identified in any finite time horizon. We prove that if each individual subsystem is controllable and the switching duration uniformly has a strict positive lower bound, then the system can be stabilized by using a controller that uses online state estimation.     

Predicting Continued Participation in Newsgroups

Turnover in online communities is very high, with most people who initially post a message to an online community never contributing again. In this paper, we test whether the responses that newcomers receive to their first posts influence the extent to which they continue to participate. The data come from initial posts made by 2,777 newcomers to six public newsgroups. We coded the content and valence of the initial post and its first response, if it received one, to see if these factors influenced newcomers' likelihood of posting again. Approximately 61% of newcomers received a reply to their initial post, and those who got a reply were 12% more likely to post to the community again; their probability of posting again increased from 44% to 56%. They were more likely to receive a response if they asked a question or wrote a longer post. Surprisingly, the quality of the response they received—its emotional tone and whether it answered a newcomer's question—did not influence the likelihood of the newcomer's posting again.