The ‘blockchain’ is the core mechanism for the Bitcoin digital payment system. It embraces a set of inter-related technologies: the blockchain itself as a distributed record of digital events, the distributed consensus method to agree whether a new block is legitimate, automated smart contracts, and the data structure associated with each block. We propose a permanent distributed record of intellectual effort and associated reputational reward, based on the blockchain that instantiates and democratises educational reputation beyond the academic community. We are undertaking initial trials of a private blockchain or storing educational records, drawing also on our previous research into reputation management for educational systems.
Companies need to allocate substantial effort and resources towards adapting to dynamic market trends and promptly meeting their customers’ evolving expectations in the online business context. Although e-commerce research has experienced significant growth over the past two decades, a comprehensive, systematic, and longitudinal analysis that maps the evolution of publications, academic collaboration patterns, influential actors and sources, thematic structures, and theoretical foundations of the field is still lacking. This gap limits a holistic understanding of the maturation, intellectual structure, and future research directions of e-commerce as an academic domain. Based on these premises, the primary objective of the present study is to analyse the landscape of e-commerce spanning the period from 2008 to 2024. By employing bibliometric analysis, we have identified the most prolific and influential authors and publications that have made notable contributions to the literature on e-commerce, as well as the collaborations between authors and countries within the same field. Furthermore, we have analysed the thematic map, research trends, and interconnections between research themes over the past 17 years, providing a dynamic summary of scientific topics of interest in the field of e-commerce and suggesting potential directions for future explorations. The results reveal the heterogeneity of themes associated with e-commerce. We found that research topics in this field have evolved alongside technological evolution and social changes. Some themes have persisted over the years, such as customer behaviour or trust, while others have either disappeared or transformed. For instance, research related to supporting e-commerce technologies has become more specific, focusing on topics such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, metaverse or blockchain. From a social perspective, the impact of COVID-19 has resonated within the scientific community, becoming a significant focus of researchers around the world. This study serves as a comprehensive guide for professionals and researchers seeking to bridge current research topics with forthcoming developments in the field of e-commerce. Examining contributions and emerging trends reveals new perspectives on how technological progress interacts with the social and economic dimensions of e-commerce.
This paper intentionally tried to showcase the role of blockchain technology in improving administrative transparency by showing how the current-day modern technology can be utilized to build new administrative systems and fulfill the principles of administrative transparency. In order to meet the objectives of the research, a questionnaire was developed as a major tool of collecting data. There were 50 questions in the questionnaire and the views of 246 people were collected in the most different manner. The study was descriptive and analytical in nature, and it involved a number of statistical and software tools. Frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, relative importance, reliability, internal consistency, and normality have been determined with the help of SPSS v26 statistical software. Correlation and impact relationships were examined by using the AMOS v24 statistical software. The findings all came up to the conclusion that the use of blockchain technology in administration systems can play a significant part in ensuring transparency in the university through the introduction of a solid and secure online database, better and more precise information, and greater accountability of various administrative tiers. The paper suggests the implementation of a full-scale digital strategy at the University of Mosul that should involve the implementation of blockchain technology. It includes blockchain technology in its administrative system to guarantee better performance of the institutions and smart management of the universities through integrity and transparency.
Management information systems, Economic history and conditions
IntroductionBlockchain technology, characterized by its decentralized architecture, immutable data, and robust traceability capabilities, offers a novel technological foundation and solution for the upgrading and transformation of the traditional agricultural product traceability system. This study examines the preferences of Chinese consumers for the blockchain traceability attributes of vegetables.MethodsThis study took tomatoes as an example. We designed and conducted a choice experiment, using conditional logit, random parameter logit and latent class models to determine the preferences and payment willingness of 1,976 consumers in 10 traceability pilot cities in China for blockchain traceability attributes.ResultsThe results show that consumers have a strong preference for traceability information including the origin, planting, and processing and sales, government traceability systems, and blockchain traceability technologies, and are willing to pay a premium for them. These models reveal the heterogeneity preferences of the participants, thus enabling consumers to be classified into three categories: blockchain technology preference (18.8%), traceability information preference (52.8%), third-party testing institution traceability platform preference (28.5%).DiscussionBased on these findings, we propose strategies to expedite the development of a blockchain traceability system for vegetables.
Nutrition. Foods and food supply, Food processing and manufacture
Digital technologies in education are frequently positioned as sustainability-enabling because they can reduce travel, paper and printing, and some on-campus energy and space requirements. However, their sustainability profile is more ambiguous when environmental impacts across energy use, devices, and data infrastructures are considered alongside social implications such as unequal access and capability. This opinion paper examines digital education through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on SDG 4 (Quality education), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities), and SDG 13 (Climate action), using a lifecycle-oriented perspective. It argues that digital education embodies a sustainability paradox: it can expand access and participation while increasing energy demand and material impacts, and it may reinforce inequalities where connectivity, devices, and digital literacy are unevenly distributed. The paper outlines institutional strategies for more sustainable digital education, including sustainability action planning, energy-efficient infrastructure and procurement, circular economy approaches to devices, equity-oriented support for access and capability, and cautious governance of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. It concludes that sustainability in digital education requires balancing educational benefits with environmental, social, and economic impacts, and positioning institutions to contribute to systemic change beyond campus boundaries.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Social Sciences
Reproducibility, data sharing, personal data privacy concerns and patient enrolment in clinical trials are huge medical challenges for contemporary clinical research. A new technology, Blockchain, may be a key to addressing these challenges and should draw the attention of the whole clinical research community.Blockchain brings the Internet to its definitive decentralisation goal. The core principle of Blockchain is that any service relying on trusted third parties can be built in a transparent, decentralised, secure “trustless” manner at the top of the Blockchain (in fact, there is trust, but it is hardcoded in the Blockchain protocol via a complex cryptographic algorithm). Therefore, users have a high degree of control over and autonomy and trust of the data and its integrity. Blockchain allows for reaching a substantial level of historicity and inviolability of data for the whole document flow in a clinical trial. Hence, it ensures traceability, prevents a posteriori reconstruction and allows for securely automating the clinical trial through what are called Smart Contracts. At the same time, the technology ensures fine-grained control of the data, its security and its shareable parameters, for a single patient or group of patients or clinical trial stakeholders.In this commentary article, we explore the core functionalities of Blockchain applied to clinical trials and we illustrate concretely its general principle in the context of consent to a trial protocol. Trying to figure out the potential impact of Blockchain implementations in the setting of clinical trials will shed new light on how modern clinical trial methods could evolve and benefit from Blockchain technologies in order to tackle the aforementioned challenges.
The paper focuses on various legal-related aspects of the application of blockchain technologies in the copyright sphere. Specifically, it outlines the existing challenges for distribution of copyrighted works in the digital environment, how they can be solved with blockchain, and what associated issues need to be addressed in this regard. It is argued that blockchain can introduce long–awaited transparency in matters of copyright ownership chain; substantially mitigate risks of online piracy by enabling control over digital copy and creating a civilized market for “used” digital content. It also allows to combine the simplicity of application of creative commons/open source type of licenses with revenue streams, and thus facilitate fair compensation of authors by means of cryptocurrency payments and Smart contracts. However, these benefits do not come without a price: many new issues will need to be resolved to enable the potential of blockchain technologies. Among them are: where to store copyrighted content (on blockchain or “off-chain”) and the associated need to adjust the legal status of online intermediaries; how to find a right balance between immutable nature of blockchain records and the necessity to adjust them due to the very nature of copyright law, which assigns ownership based on a set of informal facts, not visible to the public. Blockchain as a kind of time stamping service cannot itself ensure the trustworthiness of facts, which originate “off-chain”. Much work needs to be done on the legal side: special provisions aimed at facilitating user’s trust in blockchain records and their good faith usage of copyrighted works based on them need to be introduced and transactions with cryptocurrencies have to be legalized as well as the status of Smart contracts and their legal consequences. Finally, the economics of blockchain copyright management systems need to be carefully considered in order to ensure that they will have necessary network effects. If those issues are resolved in a satisfactory way, blockchain has the potential to rewrite how the copyright industry functions and digital content is distributed
Yu-Pin Lin, Joy R. Petway, Johnathen Anthony
et al.
Blockchain technology, while still challenged with key limitations, is a transformative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that has changed our notion of trust. Improved efficiencies for agricultural sustainable development has been demonstrated when ICT-enabled farms have access to knowledge banks and other digital resources. UN FAO-recommended ICT e-agricultural infrastructure components are a confluence of ICT and blockchain technology requirements. When ICT e-agricultural systems with blockchain infrastructure are immutable and distributed ledger systems for record management, baseline agricultural environmental data integrity is safeguarded for those who participate in transparent data management. This paper reviewed blockchain-based concepts associated with ICT-based technology. Moreover, a model ICT e-agriculture system with a blockchain infrastructure is proposed for use at the local and regional scale. To determine context specific technical and social requirements of blockchain technology for ICT e-agriculture systems, an evaluation tool is presented. The proposed system and tool can be evaluated and applied to further developments of e-agriculture systems.
Abstract Conceptually, the blockchain is a distributed database containing records of transactions that are shared among participating members. Each transaction is confirmed by the consensus of a majority of the members, making fraudulent transactions unable to pass collective confirmation. Once a record is created and accepted by the blockchain, it can never be altered or disappear. Nowadays the blockchain technology is considered as the most significant invention after the Internet. If the latter connects people to realize on-line business processes, the former could decide the trust problem by peer-to-peer networking and public-key cryptography. The purpose of this paper is to consider on distinct use cases at the all-pervasive impact of the blockchain technology and look at this as an inalienable part of our daily life.
IntroductionThis paper presents the design and development of a digital music copyright management system, built on the VNT Chain blockchain platform. The system aims to enhance copyright proof and evidence storage, verify the originality of music copyrights, and facilitate secure copyright transactions.MethodsThe system leverages blockchain technology for data integrity and immutability, utilizes the Shazam algorithm to verify music originality, and employs smart contracts to secure transactions. It is composed of six functional modules: user management, copyright registration, copyright trading, infringement monitoring, evidence storage, and music ecology. The system uses blockchain, the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and MySQL to manage various business data requirements.ResultsExperimental results show that the registration time for each music piece increased by approximately 1.9 s. Additionally, the average feature fingerprint data for each music piece stored on IPFS consumed about 8 MB, which aligns with the expected system performance criteria.DiscussionThe system meets performance expectations, offering secure and efficient copyright registration and evidence storage. The use of blockchain and IPFS provides a scalable, reliable solution for managing digital music copyrights.
Blockchain technologies are rapidly transforming both academia and industry. However, large-scale blockchain data collection remains prohibitively expensive, as many RPC providers only offer enhanced APIs with high pricing tiers that are unsuitable for budget-constrained research or industrial-scale applications, which has significantly slowed down academic studies and product development. Moreover, there is a clear lack of a systematic framework that allows flexible integration of new modules for analyzing on-chain data. To address these challenges, we introduce LinkXplore, the first open framework for collecting and managing on-chain data. LinkXplore enables users to bypass costly blockchain data providers by directly analyzing raw data from RPC queries or streams, thereby offering high-quality blockchain data at a fraction of the cost. Through a simple API and backend processing logic, any type of chain data can be integrated into the framework. This makes it a practical alternative for both researchers and developers with limited budgets. Code and dataset used in this project are publicly available at https://github.com/Linkis-Project/LinkXplore
Mostafa Chegenizadeh, Sina Rafati Niya, Claudio J. Tessone
Blockchain technology has recently gained widespread popularity as a practical method of storing immutable data while preserving the privacy of users by anonymizing their real identities. This anonymization approach, however, significantly complicates the analysis of blockchain data. To address this problem, heuristic-based clustering algorithms as an effective way of linking all addresses controlled by the same entity have been presented in the literature. In this paper, considering the particular features of the Extended Unspent Transaction Outputs accounting model introduced by the Cardano blockchain, two new clustering heuristics are proposed for clustering the Cardano payment addresses. Applying these heuristics and employing the UnionFind algorithm, we efficiently cluster all the addresses that have appeared on the Cardano blockchain from September 2017 to January 2023, where each cluster represents a distinct entity. The results show that each medium-sized entity in the Cardano network owns and controls 9.67 payment addresses on average. The results also confirm that a power law distribution is fitted to the distribution of entity sizes recognized using our proposed heuristics.
Rapheal Sunday Amadi, A. S. M. Kayes, Eric Pardede
et al.
Blockchain is a decentralised and distributed digital ledger technology that is used to record and store data securely and transparently and has attracted the attention of both academia and industry. It is imperative to ensure the security of this technology and to understand the potential associated risks. However, in the recent past, blockchain-based applications have suffered from series of security breaches ranging from fraud to smart contract vulnerabilities, wallet theft, private key compromise, and non-regulatory compliance. One of the best ways to identify security threats and the associated risks in blockchain applications is to undertake a proper risk assessment. This paper presents a systematic review of the risk assessment frameworks in blockchain-based applications. We first review the general overview of blockchain technology and examine the up-to-date concepts of blockchain risk management, focusing on risk assessment. Although many scholars have worked on blockchain applications and have published surveys on challenges and opportunities, some on security threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks of blockchain technology, very few have researched blockchain risk management and assessment, and none has proposed a framework for assessing risk in blockchain-based applications. Following our proposed survey methodology, the key contributions of this literature review include a comprehensive assessment of various blockchain applications and their adoption challenges, risks in centralised versus decentralised systems, risk assessment and management in blockchain technologies, and three case studies on the risks of blockchain applications and their real-world implications. Applications discussed include blockchain in healthcare, supply chain management, government, and the Internet of Things (IoT). This review serves as a benchmark for researchers to propose an appropriate risk assessment framework for blockchain applications and to gain a deeper understanding of the associated risks.
Abstract Blockchain technology is reshaping the agri-food supply chains, providing unique benefits to improve supply chain transparency, traceability, and sustainability. However, blockchain implementation is a challenging task due to the several barriers that come with it. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the major barriers to blockchain technology adoption in the agri-food supply chain within the African context. The paper identified 12 barriers through a literature review and expert opinions. The Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach is used to determine the cause-and-effect relationship among barriers. In light of the results, seven barriers belong to the cause group, and the remaining five barriers fall under the effect group. The analysis shows that the lack of regulation and the lack of infrastructure are the main influencing cause barriers. The study outcome will provide valuable insights for African policymakers to take the necessary steps to overcome these barriers and increase the rate of blockchain adoption in Africa.
The global coffee supply chain is a complex multi-stakeholder ecosystem plagued by fragmented records, unverifiable origin claims, and limited real-time visibility. These limitations pose risks to ethical sourcing, product quality, and consumer trust. To address these issues, this paper proposes a blockchain and IoT-enabled framework for secure and transparent coffee supply chain management. The system integrates simulated IoT sensor data such as Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) identity tags, Global Positioning System (GPS) logs, weight measurements, environmental readings, and mobile validations with Ethereum smart contracts to establish traceability and automate supply chain logic. A Solidity-based Ethereum smart contract is developed and deployed on the Sepolia testnet to register users and log batches and to handle ownership transfers. The Internet of Things (IoT) data stream is simulated using structured datasets to mimic real-world device behavior, ensuring that the system is tested under realistic conditions. Our performance evaluation on 1000 transactions shows that the model incurs low transaction costs and demonstrates predictable efficiency behavior of the smart contract in decentralized conditions. Over 95% of the 1000 simulated transactions incurred a gas fee of less than ETH 0.001. The proposed architecture is also scalable and modular, providing a foundation for future deployment with live IoT integrations and off-chain data storage. Overall, the results highlight the system’s ability to improve transparency and auditability, automate enforcement, and enhance consumer confidence in the origin and handling of coffee products.
Abstract Threshold signatures are essential for fault-tolerant applications among groups of users, such as in blockchain transactions. SM2 is a digital signature standard in China and ISO, yet its threshold variant is less developed compared to international alternatives such as ECDSA. Specifically, modern threshold signatures offer identifiable abort (ID-abort) and non-interactive online signing, but these features make threshold-SM2 costly, limiting its real-world application. In this paper, we introduce a fast threshold-SM2 with ID-abort and non-interactive online signing. We design a technology for ID-abort by checking hard-to-verify pseudononces based on their mappings in a group. By putting the message-independent computations to a presigning phase, we achieve a non-interactive online signing. We prove that our threshold-SM2 is secure in the dishonest majority model and implement it using Golang. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that our threshold-SM2 provides rich functionalities with good performance, significantly reducing computational and communication costs compared to the state-of-the-art threshold-SM2 by Liang and Chen (FCS’ 24).
Jorge Isaac Avilés Monroy, Pedro Manuel Garcia Arias, Edgar Paul Cun Laines
et al.
This paper investigates the efficacy of emerging technologies in protective forest conservation— artificial intelligence, drones, remote sensing, and blockchain—and whether such tools foster threat detection and enhanced biodiversity and human interaction. As deforestation and climate change continue to plague the planet, protected areas become more critical, and although successful conservation efforts exist, traditional tools fail to adequately provide the granularity and scalability required for nuanced action such as illegal logging or forest fires. The emerging abilities of these innovations have been published in scientific literature. However, there exists a translational gap in a systematic determination of their efficacy since levels of uncertainty and constraints are discussed upon implementation across varying ecological and socioeconomic spectrums. Therefore, this paper seeks to fill the void utilizing the plithogenic hypothesis—a neutrosophic application of modeling uncertainty through the probability of truth, indeterminacy, and falsity. 125 articles were examined for feasibility with the use of the Consensus Meter. Results denote a 48% probability of actualness that such technologies do work—74.3% that they increasingly foster early detection of threats, 72% that they help monitor biodiversity; yet 32% indeterminacy suggests challenges to success including expense and absent infrastructure. This is a unique form of assessment of efficacy in uncertain, complicated environments. Ultimately, implementation suggestions can include need vs. idea vs. environmental implementation and feasibility of financing and community support/inclusivity to realize what would theoretically contribute to forest conservation and policy proposals that use emerging technologies yet acknowledge ecological and socioeconomic realities.
The healthcare data is an important asset and rich source of healthcare intellect. Medical databases, if created properly, will be large, complex, heterogeneous and time varying. The main challenge nowadays is to store and process this data efficiently so that it can benefit humans. Heterogeneity in the healthcare sector in the form of medical data is also considered to be one of the biggest challenges for researchers. Sometimes, this data is referred to as large-scale data or big data. Blockchain technology and the Cloud environment have proved their usability separately. Though these two technologies can be combined to enhance the exciting applications in healthcare industry. Blockchain is a highly secure and decentralized networking platform of multiple computers called nodes. It is changing the way medical information is being stored and shared. It makes the work easier, keeps an eye on the security and accuracy of the data and also reduces the cost of maintenance. A Blockchain-based platform is proposed that can be used for storing and managing electronic medical records in a Cloud environment.