Super Peers Research Articles

Inspiring G(re)en Z: Unraveling (Para)social Bonds with Influencers and Perceptions of Their Environmental Content

ABSTRACT The affordances of digital platforms have blurred the boundaries between environmentalism, celebrity status, and science communication. As such, nowadays, many social media influencers – who have risen to fame due to successful self-branding – act as educators and role models for environmental matters. To illuminate the appeal of green influencers and the relationship they develop with their followers, we conducted in-depth interviews employing a novel digital go-along approach. Findings suggest that relationships with green influencers are fueled by the entanglement of relational and substantive environmental content. This mix underlies followers’ perceptions of sharing a reality and perceiving the influencer as a super peer. As for the characteristics of the follower-influencer bond, we show that followers appreciate the potential for reciprocity, while the relationship itself remains mainly asymmetric. We furthermore elucidate three key components that explain the unique appeal of influencers’ environmental communication: nuanced environmentalism, perceived reproducibility and trust in autodidactic expertise. KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Influencers’ ability to provide reproducible environmental recommendations make them valuable collaboration partners for pro-environmental organizations and political actors. Youth especially appreciate that influencers offer non-judgmental, nuanced pro-environmental advice, which informs other pro-environmental actors trying to reach young people. Ascribing credibility to influencers based on their autodidactic skills rather than due to their formal training puts young people at risk of misinformation, which should be accounted for in influencer support programs, media literacy trainings, and public awareness campaigns.

A BROADCAST RECEIVE MODEL FOR COMPUTATIONAL OFFLOADING IN MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING

Computational offloading is a vital part of mobile cloud computing which has attracted so much attention in recent times. It is a way of saving energy in mobile devices by sending an intensive task to a remote server for execution. However, in existing offloading systems, the opportunistic moments to offload a task are often short-lived. The social aware hybrid computational offloading framework involves outsourcing a task to any available surrogate either remote cloud, cloudlet or device to device, this comes with a drawback of super peer having to constantly supervise the network to discover peers. This takes a considerable amount of energy and time. This research aims to develop an improved model for peer discovery in computational offloading which relieves the use of the super peer and transfers the discovery process between network peers. We used a device profiler that serves as an information collector in peers on the network. We evaluated our model by developing an application for our client nodes in order to get information from our nodes. We evaluated our model by using ten peers with different processing power and RAM. On an average, discovery time for all peers in the existing model was 2040 milliseconds, while we have 1,213 milliseconds for our new model. Energy level for the existing model was 72.5% while we have 82.3% for our new model, evaluating our model with the existing one, it was discovered that we saved more energy and time.

A Secured Agent-based Model for a Peer-to-Peer System

In this paper, information exchange that is devoid of control in the peer-to-peer communication, exposes peer to malicious activities, insecure communication, loss of significant data or failure of the system. The complexity and perceived compromise in peers communicating at different levels necessitates modeling a secured agent-based model for a peer-to-peer system. This work was designed to accommodate peer registration phase that will allow peers on satisfying defined requirement , request for connection to the super peer, subsequently guaranteeing and promoting healthy system. The agent module in the network ascertains successfully connected peers on the network, certifying feedback agent goal and ready for peer communication. The result shows that peculiar security attacks from malicious and un-registered peers are systematically controlled in the peer-to-peer system. Key words : Peer-to-peer, Agent-based, Secured and Communication. DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/12-2-03 Publication date: May30 th 2021

‘He’s so bad but he does it so well’: interviews with One Direction fans about writing romantic and erotic fiction online

ABSTRACT This study focuses on interviews with fifteen writers of real person fiction – a type of fanfiction – about British boy band One Direction. Most interviewees began writing these romantic, often sexually explicit, stories between the ages of 12 and 16. Results indicate that many writers learned how to write about sex by reading other explicit One Direction real person fiction stories. This process functioned as a peer-led form of sex education for many writers, helping them to develop more detailed sexual scripts. Interviewees also emphasised the prevalence of ‘bad boy’ characters in their stories. Often, bad boys were sexually aggressive or emotionally manipulated the female protagonist. While writers knew these characters were ‘bad,’ many nonetheless found them appealing. A few interviewees reported seeking out bad boys in real life or tolerating a romantic partner’s bad behaviour because they had learned such behaviour was normal or desirable via their participation on Wattpad. The findings of this research suggest the need for updates to sexual super peer theory and sexual scripting theory in contemporary online contexts, as well as contribute to understanding of the impact of adolescents’ participation in online contexts involving sex.

Performance Improvement of P2P using Location Awareness and Interest Clustering

ABSTRACT Because Peer-to-Peer (P2P) has the characteristics of providing scalable network services, related applications of P2P are one of the hot topics of network services today. However, too many P2P applications may lead to inefficient use of network resources or extremely poor application execution performance. At the same time, it may also occupy a large amount of bandwidth, causing an increase in the load of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In order to avoid excessive network traffic burden, ISPs often use a flow control mechanism to prevent P2P from generating excessive traffic, which leads to the degradation of P2P software service quality. Since P4P (Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P) is one of the technologies used for P2P network optimization, it provides communication between ISPs and P2P service providers in a cooperative manner to reduce P2P traffic and ISP operating costs. Therefore, in order to reduce the operating costs of ISPs and the bandwidth required for P2P application services, a three-layer architecture combining location awareness with interest clustering and P4P framework is proposed in this study, which is called ICP4P (interest clusters based P4P ). Using the ICP4P proposed by this research will reduce Internet traffic and increase the robustness of the network. In addition, this study provides a candidate peer election mechanism to improve the service quality of P2P. When super peer fails, leaves or overloads, the backup super peer or cooperative peers will be enabled to maintain the stability of whole network.

Super peer selection strategy in peer‐to‐peer networks based on learning automata

SummaryA super peer is a peer that has the highest capacity in comparison with other peers in the network. It is trying to reduce the load of the rest of the peers and improve network performance. Selecting a super peer in a peer‐to‐peer–based network is a very crucial challenge. As the ability of peers are very different, by considering capacity of each peer and selecting a proper role, we can use network components much more efficiently. Because of the dynamicity of these networks, comparative methods of selecting super peers is of special importance. Comparative selection is continuously trying to select proper super peer. In recent studies, learning automata was introduced as a powerful learning model to solve this issue. In most of the studies, learning automata with an S model is employed. In this article, another selection method of learning automata with a P model environment is presented and its capability for super peer selection is shown. Moreover, simulation results show that removing some of the super peers would result in better performance in terms of inversion time in the high level of super‐peer capacity, required time for selecting proper super peer, and super peer tolerance.

A File Sharing System in Peer-to-Peer Network by a Nearness-Sensible Method

For a comprehensive peer-to-peer file sharing system dynamic file query is substantial where its performance can be enhanced by clustering of peer that can also considerably improve the efficiency. Depending upon physical nearness and peer interest peers are clustered in current work. File replication algorithm has been employed that creates replicas for the requested file to enhance the efficiency. Compared to unstructured P2P the efficiency is high for structured P2P which is difficult to analyse because of their rigid topology. We have developed nearness and interested cluster (NIC) super peer network to improve the efficiency of file location in current years for P2P system but few works rely on peer interest and physical nearness. Various methods have been used to improve intra-sub-cluster searching. Here the interest is categorised into sub-interest then they are linked according to common-interest. File searching delay is minimised where an overlay is built to link. Flower filter is employed to enhance the efficiency and reduce the overhead. On comparing nearness sensible I-clustered system with other system the efficiency has been traced. The effect of enhancing the efficiency using intra-sub-cluster searching is observed in experimental results.

Efficient Traffic Information Dissemination and Vehicle Navigation for Lower Travel Time in Urban Scenario Using Vehicular Networks

This article presents peer to peer systems for efficient traffic information dissemination and discovery as well as re-routing vehicles to lower travel time in urban environment. Both navigating the vehicles from the sparsest path and sending traffic packets from the paths with the highest density will turn a sparse path to one with congestion and, considering the limited capacity of the network, these packets will be dropped by the intermediate nodes. On the other hand, selecting multiple paths by means of peer to peer layer along with appropriately distributing the vehicles among the selected paths prevents vehicle congestion in various zones and appropriate distribution of the packets among zones with proper density instead of the highest one will stop their dropping by intermediate vehicles. All the same, establishing a peer to peer network on mobile nodes due to their high mobility will increase the overhead of creation and maintenance for the peer to peer network. Roadside unit (RSU) placement in appropriate locations as well as the creation of peer to peer networks on these nodes reduces peer to peer overheads; however, due to the considerable costs of RSU deployment and maintenance, creation of a peer to peer network on RSU would not be affordable. Therefore, this article tries to present a system that deploys a limited number of RSUs in the most appropriate places and uses them as super peer nodes, using vehicle nodes as peer to peer ones in other key intersections, not covered by the RSUs. Such a system reduces the high costs of RSUs’ deployment and maintenance; also lowering the high overhead of creation and maintenance of the peer to peer networks. Simulation results show the appropriate efficiency of the presented systems over the other related methods.

A file sharing system in peer-to-peer network by a nearness-sensible method

For a comprehensive peer-to-peer file sharing system dynamic file query is substantial where its performance can be enhanced by clustering of peer that can also considerably improve the efficiency. Depending upon physical nearness and peer interest peers are clustered in current work. File replication algorithm has been employed that creates replicas for the requested file to enhance the efficiency. Compared to unstructured P2P the efficiency is high for structured P2P which is difficult to analyse because of their rigid topology. We have developed nearness and interested cluster (NIC) super peer network to improve the efficiency of file location in current years for P2P system but few works rely on peer interest and physical nearness. Various methods have been used to improve intra-sub-cluster searching. Here the interest is categorised into sub-interest then they are linked according to common-interest. File searching delay is minimised where an overlay is built to link. Flower filter is employed to enhance the efficiency and reduce the overhead. On comparing nearness sensible I-clustered system with other system the efficiency has been traced. The effect of enhancing the efficiency using intra-sub-cluster searching is observed in experimental results.

Secure and Efficient Privacy-Preserving Ciphertext Retrieval in Connected Vehicular Cloud Computing

As vehicular equipment is becoming more and more intelligent, the vehicular information service, as the main means of capturing information, has been far from able to meet the needs of occupants [1, 2]. Cloud computing, with its powerful computing and storage capabilities, convenient network access, energy saving and excellent scalability, reliability, availability, and other advantages, can be an effective solution to the limitations of existing automotive information services. Connected vehicular cloud computing, which combines cloud computing and VANETs, has the characteristics of both a cloud platform and a mobile ad hoc network, including autonomy and no fixed structure, good scalability, and so on. However, during the information retrieval, high-density node distribution and high-speed mobile nodes may directly affect the information transmission capacity of a VANET by information tampering, transmission delay, and other issues. In this article, we propose a ciphertext-based search system that exploits RSUs as super peers for connected vehicular cloud computing. The proposed system supports ciphertext retrieval for related documents. In the proposed system, all the computations and retrieval operations are handled by super stationary peers, while documents are stored in the cloud to achieve high efficiency and security of the index structure. We can also reduce the impact of vehicle dynamics on the information retrieval process in this way. In our system, the indexing efficiency is also improved by utilizing a hybrid indexing structure in which binary trees are nested in a B+ tree. Through security analysis and performance evaluation, we demonstrate that our proposal can achieve acceptable security and efficiency.

SpeedTrust: a super peer-guaranteed trust model in hybrid P2P networks

To curb malicious behavior, researchers have proposed a lot of trust models for P2P networks, most of which, however, suffer from the problems of high complexity, bad scalability and huge overhead due to the iterative trust calculations and the global search for feedbacks. In this paper, we propose a super peer-guaranteed trust model, speedTrust, for hybrid P2P networks. Considering the fact that the quality of services and feedbacks is the most important factor directly impacting on a trust model’s availability, we establish a feedback guarantee relationship between the service requester and its super peer, as well as a service guarantee relationship between the service provider and its super peer before a transaction begins. Moreover, a peer’s reputations are calculated using its pledged reputations for its involved transactions without any iterative operations. These features largely reduce the trust model’s complexity while discouraging peers from behaving maliciously for fear of being punished. The simulation results show that the speedTrust model is effective and efficient in terms of the successful transaction rate, the ability in curbing malicious behavior and the complexity.

SureTrust: a super peer-aware trust model for 2-level P2P networks

With the growth of P2P applications, more and more trust models have been proposed for curbing malicious behavior, most of which are suitable for pure P2P networks, including the structured P2P networks and the unstructured P2P networks. This paper presents a super peer-aware trust model, sureTrust, for 2-level P2P networks. The super peer of a subnet is responsible for calculating the peers’ trust in its subnet, and the super peer’s trust is correlated with the trust of the peers in its subnet. To discourage peers from behaving maliciously, we allow a peer to establish transactions only with the peers whose trust is similar to that of the peer. Also, a super peer could separate the connections of a peer in its subnet to the outside subnets as the punishment on the peer’s behavior. The simulation results show that the sureTrust model could improve normal peers’ successful download rate and resist different types of attacks.

DGTM: a dynamic grouping based trust model for mobile peer-to-peer networks

The special characteristics of the mobile environment, such as limited bandwidth, dynamic topology, heterogeneity of peers, and limited power, pose additional challenges on mobile peer-to-peer (MP2P) networks. Trust management becomes an essential component of MP2P networks to promote peer transactions. However, in an MP2P network, peers frequently join and leave the network, which dynamically changes the network topology. Thus, it is difficult to establish long-term and effective trust relationships among peers. In this paper, we propose a dynamic grouping based trust model (DGTM) to classify peers. A group is formed according to the peers’ interests. Within a group, mobile peers share resources and tend to keep stable trust relationships. We propose three peer roles (super peers, relay peers, and ordinary peers) and two novel trust metrics (intragroup trust and intergroup trust). The two metrics are used to accurately measure the trust between two peers from the same group or from different groups. Simulations illustrate that our proposed DGTM always achieves the highest successful transaction rate and the best communication overhead under different circumstances.

A Delay Aware Super-Peer Selection Algorithm for Gradient Topology Utilizing Learning Automata

Peer-to-peer network is organized on top of another network as an overlay network. Super peer network is one of the peer-to-peer networks. A super peer, in a super peer based network, is a peer that has more responsibility than other peers have and is responsible for some of the tasks of network management. Since different peers vary in terms of capabilities, selecting a super peer is a challenge in super peer based networks. Gradient topology is of the networks based on super peers. Existing adaptive algorithms, which have been proposed to select super peer in gradient topology, are not aware of delays among the peers. In this paper, the proposed algorithm being aware of the delay among super peers, using learning automata, which is a reinforcement model of learning, selects the new super peers in an adaptive manner. According to the simulation results, the proposed algorithm with respect to the average end-to-end delay in community of super peers, and error in the super peer selection, has better performance than existing algorithms.

An efficient causal group communication protocol for P2P hierarchical overlay networks

Peer-to-peer applications such as multiplayer online games are characterized by considering group communication among geographically distributed peers. In such environments, causal ordering is an essential property for consistent exchange of information among peers. Although several works are oriented to ensure message causal order, most of them are not suitable for hierarchical overlay networks. In this paper, we propose an efficient causal protocol oriented to be used in a hierarchical overlay network. In our protocol the overhead timestamp per message is based on the number of messages with immediate dependency relation. By using the information about network architecture and representing message dependencies on a bit level, proposed protocol ensures causal message ordering without enforcing super peers order to all of the peers in a group. The protocol has been simulated and the results show that it presents lower overhead than currently existing causal protocols.

Media as a "Super Peer": How Adolescents Interpret Media Messages Predicts Their Perception of Alcohol and Tobacco Use Norms.

Adolescents' media environment offers information about who uses substances and what happens as a result-how youth interpret these messages likely determines their impact on normative beliefs about alcohol and tobacco use. The Message Interpretation Processing (MIP) theory predicts that substance use norms are influenced by cognitions associated with the interpretation of media messages. This cross-sectional study examined whether high school adolescents' (n = 817, 48 % female, 64 % white) media-related cognitions (i.e., similarity, realism, desirability, identification) were related to their perceptions of substance use norms. Results revealed that adolescents' media-related cognitions explained a significant amount of variance in perceived social approval for and estimated prevalence of peer alcohol and tobacco use, above and beyond previous use and demographic covariates. Compared to prevalence norms, social approval norms were more closely related to adolescents' media-related cognitions. Results suggest that critical thinking about media messages can inhibit normative perceptions that are likely to increase adolescents' interest in alcohol and tobacco use.

An Efficient Causal Group Communication Protocol for Free Scale Peer-to-Peer Networks

In peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay networks, a group of n (≥2) peer processes have to cooperate with each other. Each peer sends messages to every peer and receives messages from every peer in a group. In group communications, each message sent by a peer is required to be causally delivered to every peer. Most of the protocols designed to ensure causal message order are designed for networks with a plain architecture. These protocols can be adapted to use in free scale and hierarchical topologies; however, the amount of control information is O(n), where n is the number of peers in the system. Some protocols are designed for a free scale or hierarchical networks, but in general they force the whole system to accomplish the same order viewed by a super peer. In this paper, we present a protocol that is specifically designed to work with a free scale peer-to-peer network. By using the information about the network’s architecture and by representing message dependencies on a bit level, the proposed protocol ensures causal message ordering without enforcing super peers order. The designed protocol is simulated and compared with the Immediate Dependency Relation and the Dependency Sequences protocols to show its lower overhead.

Decentralized Online Social Network Using Peer-to-Peer Technology

This paper presents a social network with a peer-to-peer architecture that facilitates social computing services in distributed environments. This social network aims to provide users the capability of managing the dissemination of user data, searching user data on the data silos of the network, and consolidating user data from various social networks. The social network employs a super peer peer-to-peer architecture that contains peers and super peers. Users use peers to participate the network and services. Peers with sufficient storage, bandwidth and processing power become super peers that support peers for complex operations such as user authentication or group communication. We have extended the Gnutella protocol to provide the authentication and posting services on the social network. The design of these services copes with the distributed setting of the social network. The evaluation of the prototyping social network has performed on a number of laboratory workstations to investigate its scalability, reliability and performance.

“Let's Get This Party Started!”: An Analysis of Health Risk Behavior on MTV Reality Television Shows

Past research has examined portrayals of risk behavior in various media, including television, advertising, and film. To address an underexplored area, this study analyzed drinking, smoking, and sexual activities in MTV reality programming popular among adolescent viewers from 2004 to 2011. Cast members’ demographic attributes were also examined in relation to their risk behaviors. Results demonstrated that drinking and casual sexual behaviors were pervasive among cast members. Smoking and more intense sexual behaviors were also present, but to a smaller degree. Men and young adult cast members were more likely to engage in risk behaviors than women and teenage cast members. Also, ethnic/racial minority characters were shown drinking more often than were White cast members. Interpretations of these findings are discussed based in social cognitive theory and the concept of super peers. Implications for future research are provided.

A Scalability and Reliability Super Peer Construction Method in Unstructured Distributed System

It is a large challenge to enhance Super Peer (SP) capability in the unstructured distributed system. The current study of this issue is still focused on how to choose a single peer as a SP based on some standards. Though the selected peer has the certain ability of tolerating the higher load, it is short of Scalability and reliability when the load increases dramatically. In order to improve the SP in these two areas, a new method, which uses Virtual Super Peer (VSP), is proposed. Based on the load in a cluster, one or several peers are selected as a SP. During running the system, the number of peers is dynamically adjusted as the load change. The experimental results demonstrate the method is effective in enhancing SP’s scalable and reliable performance.