【Abstract】Despite its checkered reputation, cryptocurrency is being considered by a handful of academics as a means to funnel funds into translational research. Is the trend likely to spread? Laura DeFrancesco and Ariel Klevecz investigate.
【Abstract】Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the debate about the value of blockchain for supply chain management by assessing empirical evidence on the relationship between blockchain and supply chain performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a structured review of the academic literature to identify and assess papers providing empirical insight on operational blockchain applications. The authors complement the findings from this review with primary empirical data from 11 interviews with blockchain providers, users and experts involved in four recent projects. Findings The paper presents an integrated research framework that illustrates the impact of blockchain on supply chain performance. The findings highlight that blockchain can affect supply chain performance directly - via one of its core technological features - and indirectly via the broader business project through which blockchain technology is implemented. Practical implications Insights from this paper should provide managers with a more nuanced understanding of how blockchain technology can be leveraged to address important supply chain management challenges. Originality/value Prior research addressing the relationship between blockchain and supply chain performance mostly discusses potential performance effects of blockchain, presents individual blockchain applications and/or provides little explanation for how the core technological features of blockchain affect supply chain performance. This paper systematically assesses the ways in which blockchain can affect supply chain performance. In doing so, it goes beyond the initial hype around blockchain technology while countering some of the more recent critiques.
【Abstract】The innovation provided by network virtualization in 5G, together with standardization and openness boosted by the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance, has paved the way to a collaborative future in cellular systems, driven by flexible network sharing. Such advents are expected to attract new players like content providers and verticals, increasing competitiveness in the telecom market. However, scalability and trust issues are expected to arise, given the criticality of ownership traceability and resource exchanging in a sharing ecosystem. To address that, we propose integrating blockchain technology for enabling mobile operators and other players to exchange radio access network (RAN) resources (e.g., infrastructure) in the form of virtual network functions autonomously and dynamically. Blockchain will provide automation, robustness, trustworthiness, and reliability to mobile networks, thus bringing confidence to open RAN environments. In particular, we define a novel O-RAN-based blockchain-enabled architecture that allows automating RAN sharing procedures through either auction or marketplace-based mechanisms. The potential advantages of the proposed solution are demonstrated through simulation results. The used simulation platform is openly released.
【Abstract】Immutability, decentralization, and linear promoted scalability make the sharded blockchain a promising solution, which can effectively address the trust issue in the large-scale Internet of Things (IoT). However, currently, the throughput of sharded blockchains is still limited when it comes to high proportion of cross-shard transactions (CSTs). On the other hand, the assemblage characteristic of the collaborative computing in IoT has not been received attention. Therefore, in this article, we present a clustering-based sharded blockchain strategy for collaborative computing in the IoT, where the sharding of the blockchain system is implemented in two steps: K-means-clustering-based user grouping and the assignment of consensus nodes. In this framework, how to reasonably group the IoT users while simultaneously guaranteeing the system performance is the key point. Specifically, we describe the data transactions among IoT devices by data transaction flow graph (DTFG) based on a dynamic stochastic block model. Then, formed as a Markov decision process (MDP), the optimization of the cluster number (shard number) and the adjustment of consensus parameters are jointly trained by deep reinforcement learning (DRL). Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves the scalability of the sharded blockchain in the IoT application.
【Keywords】Collaborative computing; deep reinforcement learning (DRL); dynamic graph analysis; Internet of Things (IoT); K-means clustering; sharded blockchain
【Abstract】Smart vehicles-enabled intelligent transportation system (ITS) supports a wide range of applications, such as, but not limited to, traffic planning and management, collision avoidance alert system, automated road speed enforcement, electronic toll collection, and real-time parking management, to name a few. However, it suffers from various types of security and privacy issues due to insecure communication among the entities over public channels. Therefore, an efficient and lightweight security mechanism is essential to protect the data that is both at rest as well as in transit. To this direction, we propose a public blockchain-envisioned secure communication framework for ITS (PBSCF-ITS). The proposed PBSCF-ITS guarantees access control and key management among the vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to roadside unit, and roadside unit to cloud server. We analyze the security of PBSCF-ITS to prove its resilience against various types of possible attacks. Furthermore, the performance of PBSCF-ITS with other related competing schemes has been compared. The obtained results illustrate that PBSCF-ITS outperforms the existing ones. Additionally, the pragmatic study of PBSCF-ITS is conducted to check its influence on various network-related performance parameters, like the number of mined blocks and transactions per block.
【Abstract】With the digital transformation of the shipping industry, the business potential of shipping companies is gradually expanding. In recent years, shipping companies have begun operating freight forwarding businesses powered by the advantages of cost and network. As a result, their business expansion and gradually occupying the market share of agency services. At the same time, the development requirements of digitization are further highlighted, while the problems of opaque information and inaccurate data in the operation of the shipping logistics service supply chain have become more prominent. Thus, the shipping industry has begun to apply Blockchain Technology (BCT) to the shipping logistics. However, the promotion of BCT, an emerging technology in the shipping logistics service market, is not systematic. The members of the supply chain do not have a deep understanding of it, which have led to changes in market demand. We take the shipping logistics service supply chain composed of shipping companies and freight forwarders as the research object in order to investigate the vertical competition between shipping companies and freight forwarders as well as the impact of BCT application on market structure changes. From the perspectives of freight rate competition and the promotion of BCT, the Stackelberg game theory is applied to create a mathematical model that can be used to discuss the evolution of the shipping logistics service market. The results indicate that, the impact of freight rate competition on market evolution is reduced after the application of BCT. Shipping companies should actively promote BCT to reduce the impact of freight competition on the market. Furthermore, freight forwarders can actively participate in the initial stage of application to increase market demand, and the cost of promoting BCT should be reduced in the later stage.
【Abstract】Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are set to be the next global revolution in transportation. One of the major challenges in a CAV environment is handling the positional-forgery of Basic Safety Messages while calculating critical traffic gaps at a Stop Sign Gap Assist controlled intersection. Traditionally, positional-forgery has been handled by isolated instances of physical layer detection and correction mechanisms, which proved unreliable during the multi-hop and majority malicious vehicle scenarios. In this work, we propose a novel framework called Positional-forgEry Resistant traFfic gap Estimation for Connected inTersection management (PERFECT) that performs optimal traffic gap estimation even during multi-hop scenarios and majority malicious positional-forgery attacks. The framework reduces traffic gap estimation error during majority malicious scenarios by over 60%, keeps the average error within 8.17%-10.62% and minimizes the maximum error across a range of malicious situations.
【Abstract】Crowdsourcing is a potential computing paradigm that exploits collective human intelligence to solve complex tasks, but it suffers from various safety and security problems. Blockchain has emerged as a promising technology to address most of the security issues, however, it is challenging to find an appropriate and trusted blockchain-based consensus protocol for crowdsourcing services. This work proposes a novel Trust-based Blockchain Crowdsourcing consensus protocol that selects a leader and validators based on various trust factors. The proposed protocol addresses a major issue of ensuring correctness associated with the safety and security-critical systems which has a vital importance because failure of such systems may lead to adverse consequences. Mainly it is focused on persistence and liveness properties preventing invalid block insertion and consensus delay attacks. Model checking technique is utilized because of its effectiveness and automatic nature to perform formal verification. The proposed protocol is specified using Communicating Sequential Programs, and the persistence and liveness properties are specified through Linear Temporal Logic. The model verification is performed by giving the formal model and the properties as input to the Process Analysis Toolkit which checks for the satisfaction or violation of the properties.
【Abstract】This paper explores the double-edged sword effect of investor attention on market liquidity. Based on the analysis on 597 cryptocurrencies from 2014 to 2020, our findings show that static investor attention improves cryptocurrency market liquidity over the next three months by attracting more investors into the market and stimulating buy and sell transactions. By contrast, abnormal attention persistently and negatively affects the liquidity and leads to excessive net buying pressure in the market and a crowded buyers' market, resulting in a sharp deterioration of liquidity. Moreover, these effects intensify during low global economic policy uncertainty periods and for cryptocurrencies with small market capitalization and low idiosyncratic volatility. Overall, our results have important implications for investors, portfolio managers, and policymakers.
【Abstract】In recent years, many papers have been published on the topics of the blockchain (BC) and blockchain technology (BCT). Some papers put BCT in the context of land registries (LRs), land cadastres (LCs), land registration, land administration (LA) and land management (LM) and its implementation benefits. Some eight years later, from its beginnings in 2014, the question of the future of the proposed concept and whether it has one, has been raised. The Scopus database was analysed using bibliometric analysis methodology and Rstudio software with the Bibliometrix R-package and the Shiny package environment. Based on this research, significant interest and growth in the topic was found in both technical and land-governance directions. Different approaches to the topic have been established in the global north and global south. From today's perspective, the future of BCT in both worlds is guaranteed.
【Abstract】Following the widespread application of blockchain, a variety of consensus protocols have been proposed recently for different scenarios. Proof of Authority (PoA) is a newly proposed Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol for permissioned blockchains. It relies on a set of trusted nodes to generate blocks and adopts the longest-chain rule to reach consensus. However, the protocol suffers from performance and security issues due to its simple design. This paper proposes CoPoA, a novel proof-of-authority protocol that aims to improve performance and security. In terms of performance, we allow all authority nodes to generate blocks concurrently and process all types of blocks to improve throughput and feedback their blockchain information to the rest of the nodes on time to provide fast confirmation. In terms of security, we select the leader by a random number and set a tight confirmation boundary to protect the protocol from attack. We make a theoretical analysis to prove the safety and liveness properties of the protocol and demonstrate its performance through a prototype implementation and multiple tests. In our experiments, when the number of authority nodes is 9, CoPoA achieves 2x throughput improvement and 5x latency reduction compared to the original PoA protocol.
【Abstract】This paper focuses on the improvement of traditional email system architecture with the help of blockchain technology in the existing network environment. The improved system architecture can better improve the security and stability of the system. The email content is extracted and stored in the blockchain network to achieve regulatory traceability between the email service provider and the higherlevel organization. In turn, A Blockchain-based Upgraded Email System(BUES) is proposed. The defects of the existing traditional email system are addressed. Firstly, the threat model of the traditional email system is analyzed, and solutions are proposed for various threats. Then a system architecture consisting of the blockchain network, email servers, and users are constructed. The implementation of BUES is carried out, and the related experimental process and algorithm steps are given. After the experimental analysis, it is shown that BUES can ensure the security, reliability, efficiency, and traceability of email transmission.
【Abstract】In the real-world scenario, the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain federated networks implicate smart devices for gathering the data and then directing the data to the destined nodes through gateway devices. A gateway usually supports a number of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) irrespective of their underlying communication technologies. Furthermore, a gateway usually supports a number of WSNs with blockchain master nodes, which employ diverse communication technologies. As a result, gateways are meant to play a versatile role without worrying about the underlying architecture, hardware, and software details of the connecting nodes in blockchain federated networks. This paper proposes a two-phased methodology for blockchain and IoT federated networks where efficient link selection based on a multi-criteria-based approach is performed. The dynamic gateway scheduling strategy is capable enough to support blockchain-based transactions as well as communication in IoT devices. Furthermore, the proposed methodology enhances data transfer fairness for each gateway, resulting in efficient data transmission. Machine learning (ML) methods are also devised to analyze the status of the communication channels before employing the link selection mechanism. Then the selection of links is performed based on multi-criteria statistical techniques. Finally, the scheduling is performed for selecting the appropriate gateway for channelizing the blockchain data speedily. The selection of links is made based on the dynamic status of the links. The usage of time series ML methods such as LSTM is made to predict the upcoming traffic on the links. Multiple criteria-based statistical approaches are utilized for the selection of the link optimally. Finally, the scheduling is performed to fulfil the criteria of 6G networks, where network users are rewarded with seamless connectivity and uninterrupted services. The efficacy of the proposed two-phased mechanism is demonstrated through simulation results. The results are demonstrated with respect to the total data conveyed, packet delivery ratio (PDR), energy consumed by the links, and throughput of the network. The PDR obtained by the proposed work for the high volume of data is 93% and for the low volume of data is 97%. The packet delay is reduced by 21% for low volume data and 19% for high volume data by the proposed methods. The data transmission is also optimized remarkably by the proposed method. The proposed fairness-driven mechanism (FDM) is compared with the state-of-the-art methods to prove the viability and robustness of the two-phased proposed mechanism of link selection for data transmission over blockchain and IoT federated networks.
【Abstract】Traditional video conference systems depend largely on computational complexity to ensure system security, but with the development of high-performance computers, the existing encryption system will be seriously threatened. To solve this problem, a hybrid encryption scheme for quantum secure video conferencing combined with blockchain is proposed in this study. In the system solution architecture, first, the quantum key distribution network is embedded in the classic network; then, the "classical + quantum" hybrid encryption scheme is designed according to the secret level required for the video conference content. Besides, the real-time monitoring module of the quantum key distribution network is designed to ensure that users can check the running state of the network at any time. Meeting minutes can be shared by combining with blockchain. In order to quickly query meeting minutes, a cache-efficient query method based on B+ tree is proposed. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional video conference system, the quantum secure video conference system sufficiently integrates the technical advantages of the quantum key distribution to resist the security threats such as channel eavesdropping and high-performance computational attacks while ensuring the stable operation of the classic system, thus providing a video conference system with a higher security level. Meanwhile, the query time cost of blockchain with different lengths is tested, and the query efficiency of the proposed method is 3.15-times higher than the original query efficiency of blockchain.
【Abstract】Detecting malicious activity in advance has become increasingly important for public safety, economic stability, and national security. However, the disparity in living standards incites the minds of certain undesirable members of society to commit crimes, which may disrupt society's stability and mental calm. Breakthroughs in deep learning (DL) make it feasible to address such challenges and construct a complete intelligent framework that automatically detects such malicious behaviors. Motivated by this, we propose a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based Xception model, i.e., BlockCrime, to detect crimes and improve public safety. Furthermore, we integrate blockchain technology to securely store the detected crime scene locations and alert the nearest law enforcement authorities. Due to the scarcity of the dataset, transfer learning has been preferred, in which a CNN-based Xception model is used. The redesigned Xception architecture is evaluated against various assessment measures, including accuracy, F1 score, precision, and recall, where it outperforms existing CNN architectures in terms of train accuracy, i.e., 96.57%.
【Abstract】In the standard Electronic Health Record (EHR) management system, the medical service center supervises and dispenses the corresponding health records that are found to be a laborious process for sharing on several medical platforms. In recent years, blockchain technology has started gaining as one of the most favored possibilities based on dissimilar platforms to share EHRs. However, with the increased nature and size of the EHR storing data also involves a tedious process. The computation and communication cost are the challenges involved in accessing medical image information is not analyzed. The falsification rate for HER was not focused. To sort out this issue, the cloud computing (CC) environment is contemplated as an encouraging solution. Woefully, the EHR with CC environment is found to be susceptible to several attacks due to the sending of sensitive medical image data over a public channel. A secured method with Blind Digital Certificate and Lamport Merkle (BBDC-LM) Cloud-assisted Medical Image Sharing using Blockchain is proposed in our work. In the proposed BBDC-LM method, blockchain performs the task of access control and therefore ensuring security and minimum falsification of the entire process. Blind Digital Certificate is used for generating keys to contribute communication and computational cost. On the other hand, the cloud server stores and manages the patient's five different classes of images (i.e., MRI, CT, X-ray, Annotated, and Ultrasound) to provide computationally efficient storage. The empirical results show that our proposed BBDC-LM method provides an efficient solution for reliable medical image data sharing between patients and medical analyzers in a secured manner. Lamport Merkle functions where the leaves from the authentication among patient and medical analyzer are performed by cloud server. The system evaluation and security analysis also demonstrate the performance improvements in minimum communication and computation cost with a minimum false positive rate compared to the existing medical image sharing methods.
【Abstract】This study signifies the need for a smart integrated decentralized solar energy system in Pakistan. Since the outlook of energy is highly dominated by its power sector, policy measures must be adopted to ensure its penetration in the system of any country. After the industrial, the housing sector is the major energy-consuming sector. The goal of this study is to assess energy generation through a smart integrated decentralized solar energy system in the power hub of a commercial area in Taxila, Pakistan. Model development involves a hypothetical model built on LabVIEW which allows the user interface a way to intermingle with the source code. It permits the user to the transformation of the values sent to the source code and sees the information that the source code calculates. The proposed system is a collaborative sharing integrated decentralized solar system that credits sunlight-based energy framework proprietors for the power they add to different buildings due to the collaborative sharing mechanism at Rs.10 per kWh. This low-cost electricity is available at your doorstep that you can share according to the collaborative sharing basis that will not range any certain variable. Results from the literature describe that 30% of the cost associated with the commercial price of electricity amounts to distribution cost. This system of the utilization of energy would be applied at a local level to achieve the maximum power generation from solar panels through blockchain use of solar systems, especially in regions that have no entrance to traditional power with little odds of getting associated in the next 5-10 years.
【Abstract】Purpose This paper aims to find the impact of blockchain supply chain on supply chain performance with a mediating role of supplier trust, traceability and transparency. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected using the purposive sampling technique on a five-point Likert scale from 150 respondents. For data analysis, IBM SPSS and Smart PLS 3.3.7 were used to test the hypotheses by evaluating the structural equation modeling. Findings The blockchain supply chain found a significant effect on supply chain performance. Moreover, there is a substantial effect of the blockchain supply chain on supply chain performance via mediators, including supplier trust, supply chain traceability and supply chain transparency. Further, the mediation type of all mediators was full mediation in the relationships between blockchain supply chain and supply chain performance. Research limitations/implications The research findings are helpful for industrialists, supply chain practitioners and policymakers. The practitioners can adopt blockchain technology to enhance inter-organizational collaboration, develop trust, data visibility and traceability, and critical decisions, ultimately bringing sustainable growth for the firm. Originality/value The outcomes of this research enrich the literature and share the impact of one of the most trending technologies in the supply chain perspective. Future research can empirically test the relationship between blockchain and supply chain sustainability.
【Abstract】Internet of Vehicles (IoV) systems are vulnerable to a wide range of attacks because of the lack of security measures. IoV systems can be infiltrated by malicious and unauthorized nodes, which can cause the authenticity, accessibility, and privacy of shared information resources to be compromised. Indeed, the use of an access control system can help; as a result, it is unable to respond to such attacks on time. This paper introduces an artificial intelligence-enabled access control mechanism (AI-ACM) with vehicle nodes and roadside units (RSUs) to overcome these issues. Here, use vehicle nodes as lightweight nodes, while RSUs act as comprehensive and edge nodes to provide access control service. A generative adversarial network (GAN) is used in place of risk prediction (RP) due to the lack of training sets, resulting in a sequence generation rather than an accurate risk prediction. Afterward, the blockchain-based Internet of Vehicles (BIoV) approach is summarized for the security mechanisms of vehicles that are discussed from the aspects of access control and authentication to sustain the distributed processing architecture and solve security issues. The simulation results show that AI-ACM is more accurate than the previous GANs at predicting the future. In addition, the RP model's access control accuracy can be improved as a result of this technique.
【Abstract】Blockchain technology is widely used in various fields according to its programmable advantages. Such technology has several typical characteristics, such as openness, automation, independence, security, sharing, and modularity. The logistics system is greatly beneficial from such characteristics. Therefore, blockchain technology can provide core technical support for the construction of logistics supply chain system. In this paper, we focus on the current demands of "blockchain + logistics" business system and reduce half risks in the supply chain through decentralization and detrusting of blockchain technology. Finally, experimental results show that it has a certain practical significance for the adjustment of the strategic layout and sound development of supply chain logistics.
【Abstract】In today's rapid development of higher education, the reform of higher applied undergraduate institutions and higher education has become an effective way to improve the quality of higher education personnel training and improved the quality of teaching. With the continuous expansion of the scale of university laboratories, the number of managers is also increasing, but the management of laboratories is still in the exploratory stage. The current laboratory information management system of Internet of Things has high degree of data heterogeneity, poor data interoperability, and difficult guarantee of data privacy, all of which lead to the difficulty in mining the data value of Internet of Things. The decentralized and zero-trust architecture of blockchain subverted the traditional centralized system architecture and has been applied in many aspects. Blockchain technology was a good addition to IOT to improve the privacy security, versatility, and reliability of the network. This thesis developed an IOT information management system for smart labs based on blockchain technology and the Internet of Things. The data processing efficiency, accuracy, and system throughput are compared with the original IOT laboratory information management system. The results showed that compared with the current laboratory IOT information management system, this system had higher speed, higher efficiency, and better performance in processing the information and data.
【Abstract】The volatility of crypto currencies hinders their ability to be media of exchange or stores of value, leading to the implementation of exchange-rate pegs in an attempt to stabilize these currencies. This strategy has been used by crypto currencies such as US Dollar Tether, Steem Backed Dollar and TrueUSD; and was previously adopted in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. However, an exchange-rate peg is vulnerable to speculative attacks if it is not 100% backed by reserves, as discussed in Obstfeld (1996). Using insights from the bank-run literature, Routledge and Zetlin-Jones (2018) build on Green and Lin (2003) and propose a model of speculative attacks. They show that adjustments to the exchange rate can prevent speculative attacks in equilibrium. They also show how to implement such contracts using blockchain technology. In this discussion paper, I provide a cautionary tale. I show also in a version of Green and Lin (2003) that the information content in the blockchain prevents agents from attaining all the gains from risk sharing-highlighting the downsides of too much public information. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
【Abstract】Nowadays, improving a crop yield (C-Y) is an emerging and essential task to reduce food scarcity. Factors impacting C-Y improvement include rising population, water shortage, fertilizer use, climate change and unprecedented insect attacks. To resolve these issues, a smart agriculture technique is proposed in this work. Internet of Things (IoT) sensor devices are used to collect data from farms, following which the fuzzy association rule-based classification technique classifies the data into two, valuable and nonvaluable. An improved artificial neural network (IANN) algorithm is applied to identify and analyze the factors involved in monitoring C-Y's. Thereafter, all valuable data pertaining to the type of seed, fertilizer and crop cost is stored in blocks to secure data and communication between members of the farming community. Finally, an edge computing device is used to store the blocks and transfer information. The valuable data collected is classified using the fuzzy association rule and analyzed using the IANN technique, both of which facilitate a comparison with the historical data so as to enable better decision making in terms of seed and fertilizer selection. Similarly, crop price is predicted through a comparison of present and historical yields. To overcome breaches in security, a blockchain technique is employed in this work to secure communication between farmers, investors and merchants. The investor dispatches instructions on the selection of the seed and fertilizer, as well as the crop cost, through the blockchain to the farmer and the merchant. Such secure communication bypasses third-party involvement and inconsistencies in the data. When compared to the traditional method, the proposed technique offers better accuracy and profits, right from seed selection to trading. The proposed IANN technique produced a higher yield than the traditional method with a profit of 51%, 35% and 20% for rice, bananas and flowers, respectively. Similarly, the IANN technique provides 99.15% prediction accuracy in terms of a profit analysis. The blockchain and edge computing-based transactions improve security and reduce transactional latency. The proposed system ensures sustainability and traceability in agriculture.
【Keywords】Crop yield prediction; random forest; artificial neural network; agriculture yield; cloud storage; internet of things; blockchain; fuzzy and association rules
