Technological innovation and consequential decentralisation are driving forces in the ongoing evolution and increasing openness of digital infrastructures and services. One of the most discussed and allegedly disruptive innovations is the distributed database technology referred to as blockchain. Although it is still in its technological infancy, experimental adoption and customization seem to be in full progress in various potential fields of application ranging from decentralized grids for computation and storage to global financial services. However, the technology and its path of development still entail a lot of common unknowns for practitioners and researchers alike. Especially regarding the question how the technology could amend or be incorporated into the existing landscape of digital services, processes and infrastructures. Hence, in this article we develop an ontology that (1) clearly delineates common terminology, core concepts and components, their relationships as well as innovative features of blockchain technology. It further (2) connects these insights with implications for relevant types of digital market models. Our framework is of high theoretical and practical value as it provides researchers and practitioners a common basis for communication and means for guided analysis of blockchain applicability.
Abstract In recent years, there have been efforts to deploy blockchain in a broad range of applications and in different domains, such as the critical infrastructure sectors. Generally, blockchain can be leveraged to establish a fair and transparent data sharing environment, where unauthorized modification to the data can be audited and traced. There are, however, known limitations of blockchain-based solutions, such as a significantly weakened networking control capability due to the distributed nature of such solutions. In addition, decisions recorded on a blockchain cannot be changed and there is the risk of majority attack (also known as 51% attack). Seeking to mitigate these limitations, in this paper we propose a controllable blockchain data management (CBDM) model that can be deployed in a cloud environment. We then evaluate its security and performance, in order to demonstrate utility.
Tsung-Ting Kuo, Hugo Zavaleta Rojas, L. Ohno-Machado
Objectives To introduce healthcare or biomedical blockchain applications and their underlying blockchain platforms, compare popular blockchain platforms using a systematic review method, and provide a reference for selection of a suitable blockchain platform given requirements and technical features that are common in healthcare and biomedical research applications. Target audience Healthcare or clinical informatics researchers and software engineers who would like to learn about the important technical features of different blockchain platforms to design and implement blockchain‐based health informatics applications. Scope Covered topics include (1) a brief introduction to healthcare or biomedical blockchain applications and the benefits to adopt blockchain; (2) a description of key features of underlying blockchain platforms in healthcare applications; (3) development of a method for systematic review of technology, based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses) statement, to investigate blockchain platforms for healthcare and medicine applications; (4) a review of 21 healthcare‐related technical features of 10 popular blockchain platforms; and (5) a discussion of findings and limitations of the review.
Abstract Blockchain technology support of Circular Economy (CE) concepts offers a promising route to sustainable development in the fields of business, education, healthcare, and the Internet of Things. The integrity of miners is essential to maintaining system reliability in public blockchains. This integrity is threatened by malicious activities like selfish mining and block withholding (BWH). Thus, accurately forecasting honest miners has become a crucial research issue. Although miner behaviour can be modelled by machine learning (ML) classifiers, their effectiveness is heavily reliant on the quality of the input characteristics. Optimal feature selection remains a major challenge in this context. This study addresses this issue using Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Differential Evolution (DE), both proven for optimization tasks. However, conventional GA and DE often suffer from slow convergence and suboptimal solutions. To overcome these limitations, we propose Knowledge-based GA (KBGA) and Knowledge-based DE (KBDE) by embedding domain-specific knowledge. These enhanced methods increase the viability of feature selection solutions and search efficiency. Comprehensive analyses show that KBGA and KBDE predict honest miner behaviour better than conventional GA and DE. The superiority of the suggested methods is further confirmed by statistical studies. This work promotes CE-driven sustainable development endeavours and advances secure Blockchain platforms.
Introduction Blockchain and AI (Artificial Intelligence) are shaping a new medical ecosystem as two key technologies for the digital transformation of healthcare. Methods This paper provides systematic review and theoretical framework for understanding the evolutionary logic, key themes and future trends of blockchain‐artificial intelligence integration. Results and Discussion This study discusses the digital health transformation path of blockchain and AI in the healthcare field from dimensions such as theme clustering, trend evolution, technical background, application, and future challenges. Blockchain has advantages in building a trusted data infrastructure. Artificial intelligence has a natural talent for enhancing the efficiency of clinical decision‐making and operations. The deep integration between the two is driving the transformation of healthcare from single‐point digitalization to system intelligence. Despite challenges such as regulatory systems, cross‐institutional collaboration, talent structure, and medical ethics, reliable intelligent healthcare systems have become the development direction of future healthcare models.
Blockchain technology has a wide range of applications in the fields of finance, credit reporting and intellectual property, etc. As the core of blockchain, consensus algorithm affects the security and performance of blockchain system directly. In the past 10 years, there have been about 30 consensus algorithms such as Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA) and AlgoRand. But their security, stability and operating efficiency still lag far behind our actual needs. This paper introduces the computing power competition of PoW into DPoS to design an improved consensus algorithm named Delegated Proof of Stake with Downgrade (DDPoS). Through the further modification, the impact of both computing resources and stakes on generating blocks is reduced to achieve higher efficiency, fairness, and decentralization in consensus process. Then a downgrade mechanism is proposed to quickly replace the malicious nodes to improve the security. The simulation experiments in blockchain system show that the proposed consensus algorithm is significantly more efficient than PoW and PoS, but slightly lower than DPoS. However, its degree of centralization remains far below that of DPoS. And through the downgrade mechanism, the proposed consensus algorithm can detect and downgrade the malicious nodes timely to ensure the security and good operation of system.
Abstract This paper explores the barriers and drivers of diffusion associated with permissionless and permissioned blockchains, seeking to establish whether they are the same or different and whether barriers and drivers change over time. The study was undertaken in two stages: (i) interviews in 2016 that examine the barriers and drivers of diffusion; followed by (ii) a case study in 2019 of the Italian wine industry’s permissioned blockchain. The results show that diffusion is reaching a final stage for permissionless blockchains but is lagging behind for permissioned blockchains due to the different barriers and drivers of diffusion. The implications from this study are that: (i) drivers and barriers for different types of technological innovation may be different and change over time; (ii) initial barriers may be surmounted and become features of the underlying technology; (iii) barriers may become drivers of a technology; (iv) drivers of one type of technology may spill-over to become drivers for another type; (v) diffusion may be measured by both the number of adoptions and the number of participants in that technology; (vi) off-chain processes may become a major barrier for permissioned blockchains; and finally (vii) self-interest may be the key driver of technological innovation.
The sixth generation (6G) network must provide performance superior to previous generations in order to meet the requirements of emerging services and applications, such as multi-gigabit transmission rate, even higher reliability, sub 1 millisecond latency and ubiquitous connection for Internet of Everything. However, with the scarcity of spectrum resources, efficient resource management and sharing is crucial to achieve all these ambitious requirements. One possible technology to enable all of this is blockchain, which has recently gained significance and will be of paramount importance to 6G networks and beyond due to its inherent properties. In particular, the integration of blockchain in 6G will enable the network to monitor and manage resource utilization and sharing efficiently. Hence, in this article, we discuss the potentials of blockchain for resource management and sharing in 6G using multiple application scenarios namely, Internet of things, device-to-device communications, network slicing, and inter-domain blockchain ecosystems.
Abstract Circular supply chain management is required for firms to transition from a linear make-use-dispose economic model to a more sustainable circular economy. However, it faces the critical challenge of tracing the reuse of materials over multiple life cycles involving a variety of stakeholders. Blockchain technology can help manage the complexities of circular supply chain management. This paper takes the first step in developing a system architecture of blockchain-enabled circular supply chain management in the fast-fashion industry. The system architecture was validated by two experts in blockchain technology and supply chain management. Managerial implications are discussed for implementing blockchain technology to advance the circular economy agenda.
M. Humayun, Noor Zaman Jhanjhi, Bushra Hamid
et al.
Transportation and logistics management play a vital role in the development of a country. With the advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smart transportation is becoming a reality. However, these abundant connected IoT devices are vulnerable to security attacks. Recently, Blockchain has emerged as one of the most widely accepted technologies for trusted, secure and decentralized intelligent transportation systems. This research study aims to contribute to the field of logistics and transportation by exploring the potential of IoT and Blockchain technology in smart logistics and transportation. We propose a layered framework, namely BCTLF, for smart logistics and transportation that integrates IoT and Blockchain to provide an intelligent logistics and transportation system. Finally, we present two real-life IoT and Blockchain-based case studies to highlight the contribution of IoT and Blockchain in logistics and transportation.
Abstract Today, the blockchain is synonymous of technological innovation, being recognized among the 10 top strategy technologies in 2018 by the consulting company Gartner, it is more and more adopted in different sectors. However, the initial enthusiasm around this technology is going beyond the peak of inflated expectations, towards more stable applications in money transactions, cryptocurrencies and Digital Commodity Exchanges. Essentially, misguided efforts, the overuse of blockchain, and the Bitcoin's price drop have been the main reasons for this decay in expectations. Nevertheless, the exploitation of the blockchain technology in the power systems area appears largely underexplored, furthermore, the relation to the physical asset makes the blockchain application more complex but also more reliable and related to measurable benefits. The most common applications in the power systems area relate to the energy market. When the blockchain technology is indeed applied to the energy field, the term energy blockchain is used. This article aims to propose a wide perspective about the application of the blockchain technology in the power systems area, clarifying some technical aspects concerning this promising technology, the features and applications developed so far, while focusing on the future of innovative applications in the electrical energy sector.
With rapid development of computing technologies, large amount of data are gathered from edge terminals or Internet of Things (IoT) devices, however data trust and security in edge computing environment are very important issues to be considered, especially when the gathered data are fraud or dishonest, or the data are misused or spread without any authorization, which may lead to serious problems. In this article, a blockchain-based trusted data management scheme (called BlockTDM) in edge computing is proposed to solve the above problems, in which we proposed a flexible and configurable blockchain architecture that includes mutual authentication protocol, flexible consensus, smart contract, block and transaction data management, blockchain nodes management, and deployment. The BlockTDM scheme can support matrix-based multichannel data segment and isolation for sensitive or privacy data protection, and moreover, we have designed user-defined sensitive data encryption before the transaction payload stores in blockchain system, and have implemented conditional access and decryption query of the protected blockchain data and transactions through smart contract. Finally, we have evaluated the proposed BlockTDM scheme security, availability, and efficiency with large amount of experiments. Analysis and evaluations manifest that the proposed BlockTDM scheme provides a general, flexible, and configurable blockchain-based paradigm for trusted data management with tamper-resistance, which is suitable for edge computing with high-level security and creditability.
Blockchain, a promising decentralized para-digm, can be exploited not only to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional crowdsourcing systems, but also to bring technical innovations, such as decentralization and accountability. Nevertheless, some critical inherent limitations of blockchain have been rarely addressed in the literature when it is incorporated into crowdsourcing, which may yield the performance bottleneck in the crowdsourcing systems. To further leverage the superiority of combining blockchain and crowdsourcing, in this article, we propose an innovative hybrid blockchain crowdsourcing platform, named zkCrowd. Our zkCrowd integrates with a hybrid blockchain structure, smart contract, dual ledgers, and dual consensus protocols to secure communications, verify transactions, and preserve privacy. Both the theoretical analysis and experiments are performed to evaluate the advantages of zkCrowd over the state of the art.
This study systematically analyzes 50 academic publications focusing on blockchain applications insupply chain and logistics processes between 2015 and 2024. Following a systematic literature reviewmethod based on PRISMA principles, comprehensive searches were conducted in databases includingGoogle Scholar, ScienceDirect, ResearchGate, SpringerLink, IEEE Xplore, and Wiley Online Libraryusing relevant keywords. From an initial pool of 135 publications, 50 studies were selected based onclear inclusion and exclusion criteria for detailed analysis. The introduction outlines blockchain'sbenefits in supply chains such as transparency, reliability, and traceability. The literature reviewcategorizes blockchain applications into key themes including IoT integration, smart contracts, andfraud prevention. Developmental trends and thematic evolution over the decade are visualized andcritically examined. The evaluation and conclusion sections offer a critical assessment of the literature,highlighting challenges such as scalability, energy consumption, and regulatory gaps. The studyfurther emphasizes the importance of regulatory frameworks with country-specific examples andproposes actionable directions for future research. Overall, the study underscores blockchain’ssignificant potential to enhance reliability, sustainability, and operational efficiency in supply chainmanagement, while calling for more applied research and sector-specific adaptations.
IntroductionWith the increasing aging population, there is a growing need for precise and intelligent health management solutions tailored to older adult individuals. This study proposes a comprehensive digital health management platform that integrates new media technologies to support physical and mental well-being among the older adult.MethodsA personalized health management system was designed by integrating multi-source health data and employing artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies to ensure personalized and secure services. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was used to extract topic keywords related to older adult health needs, particularly chronic disease understanding. These text features were then combined with image features extracted via ResNet50 to form a multi-modal feature representation. Finally, an XGBoost-based health risk assessment model was constructed and trained using data from the China Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS).ResultsThe LDA+ResNet50 model achieved an average F1 score of 0.926 in classifying five key health-related topic categories, with the highest performance (F1 = 0.97) in the “psychology” domain. The XGBoost model demonstrated excellent classification performance with an accuracy of 0.95, effectively distinguishing between positive and negative health outcomes and capturing complex data patterns.DiscussionThis study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of combining topic modeling, deep learning, and machine learning for older adult health risk assessment. The proposed scheme enhances the accuracy and intelligence of health management services, aiding in chronic disease prevention and improving the overall quality of life for older adult individuals.
The text considers the status of NFT artwork and how it is affected by its close relationship with blockchain. Doubts about the media character of NFT art are raised. Two perspectives are juxtaposed: one that denies NFT art the status of a medium and treats it as a certificate of authenticity and ownership for sales purposes (Richard Vigniel, Dave Krugman), and another according to which the meaning and value of NFT art can only emerge when the NFT is not solely a sales mechanism but becomes a medium of art (Christiane Paul). In the former case, the media and artistic nature of NFT-related works will be determined outside the blockchain platform and the NFT. The author, referring to the selected works of Eve Sussman and Masaki Fujihata, points out that the two aspects can be combined, and the deconstructed sales mechanism can become a medium for NFT art. The question of whether this is the only possible kind of NFT media art remains open.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, History of Poland
Blockchain, a peer-to-peer, controlled, distributed database structure, has the potential to profoundly affect current business transactions in the construction industry through smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and reliable asset tracking. The construction industry is often criticized for being slow in embracing emerging technologies and not effectively diffusing them through its supply chains. Often, the extensive fragmentation, traditional procurement structures, destructive competition, lack of collaboration and transparency, low-profit margins, and human resources are shown as the main culprits for this. As blockchain technology makes its presence felt strongly in many other industries like finance and banking, this study investigates the preparation of construction supply chains for blockchain technology through an explorative analysis. Empirical data for the study were collected through semi-structured interviews with 17 subject experts. Alongside presenting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis (SWOT), the study exhibits the requirements for and steps toward a construction supply structure facilitated by blockchain technology.
Abstract Those attempting to integrate building information modeling (BIM) and blockchain soon encounter the enormous challenge of information redundancy. Storage of duplicated building information in decentralized ledgers already creates redundancy, and this is exacerbated as the BIM model develops and is utilized. This paper presents a novel semantic differential transaction (SDT) approach to minimizing information redundancy in the nascent field of BIM and blockchain integration. Whereas the conventional thinking is to store an entire BIM model or its signature code in blockchain, SDT captures local model changes as SDT records and assembles them into a BIM change contract (BCC). In this way, the version history of a BIM project becomes a chain of timestamped BCCs, and stakeholders can promptly synchronize BIM changes in blockchain. We test our approach in two pilot cases. The results show that SDT captures, in near real time, sequential and simultaneous BIM changes at