Maria Gabriella Melchiorre, Roberta Papa, Sabrina Quattrini, Giovanni Lamura · 5 authors
INTRODUCTION: eHealth applications have the potential to provide new integrated care services to patients with multimorbidity (MM), also supporting multidisciplinary care. The aim of this paper is to explore how widely eHealth tools have been currently adopted in integrated care programs for (older) people with MM in European countries, including benefits and barriers concerning their adoption, according to some basic health system characteristics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 2014, in the framework of the ICARE4EU project, expert organizations in 24 European countries identified 101 integrated care programs. Managers of the selected programs completed an online questionnaire on several dimensions, including the use of eHealth. We analyzed data from this questionnaire, in addition to qualitative information from six innovative programs which were studied in depth through case study methodology, according to characteristics of national health systems: a national health model (financing system), overall strength of primary care (PC) (structure/service delivery process), and level of (de)centralization of health system (executive powers in a country). RESULTS: 85 programs (out of 101) adopted at least one eHealth tool, and 42 of these targeted explicitly older people. In most cases, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) were used and some benefits emerged like improved care management and integration, although inadequate funding mechanisms represented a major barrier. The analysis by health system characteristics showed a greater adoption of eHealth applications in decentralized countries, in countries with a National Health Service (NHS) model, and in countries with a strong/medium level of PC development. CONCLUSIONS: Although in the light of some limitations, findings indicate a relation between implementation of care programs using eHealth tools and basic characteristics of health systems, with decentralization of a health system, NHS model, and strong/medium PC having a key role. However adaptations of European health systems seem necessary, in order to provide a more innovative and integrated care.
Blockchain, the technology behind digital currency, is a decentralized, distributed ledger that records transactions in digital assets. By authenticating and recording immutable transactions, decentralized blockchains perform the same function as many intermediaries in our society that establish trust and maintain integrity between transacting parties. Due to its natural relation to accounting and possible uses in accounting functions, business operations, and financial services, it is important that accountants learn about blockchain technology and its opportunities and limitations. This chapter explores applications of blockchain technology in finance, auditing, financial reporting, and supply chain. We first discuss the classification, characteristics, and issuance of cryptoassets and the evolving regulatory environment. Then, we address potential innovative uses of blockchain in auditing and financial reporting, keeping in mind the limitations of its application. Finally, we explore how blockchain technology can enhance communication and trust between organizations in a supply chain or in contracting relationships.
Blockchain is a new generation technology that allows the central control mechanism or trusted authority to be removed, spreading the encrypted data across all participants in the network in a distributed database structure instead of central trust. The Smart Contract structure, which defines the rules and flow that allow the things we value to operate automatically as determined without the need for an external trigger mechanism, is the core element of this technology. Blockchain has gained popularity with its most famous application, Bitcoin. After Bitcoin became popular, it turned out that Blockchain might have new uses due to the advantage of technology such as security, brokerage, and transparency, and these areas are being investigated. Many big companies have started to invest in this technology in the face of the opportunities brought by Blockchain. HAVELSAN is a largescale software company that studies and adapts new generation technologies. Blockchain technology has become of the new generation technologies that HAVELSAN is interested in due to its impressive advantages. HAVELSAN has a wide range of activities, so the company can develop various Blockchain-based applications depending on these areas. Combining this diversity with the importance of the Smart Contract concept, which can be considered as the basis for most Blockchain applications, it is decided to create a strong Smart Contract framework before starting to build different applications with Blockchain technology. The creation of HAVELSAN Blockchain Smart Contract Framework; which infrastructures are used during the development phase, the problems encountered during development and the structure of the most suitable applications to be created with the framework to be developed will be explained in this article.
María de la O González, Francisco Jareño, Frank S. Skinner
We investigate the performance of optimised three asset portfolios comprised of stocks, bonds and a cryptocurrency or gold for the period immediately before and during the Covid-19 financial crisis. We compare the performance of these portfolios with a two-asset cash portfolio comprised of stocks and bonds. Cryptocurrencies have the potential to control risk as most portfolios that include cryptocurrencies consistently experienced risk no greater than 50 basis points above the risk experienced by cash portfolios. However, there is no free lunch. While three asset portfolios can control risk, they also have a lower return per unit of risk.
The possibility of constructing dynamic measures of complexity as quantum econophysical behaving in a proper way during actual pre-crash periods has been shown. This fact is used to build predictors of crashes and critical events phenomena on the examples of all the patterns recorded in the time series of the key cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the effectiveness of the proposed indicatorsprecursors of these falls has been identified. From positions, attained by modern theoretical physics the concept of economic Plank's constant has been proposed.
The article discusses the history of the emergence of cryptocurrency, the scope of its application, the positive and negative sides, the essence and principle of its operation. An assessment of the prospects for its use is given, as well as the market for cryptocurrency capitalization and its impact on the development of the global financial system. The analysis of the experience of legal regulation of cryptocurrencies in foreign countries is carried out. The purpose of the study is to study the essence and principle of operation of cryptocurrency, as well as the prospects for its use in Kazakhstan. In this work, along with empirical research methods, theoretical methods were applied, which included analysis and synthesis of the information received. In addition, historical, logical, technical, comparative, legal analyzes were used, and the essence of cryptocurrencies was classified. Cryptocurrencies are classified according to their nature and purpose. Received data on the characteristics of cryptocurrencies. The foreign experience of the legal status of cryptocurrency and its turnover has been studied. The study showed that an important factor in the development of cryptocurrency is the presence of legislation in the field of cryptocurrency circulation and its legal status, in connection with which, in the course of work, separate legislative amendments were developed regarding the regulation of cryptocurrencies. In particular, their author’s definitions of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges are given, which can be used in the preparation and adoption of laws governing digital assets.
We show that recent technological innovations have significantly improved the efficiency of Bitcoin as a means of payment. We study three particular innovations: the Lightning Network, a means of netting payments off the blockchain; SegWit, an improvement to the way data are stored on the blockchain; and Bitcoin Cash, a new cryptocurrency forked from Bitcoin. We find a robust and significant association between adoption of the Lightning Network and reduced blockchain congestion. This improvement cannot be explained by other factors, such as changes in speculative demand for Bitcoin. We show that the Lightning Network has become increasingly centralised, with payments channelled through relatively few intermediaries. Finally, we argue that improved functioning of Bitcoin is positive for welfare, and may reduce the environmental footprint of Bitcoin mining.
Cryptography is the process of protecting information from intruders and letting only the intended users’ access and understand it. It is a technique originated in 2000 BC where simple methods were used in earlier times to keep the information in a way that is not understandable by everyone. Only the intended receiver knows how to decode the information. Later, as technology advances, many sophisticated techniques were used to protect the message so that no intrusion can invade the information. Many mathematically complex algorithms like AES, RSA are used to encrypt and decrypt the data. Due to the advancements in the computer science field, recently, cryptography is used in the development of cryptographic currencies of cryptocurrencies. Blockchain technology, a distributed ledger technology identified to be the foundation of Bitcoin cryptocurrency, implements a high-level cryptographic technique like public-key cryptography, Hash Functions, Merkle Trees, Digital signatures like Elliptic curve digital signatures, etc. These advanced cryptographic techniques are used to provide security to blockchain data and for the secure transmission of information, thereby making Blockchain more popular and demandable. Blockchain applies cryptography in various phases, and some of the techniques used in Blockchain are advanced in cryptographic sciences. This paper intends to provide a brief introduction to cryptography and Blockchain Technology and discusses how both technologies can be integrated to provide the best of the security to the data. This paper reviews the various cryptographic attacks in Blockchain and the various security services offered in Blockchain. The challenges of blockchain security are also analyzed and presented briefly in this paper.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Anita A. Lahane, Junaid Patel, Talif Pathan, Prathmesh Potdar
Election could be a important event during a trendy democracy however massive sections of society round the world don’t trust their election system that is major concern for the democracy. Even the world’s largest democracies like Republic of India, us, and Japan still suffer from a blemished legal system. Vote rigging, hacking of the EVM (Electronic vote machine), election manipulation, and booth capturing square measure the key problems within the current electoral system. during this system, we tend to square measure work the problems|the problems within the election vote systems and attempting to propose the E-voting model which might resolve these issues. The system can highlight a number of the popular blockchain frameworks that provide blockchain as a service and associated electronic E-voting system that is predicated on blockchain that addresses all limitations severally, it additionally preserve participant’s obscurity whereas still being hospitable public examination. Building Associate in Nursing electronic electoral system that satisfies the legal necessities of legislators has been a challenge for an extended time. Distributed ledger technologies is Associate in Nursing exciting technological advancement within the info technology world. Blockchain technologies supply Associate in Nursing infinite vary of applications cashing in on sharing economies. Blockchain could be a unquiet technology of current era and guarantees to enhance the resilience of e-voting systems. this technique presents a shot to leverage edges of blockchain like cryptological foundations and transparency to attain an efficient theme for e-voting. The projected theme conforms to the elemental necessities for e-voting schemes and achieves end-to-end verifiability. The system presents in-depth analysis of the theme that with success demonstrates its effectiveness to attain Associate in Nursing end-to-end verifiable e-voting theme.
Open access
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Network Security and Intrusion Detection
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a network of distributed power generating units, flexible power consumers, and storage systems. A VPP balances the load on the grid by allocating the power generated by different linked units during periods of peak load. Demand-side energy equipment, such as Electric Vehicles (EVs) and mobile robots, can also balance the energy supply-demand when effectively deployed. However, fluctuation of the power generated by the various power units makes the supply power balance a challenging goal. Moreover, the communication security between a VPP aggregator and end facilities is critical and has not been carefully investigated. This paper proposes an AI-enabled, blockchain-based electric vehicle integration system, named AEBIS for power management in a smart grid platform. The system is based on an artificial neural-network and federated learning approaches for EV charge prediction, in which the EV fleet is employed as a consumer and as a supplier of electrical energy within a VPP platform. The evaluation results show that the proposed approach achieved high power consumption forecast with R2score of 0.938 in the conventional training scenario. When applying a federated learning approach, the accuracy decreased by only 1.7%. Therefore, with the accurate prediction of power consumption, the proposed system produces reliable and timely service to supply extra electricity from the vehicular network, decreasing the power fluctuation level. Also, the employment of AI-chip ensures a cost-efficient performance. Moreover, introducing blockchain technology in the system further achieves a secure and transparent service at the expense of an acceptable memory and latency cost.
Current Intellectual Property (IP) copyright protection technologies have low efficiency of authority management, traceability, and scalability. In this work, a blockchain-based IP copyright protection algorithm is proposed to address these issues by establishing a mathematical model of quadratic matrix transformation for IP circuit trading. This algorithm proposes the design of a distributed random embedding mechanism and position mapping function that, when IP trading occurs in blockchain, the traceable mapping function can trace the copyright information in IP trading with the mapping factor. Besides, this work analyzes the credibility, transparency, overhead, and complexity. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can resist replaying attacks, yet the copyright information can be rapidly retrieved after suffered from attacks. Still, the proposed algorithm has higher security, stability, and traceability.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Adnan Iftekhar, Xiaohui Cui, Mir Hassan, Wasif Afzal
Food supply chain plays a vital role in human health and food prices. Food supply chain inefficiencies in terms of unfair competition and lack of regulations directly affect the quality of human life and increase food safety risks. This work merges Hyperledger Fabric, an enterprise-ready blockchain platform with existing conventional infrastructure, to trace a food package from farm to fork using an identity unique for each food package while keeping it uncomplicated. It keeps the records of business transactions that are secured and accessible to stakeholders according to the agreed set of policies and rules without involving any centralized authority. This paper focuses on exploring and building an uncomplicated, low-cost solution to quickly link the existing food industry at different geographical locations in a chain to track and trace the food in the market.
Innovative solutions addressing product anti-counterfeiting and record provenance have been deployed across today's internationally spanning supply chain networks. These product anti-counterfeiting solutions are developed and implemented with centralized system architecture relying on centralized authorities or any form of intermediaries. Vulnerabilities of centralized product anti-counterfeiting solutions could possibly lead to system failure or susceptibility of malicious modifications performed on product records or various potential attacks to the system components by dishonest participant nodes traversing along the supply chain. Blockchain technology has progressed from merely with a use case of immutable ledger for cryptocurrency transactions to a programmable interactive environment of developing decentralized and reliable applications addressing different use cases globally. In this research, so as to facilitate trustworthy data provenance retrieval, verification and management, as well as strengthening capability of product anti-counterfeiting, key areas of decentralization and feasible mechanisms of developing decentralized and distributed product anti-counterfeiting and traceability ecosystems utilizing blockchain technology, are identified via a series of security and threat analyses performed mainly against NFC-Enabled Anti-Counterfeiting System (NAS) which is one of the solutions currently implemented in the industry with centralized architecture. A set of fundamental system requirements are set out for developing a blockchain-enabled autonomous and decentralized solution for supply chain anti-counterfeiting and traceability, as a secure and immutable scientific data provenance tracking and management platform in which provenance records, providing compelling properties on data integrity of luxurious goods, are recorded and verified automatically, for supply chain industry.
Abstract Currently we are saying that we are at the dawn of the fourth revolution, which is marked by using cyberphysical systems and the Internet of Things. This is marked as Industry 4.0 (I4.0). With Industry 4.0 is also closely linked concept Logistics 4.0. The highly dynamic and uncertain logistic markets and huge logistic networks require new methods, products and services. The concept of the Internet of Things and Services (IoT&S), Big Data/ Data Mining (DM), cloud computing, 3D printing, Blockchain and cyber physical system (CPS) etc. seem to be the probable technical solution for that. However, associated risks hamper its implementation and lack a comprehensive overview. In response, the paper proposes a framework of risks in the context of Logistics 4.0. They are here economic risks, that are associated e.g . with high or false investments. From a social perspective, risks the job losses, are considered too. Additionally, risks can be associated with technical risks, e.g . technical integration, information technology (IT)-related risks such as data security, and legal and political risks, such as for instance unsolved legal clarity in terms of data possession. It is therefore necessary to know the potential risks in the implementation process.
Groundbreaking, amalgamation of digital supply chain and blockchain is increasing day by day
as it helps to reach the needs of the consumers and also track the services effectively, which helps in providing
viewable supply chain management. This paper focuses on the essential availabilities of block chain application.
A modest attempt is made to examine the previous study and the previews and opinions of the experts, studies
undertaken earlier. This study intent is to begin with introducing of Blockchain, how blockchain work,
blockchain as a decentralized database, blockchain a driving force, blockchain empowering a better customers
experience and finally the blockchain benefits. The current research study is trying to look over the various
attributes of the blockchain. Therefore, full attention is given to identify how blockchain can be useful. Based on
all these evaluations, this study tries to identify the uses of blockchain as a decentralized autonomous
organization (DAO).
Features and modern operating conditions of utility companies (institutions, organizations), in particular, the processes of democratization, decentralization, openness of society,necessitate improving the system of indicators that define requirements for the criteria used to evaluate their performance. Given the goals, objectives and current functions, the evaluation of performance of a utility company(institution, organization) should be carried out both according to economic and social criteria, which is explained by the fact that activities of a utility company(institution, organization) are aimed at solving social problems of the corresponding territorial community.This means that its performance efficiency is not always determined by profitability.It is possible to assess effectiveness of utility companies' using local finance, which are the main income item in their budget, and the level of influence of a utility company(institution, organization) on the development of a territorial community only if the enterprise is transparent and open. It is proposed to single out the criterion "Public awareness of activities of a utility company (institution, organization)" in the system of criteria for assessing social performance of a utility company (institution, organization). Accordingly, in the system of 332.1
Open access
Legal and Policy Issues
Economic and Technological Developments in Russia
Economic, Social, and Public Health Issues in Russia and Globally
Rafael Leal‐Arcas, Michalis Kanakakis, George Thanos, Gemma Kate Fearnley
Achieving greater renewable energy usage, energy efficiency, and energy security are practically universal goals today. This Article introduces business models to illustrate the roles of multiple actors in a decentralized smart grid system. It identifies interactions between the various players, the tools they will manage, the added value in using the functionalities of such a system, and ways to maximize profits for those involved. The Article also examines the United Kingdom (UK) as a case study. It explores where the UK stands in terms of introducing tools and technologies for decentralization, including electric vehicles, smart grids, and demand response mechanisms. It also examines regulation in the UK to assess how conducive it is for decentralized energy. In addition, the Article identifies specific concerns related to data protection stemming from smart metering and analyses relevant regulation in this regard.