Blockchain Papers

V Akshita., Dhanush J. S, Dikshitha Varman. A, V. Krishna Kumar

Immunization is all about using Block chain for managing and tracing the vaccine stocks, logistics and transparent distribution. Immunization gives you continuous visibility and enables actionable insights to track vaccine distribution and ensure a fair and equitable distribution. Immunization allows you to book your vaccination appointments and will also allow you to keep track of the vaccine being distributed. Block chain helps in maintaining the integrity and transparency of the whole process right from inception of the vaccine.

Esmaeel Rezaee, Ali Mohammad Saghiri, Agostino Forestiero

With the increasing growth of different types of data, search engines have become an essential tool on the Internet. Every day, billions of queries are run through few search engines with several privacy violations and monopoly problems. The blockchain, as a trending technology applied in various fields, including banking, IoT, education, etc., can be a beneficial alternative. Blockchain-based search engines, unlike monopolistic ones, do not have centralized controls. With a blockchain-based search system, no company can lay claims to user’s data or access search history and other related information. All these data will be encrypted and stored on a blockchain. Valuing users’ searches and paying them in return is another advantage of a blockchain-based search engine. Additionally, in smart environments, as a trending research field, blockchain-based search engines can provide context-aware and privacy-preserved search results. According to our research, few efforts have been made to develop blockchain use, which include studies generally in the early stages and few white papers. To the best of our knowledge, no research article has been published in this regard thus far. In this paper, a survey on blockchain-based search engines is provided. Additionally, we state that the blockchain is an essential paradigm for the search ecosystem by describing the advantages.

Wei Yan Ng, Tien-En Tan, Zhe Xiao, Prasanth V.H. Movva · 10 authors

Ophthalmology has been an early adopter of cutting-edge digital technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and could be primed to integrate blockchain architecture in the management of AI and big data analytics. Blockchain technology has seen rapid development and maturation over the past few years. Invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto (a presumed pseudonym for an anonymous inventor/group of inventors), the blockchain ledger, forming the basis of Bitcoin, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency.1 Since then, different blockchain infrastructures, with different consensus frameworks have emerged, such as Ethereum2 and Hyperledger Fabric.3 In essence, blockchain is a decentralized ledger with immutable properties allowing secure verifiable transfer of data in a peer-to-peer fashion, utilizing a common consensus protocol to prevent single points of failure. A variety of use cases have been developed to harness the advantages of blockchain technology, largely in the financial sector and the business world. However, the health care sector, which requires tight control over confidential medical data, is well-poised to take advantage of the unique characteristics of blockchain technology. This could be of particular relevance in the management of big data and AI research, notably in the field of ophthalmology which has an abundance of numerical data and imagery. In this review, we introduce the basic concepts of blockchain technology, discuss its unique advantages and its use case in ophthalmology. BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY The concept of blockchain technology is built on a framework of an ever-growing list (or “chain”) of transactions, grouped into units called “blocks”, which in turn are linked to their immediate predecessors by a unique cryptographic “hash value”. Generated from specific mathematical algorithms such as the SHA-256 (256-bit Secure Hash Algorithm), hash values are characterized by their deterministic value, as well as pre-image and collision resistance, serving as “fingerprint” of a block and its content. Blockchain platforms depend on “consensus protocols” to approve, record, and validate each transaction. A consensus protocol is a form of rules to reach a common majority agreement on the present state of the ledger within a blockchain network. Once a consensus has been reached, the block containing the log of the data is added into the “chain”, and shared with every stakeholder in the network, known individually as “nodes”. The archetypal example would be a bitcoin transaction. When the transfer of coins is initiated between 2 parties, miners compete for the right to record the transaction by solving a difficult mathematical puzzle, expanding precious energy in the process. The node that solves the puzzle first is recognized for its efforts and given the right to record the transaction, hence reaching a consensus. The common transparency and traceability of each individual cryptoasset transaction prevent duplicative transactions, solving the well-documented “double-spend” problem—an inherent flaw in digital asset schemes where the same single-use digital token is spent more than once. This forms the basis of a hack-resistant, immutable distributed ledger. Current blockchain platforms can be broadly dichotomized into two main groups—permissionless or permitted (Fig. 1). Permissionless blockchain platforms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum provide unrestricted access to the public. Conversely, permitted platforms such as Hyperledger Fabric will retain a central approving authority. Hybrid or consortium-based blockchain platforms are derived from a combination of these two architectures, resulting in partial centralization with participation restricted through the private network. Table 1 provides a summary of the terms and definitions unique to blockchain technology.FIGURE 1: Permissionless blockchain targets at implementing a common platform that can involve anyone with anonymous identity into the network, which often comes with built-in currency and is public, open and fully decentralized; Permitted blockchain engages a few organizations with known identity (forming a consortium) that require collaborative operations to realize specific business logics, which are co-hosted/co-managed by the consortium. TABLE 1 - Summary of Common Terms and Definitions in Blockchain Technology Ledger Book or computer file for recording and totaling transactions Blocks Transactions cumulated and recorded into fixed sized blocks. Each block contains timestamp, a unique hash, the hash of the previous block and transaction data 23 Chain List of blocks linked cryptographically23 Hash Cryptographically generated fixed length string of values, based on random input of transactions/data, that is easily verifiable23 Mining Validating of transactions and recording onto the decentralized ledger24 Byzantine generals problem Computer science description of a situation where involved parties must reach a decision to avoid failure, but some parties are dishonest or malicious25,26 Consensus protocol A form of rules to reach a common majority agreement on the present state of the ledger within a blockchain network23 Fault tolerance Level that allows a system to continue operating normally in the event of failure of some components or nodes27 Nodes Communicating points that may perform different functions on the blockchain platform23 Permissioned Access control layer governed by a central authority23 Permissionless Public access without restriction to participation23 Hybrid/Consortium Blockchain platform governed by multiple organizations23 Immutable Unchangeable ledger23,24 Cryptoasset Digital assets that utilizes cryptography as a medium for transactions24 Smart contracts Automated executions of complex transactions based on computational logic when certain conditions are met24 Asymptotic security Security if and only if the adversary's advantage is a negligible function of the security parameters i.e. a secure scheme that is conditionally proven to be harder than any polynomial for the attacker to break28 Deterministic Same operation performed by different nodes will produce the same result29 Pre-image resistance Computationally infeasible to derive the original transaction data from a given hash function30 Collision resistance Computationally infeasible for two distinct inputs to result in the same hash output23 APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY Apart from application in finance, blockchain technology could be highly relevant in other industries such as health care, insurance, and supply chain management4 due to the inherent key advantages: immutable transaction records, decentralized peer-to-peer transaction, costless verification, reduction of incumbent market power, avoidance of single point of failure, and smart contracts – automated executions of complex transactions based on computational logic. Although it has yet to achieve mass-market adoption, blockchain technology has been heavily touted as a potential general-purpose technology, gaining traction across multiple industries such as finance, hedge fund management, and supply chain management.4 Years of reliance on antiquated digital systems have resulted in cumbersome, inefficient and resource-intensive processes. This results in significant resource wastage, and also renders systems susceptible to fraudulent attacks or system-wide failure.5 Financial institutions are therefore innovating with blockchain technology to address these concerns. Another frontrunner in the adoption of blockchain technology is supply chain management.6–8 The complex multi-faceted nature of supply chains places heavy demands on proper record keeping, quality control, and transaction monitoring. Current supply chains rely on centralized intermediation entities with little transparency across the entire chain. The supply chain thus suffers from vulnerability towards malicious modification or human errors and poor accountability. The application of blockchain technologies has the potential to disrupt the industry by effectively eliminating the trust required between involved parties. By transferring the onus of trust onto the algorithm and its immutable record, the issues associated with the need of verifying intermediaries can be eliminated.9 BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTH CARE In a 2019 technical report by International Telecommunication Union,10 the Telecommunication Standardization Sector identified the health care sector as one of the key sectors that could be a beneficiary of blockchain technology. The devastating COVID-19 pandemic, while unfortunate, has provided a significant impetus to accelerate this process.11 It is important to note that traditional distributed database management system (DDMS) can support the secure transfer of health data through encryption and data masking with the acceptance of several significant flaws: potential single point of failure, subject identification and tampering of data. In comparison, blockchain armed with asymmetric encryption and hash values can surmount these challenges albeit with a measured sacrifice of throughput rate and latency. At this point, adoption of blockchain in health care is still in its infancy with multiple proof of concepts but a limited selection of commercially available health care blockchain platforms. At present, most of these platforms are focused on electronic medical record management, such as patient-controlled electronic medical record (EMR) accessibility and immutable recording of clinical records. One of the most well-known is Medicalchain (Medicalchain SA, London) which is built on the Hyperledger Fabric architecture. Medicalchain's12 primary focus is to assign EMR access-granting rights to the patient, thereby returning control back to the patient. It provides a self-contained incentive system by rewarding data-sharing behavior with its native token (MedToken) which can be utilized in exchange for relevant services. Another example is the national rollout of the e-Estonia health care EMR built on Keyless Signature Infrastructure blockchain technology, allowing for verification of integrity of accessed medical records as well as immutable record of access logs.13 Since its inception in 2016, it has enabled digital permeation with 99% of health data digitized securely and handling up to 1.8 million patient queries every month, made possible through decentralized authenticated sharing of data. Notable examples of data sharing on the e-Estonia platform include physician retrieval of time-critical patient information during emergencies as well as patient monitored access of their medical data.14 Separately, blockchain could potentially be a disrupting technology in the health care supply chain and insurance field. The decentralized nature of blockchain provides a platform for cross-institution and cross-border collaboration, providing transparent check and balance to all stakeholders. This gave rise to initiatives such as Pharmaledger—a European Union blockchain consortium involving 12 global pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer, Novartis and GSK.15 In the health care insurance field, peer-to-peer transaction of cryptographically-secured sensitive information between stakeholders would remove costly intermediaries and improve efficacy. Fraudulent activities would also be deterred by the algorithm and the immutable log. This could transform the entire patient-customer journey, from verifiable health declaration during policy purchase to transparent and traceable claims process. It is thus becoming apparent that the trust-less verification and immutable audit trail afforded by blockchain is exceedingly crucial for innovative applications in health care. BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN OPHTHALMOLOGY Ophthalmology as a field has been an early adopter of new evolving technologies, in particular the application of AI and deep learning (DL) for the automated analysis of medical images, such as retinal images and optical coherence tomography scans.16–18 DL in medicine (and ophthalmology), an area of active research, is highly reliant on the availability of large high-quality datasets as well as rigorous model validation and testing. However, the management of diverse datasets from different countries and centers for training and testing of algorithms in these studies poses significant challenges. This is attributable to extensive restrictions due to concerns over data security and patient confidentiality, preventing honest transfer of research medical data to support collaborative efforts.19 In addition, proper research community oversight over the multitude of novel AI and DL systems is unattainable due to a lack of transparency regarding model validation and testing. Recognizing these challenges, in a recent study, Tan et al20 proposed a permission blockchain-enabled platform (based on Hyperledger Fabric) to assist with the development and validation of DL algorithms to tackle the global myopia epidemic. They provide proof-of-concept, using this blockchain-enabled platform for secure handling of data transfer, model sharing, and auditable reporting of model validation and testing results across 3 separate sites in 2 countries, in the development of robust DL algorithms for automated detection of myopic macular degeneration and high myopia from retinal images. They suggest that this blockchain-based solution for the management of research datasets and model testing results provides advantages of data integrity and immutability, as well as automation in data consistency and a shared ledger promoting easier collaboration. They also suggest that widespread adoption of this novel method could increase validity and transparency of AI studies in medicine, and may allow health regulators (eg, US Food and Drug Administration) a means of effectively auditing and verifying the diagnostic performance of AI algorithms for regulatory approval. In conjunction, the immutable transaction log replicated across all nodes provides the ideal digital infrastructure to track each iteration of the AI-model training, improving collaborative efficiency and trust. Further applications of blockchain in the health care industry could likewise impact the field of ophthalmology (Table 2). Supply chain transformation is particularly valuable for perishable products21 and would likely play a significant role in health care, where tight monitoring of labile high-value medications is crucial to guarantee safety and efficacy. Scarce or costly products that require highly regulated storage conditions would be ideal candidates, examples which include total parenteral nutrition, mRNA COVID vaccines, intra-vitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factors (anti-VEGF), blood products or biologics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lin et al established a blockchain-based platform to provide virtual clinical service for ophthalmology patients. They proposed a proof-of-concept to verify and efficiently monitor online prescriptions, creating a blockchain-based online pharmacy for prescription renewals and remote drug delivery.22 The significance of this lies in the fact that telemedicine is a highly visual-dependent service, making it particularly well-suited for visual-oriented specialties like ophthalmology. Another potential application of blockchain in health care, which will be highly relevant in ophthalmology, is the use of blockchain technology to monitor and improve patient treatment adherence as well as to automate medication support programs. This would be particularly valuable for high-cost treatment regimes that require considerable patient compliance, such as recurring intra-vitreal anti-VEGF treatments. TABLE 2 - Blockchain Characteristics and Potential Use Case Immutability31–38 AI algorithm training and testing, health care insurance, data transfer, medication distribution supply chain, patient support programme, medical licensing, patient disease monitoring, clinical drug trial Traceability and provenance31,32,34,37,39 Data transfer, medication distribution supply chain, patient support programme, medical licensing De-centralized data security33–37 Patient support programme, health care insurance, patient disease monitoring, data transfer Peer to peer transaction31–35,37 Health care insurance, data transfer, patient support programmes Cost-less verification33,35,37–40 Health care insurance, patient disease monitoring, patient support programmes, medication distribution supply chain, clinical drug trial Smart contracts/De-centralized autonomous organisations33,35,40,41 Medication distribution supply chain, patient support programmes, health care insurance, Anonymity31,32 Data transfer, patient support programme CHALLENGES Although we expect greater innovative and disruptive use cases for blockchain technology in ophthalmology to materialize, implementation and integration could remain a challenge. First, selecting the appropriate blockchain platform will be critical which, under most health care circumstances, will exclude permissionless blockchains. Researchers, clinicians, and hospital administrators will need to be cognizant of the clinical and operational workflow changes required if blockchain is adopted. Second, mindsets deeply rooted in the traditional DDMS will need to be changed. In addition, switching from DDMS to blockchain will entail greater digital automation, integration of application programming interfaces (API) and distributed applications (Dapps), off and on-chain event connection, wholesale conversion to digitized data collection and upgrading of the information technology infrastructure. Third, there are significant costs. Investments will be required for dedicated digital hardware, networking and storage overheads as well as maintenance. Fourth, from a clinician and provider perspective, immutability of the blockchain platform will prevent amendments of erroneous entries whereas latency could be a source of frustration when contrasted against highly efficient traditional client-server databases. Fifth, blockchain relies on a flawless algorithm to create an asymptotic security, hence cryptographic flaws could leave vulnerabilities within the platform. Finally, data security issues need to be addressed. The decentralized peer-to-peer transaction could potentially compromise patient's data if it has not been appropriately anonymized. The sensitive nature of health care data hence demands that the algorithm undergo extensive trials and penetration tests to guarantee that the patient's privacy and confidentiality is upheld. Finally, the democratization of data sharing at the patient-level might not materialize. It is highly possible that the lure of incentives would be nullified by heightened senses towards privacy preservation, hence failing to convince and motivate patients to proactively share their data. Such inertia could be further compounded by a lack of understanding and trust of the reliability of blockchain platforms. It might be more realistic to consider monetization of big data in an institutional level, yet even that faces significant resistance for fear of privacy breaches or the loss of autonomy over valuable data (Supplementary table: https://links.lww.com/APJO/A87). CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In conclusion, the health care sector faces a pressing need for new digital technologies that allow secure and efficient sharing of data to address the inefficiencies and demands in current systems. There is increasing recognition that blockchain technology could deliver the novel digital platforms that are required to address these requirements. In the field of ophthalmology, blockchain technology can help to monitor data and results integrity, greater research to support AI In addition, and algorithms are likely to further improve the and of blockchain for widespread health care applications care.

Mohd Majid Akhtar, Danish Raza Rizvi, Mohd Abdul Ahad, Salil S. Kanhere · 6 authors

A potential rise in interest in the Internet of Things in the upcoming years is expected in the fields of healthcare, supply chain, logistics, industries, smart cities, smart homes, cyber physical systems, etc. This paper discloses the fusion of the Internet of Things (IoT) with the so-called "distributed ledger technology" (DLT). IoT sensors like temperature sensors, motion sensors, GPS or connected devices convey the activity of the environment. Sensor information acquired by such IoT devices are then stored in a blockchain. Data on a blockchain remains immutable however its scalability still remains a challenging issue and thus represents a hindrance for its mass adoption in the IoT. Here a communication system based on IOTA and DLT is discussed with a systematic architecture for IoT devices and a future machine-to-machine (M2M) economy. The data communication between IoT devices is analyzed using multiple use cases such as sending DHT-11 sensor data to the IOTA tangle. The value communication is analyzed using a novel "micro-payment enabled over the top" (MP-OTT) streaming platform that is based on the "pay-as-you-go" and "consumption based" models to showcase IOTA value transactions. In this paper, we propose an enhancement to the classical "masked authenticated message" (MAM) communication protocol and two architectures called dual signature masked authenticated message (DSMAM) and index-based address value transaction (IBAVT). Further, we provided an empirical analysis and discussion of the proposed techniques. The implemented solution provides better address management with secured sharing and communication of IoT data, complete access control over the ownership of data and high scalability in terms of number of transactions that can be handled.

Zhonghua Zhang, Xifei Song, Lei Liu, Jie Yin · 6 authors

Blockchain constructs a distributed point-to-point system, which is a secure and verifiable mechanism for decentralized transaction validation and is widely used in financial economy, Internet of Things, large data, cloud computing, and edge computing. On the other hand, artificial intelligence technology is gradually promoting the intelligent development of various industries. As two promising technologies today, there is a natural advantage in the convergence between blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies. Blockchain makes artificial intelligence more autonomous and credible, and artificial intelligence can prompt blockchain toward intelligence. In this paper, we analyze the combination of blockchain and artificial intelligence from a more comprehensive and three-dimensional point of view. We first introduce the background of artificial intelligence and the concept, characteristics, and key technologies of blockchain and subsequently analyze the feasibility of combining blockchain with artificial intelligence. Next, we summarize the research work on the convergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence in home and overseas within this category. After that, we list some related application scenarios about the convergence of both technologies and also point out existing problems and challenges. Finally, we discuss the future work.

European Society of Radiology (ESR), Elmar Kotter, Luis Martí‐Bonmatí, Adrian P. Brady · 5 authors

Blockchain can be thought of as a distributed database allowing tracing of the origin of data, and who has manipulated a given data set in the past. Medical applications of blockchain technology are emerging. Blockchain has many potential applications in medical imaging, typically making use of the tracking of radiological or clinical data. Clinical applications of blockchain technology include the documentation of the contribution of different "authors" including AI algorithms to multipart reports, the documentation of the use of AI algorithms towards the diagnosis, the possibility to enhance the accessibility of relevant information in electronic medical records, and a better control of users over their personal health records. Applications of blockchain in research include a better traceability of image data within clinical trials, a better traceability of the contributions of image and annotation data for the training of AI algorithms, thus enhancing privacy and fairness, and potentially make imaging data for AI available in larger quantities. Blockchain also allows for dynamic consenting and has the potential to empower patients and giving them a better control who has accessed their health data. There are also many potential applications of blockchain technology for administrative purposes, like keeping track of learning achievements or the surveillance of medical devices. This article gives a brief introduction in the basic technology and terminology of blockchain technology and concentrates on the potential applications of blockchain in medical imaging.

Yan Zhuang

Clinical trials are the cornerstone of treatment discovery because they provide comprehensive scientific evidence on the safety, efficacy, and optimal use of therapeutics. However, current clinical trials are facing multiple challenges such as patient recruitment, data capture, and overall management. There are various causes of patient recruitment challenges such as inefficient advertising models, complex protocols, and distant trial sites. Data inconsistency is the main challenge of the data capture process. Source data verification, a standard method used for data monitoring, is resource-intensive that can cost up to 25 percent of the total budget. The current clinical trial management system market is fragmented and lacks thorough designs with all desired features so that nearly all respondents to management systems from the annual global survey reported dissatisfaction with the current management system. Based on these challenges, disruptive technologies such as blockchain may provide feasible solutions by utilizing its unique features. Blockchain is an open-source distributed ledger technology that was first applied in the financial sector. Its features such as public audibility, data security, immutability, anonymity, and smart contracts are a good fit for the needs of many healthcare applications. However, there are several common challenges of blockchain technology so that most blockchain designs for healthcare applications are still in the early stage of implementation. This dissertation aims at optimizing clinical trials by developing multiple applications using blockchain technology to provide feasible solutions to the current challenges. We will use real-world data to conduct large-scale simulations to evaluate the feasibility and performance of proposed blockchain models for clinical trial applications.

Tien‐En Tan, Ayesha Anees, Cheng Chen, Shaohua Li · 40 authors

BACKGROUND: By 2050, almost 5 billion people globally are projected to have myopia, of whom 20% are likely to have high myopia with clinically significant risk of sight-threatening complications such as myopic macular degeneration. These are diagnoses that typically require specialist assessment or measurement with multiple unconnected pieces of equipment. Artificial intelligence (AI) approaches might be effective for risk stratification and to identify individuals at highest risk of visual loss. However, unresolved challenges for AI medical studies remain, including paucity of transparency, auditability, and traceability. METHODS: In this retrospective multicohort study, we developed and tested retinal photograph-based deep learning algorithms for detection of myopic macular degeneration and high myopia, using a total of 226 686 retinal images. First we trained and internally validated the algorithms on datasets from Singapore, and then externally tested them on datasets from China, Taiwan, India, Russia, and the UK. We also compared the performance of the deep learning algorithms against six human experts in the grading of a randomly selected dataset of 400 images from the external datasets. As proof of concept, we used a blockchain-based AI platform to demonstrate the real-world application of secure data transfer, model transfer, and model testing across three sites in Singapore and China. FINDINGS: The deep learning algorithms showed robust diagnostic performance with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves [AUC] of 0·969 (95% CI 0·959-0·977) or higher for myopic macular degeneration and 0·913 (0·906-0·920) or higher for high myopia across the external testing datasets with available data. In the randomly selected dataset, the deep learning algorithms outperformed all six expert graders in detection of each condition (AUC of 0·978 [0·957-0·994] for myopic macular degeneration and 0·973 [0·941-0·995] for high myopia). We also successfully used blockchain technology for data transfer, model transfer, and model testing between sites and across two countries. INTERPRETATION: Deep learning algorithms can be effective tools for risk stratification and screening of myopic macular degeneration and high myopia among the large global population with myopia. The blockchain platform developed here could potentially serve as a trusted platform for performance testing of future AI models in medicine. FUNDING: None.

Yao Du, Zehua Wang, Victor C. M. Leung

Blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT), refers to a list of records with consecutive time stamps. This decentralization technology has become a powerful model to establish trust among trustless entities, in a verifiable manner. Motivated by the recent advancement of multi-access edge computing (MEC) and artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain-enabled edge intelligence has become an emerging technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). We review how blockchain-enabled edge intelligence works in the IoT domain, identify the emerging trends, and suggest open issues for further research. To be specific: (1) we first offer some basic knowledge of DLT, MEC, and AI; (2) a comprehensive review of current peer-reviewed literature is given to identify emerging trends in this research area; and (3) we discuss some open issues and research gaps for future investigations. We expect that blockchain-enabled edge intelligence will become an important enabler of future IoT, providing trust and intelligence to satisfy the sophisticated needs of industries and society.

P. Arul, S Renuka

Abstract In healthcare systems IoT device has to give sensitive and private information about the patients, it should be maintained extremely confidential and personal. Most of the IoT-healthcare devices based on existing centralized server data management technology don’t give any guarantee of authenticity and security. Blockchain is a public tamperproof ledger that is decentralized network system in which transaction of data is distributed among the nodes. Blockchain with its consensus algorithm can solve problems by providing decentralized computation for IoT data. The combination of IoT and blockchain technologies with consensus algorithm can become a best choice of designing the secured distributed e-healthcare systems. This paper reviews the blockchain technology and the basic principle and characteristics of a consensus algorithm for IoT- based e- healthcare system.

A. H. Mohsin, A. A. Zaidan, B. B. Zaidan, K. I. Mohammed · 7 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Shweta Kaushik

In accordance with on-going progress related to network advances, 5G portrays the up and coming age of versatile systems that further guarantees astounding execution enhancements similar to the production of another worth chain. Corresponding with 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) has additionally developed as the latest worldview for the combination of enormous correspondence proficient heterogeneous smart devices. 5G is conceived to expand the IoT’s extension and fields of pertinence. However, because current versatile systems and increasingly broad IoT frameworks depend on combined models, in this manner, it is foreseen that they will confront gigantic difficulties obtaining the prerequisites of future 5G-empowered IoT use cases. To address these unavoidable issues, blockchain stands apart as a promising innovation. Some of the contributions of blockchain innovation are its unchanging nature, non-revocation, confirmation of provenance, integrity and protection. Blockchain’s blend with 5G IoT still requires fundamental bits of knowledge concerning solid application spaces, adaptability, protection issues, execution and potential budgetary advantages. The chapter aims to expound and underscore the key parts of the utilization of blockchain for 5G and the IoT. To alleviate the previously mentioned issues, in this chapter, we present an inside and out review of the best in class proposition.

Suparat Yongjoh, Chakchai So–In, Peerapol Kompunt, Paisarn Muneesawang · 5 authors

The Internet-of-Healthcare Systems is a highly distributed special emulation of the Internet of Things technology. Patient medical data sourced from the participating hospitals are integrated with a decentralized storage system using blockchain technology to provide the highest level of storage and access security possible, overcoming the security and data administration problems that may occur at the local hospital level where the patient data is stored within the hospital’s central server, especially if that data is subjected to external threats. The Internet-of-Healthcare Systems, currently implemented in over 350 hospitals, utilises software agents, accessed using the Message Queueing Telemetry Transport protocol, which efficiently handles potentially thousands of participating local systems without loss of network timeliness. Also, the system works with the wide variety of health information systems used in the participating hospitals. This makes the system a worthwhile candidate for a nationwide integrated health records system, and is an exemplar for many different types of secure networks that could be generically called an Internet of Special Things; a network of software agents programmed for a special purpose. Mobile device apps enable secure direct access to patient data in a central blockchain with download capability to a mobile device, under strict and fully managed access control using Amazon Web Services, with permissions controlled by the Key Management System. Feedback from participating medical staff indicates a high level of satisfaction with all aspects of the system: ease of use, ease of installation, maintenance and update, and, importantly, the security of the system.

André Henrique Mayer, Vinicius Facco Rodrigues, Cristiano André da Costa, Rodrigo da Rosa Righi · 6 authors

The Internet of Things (IoT) adoption grows significantly and is successful in many different domains. Nevertheless, the ever-growing demand for more connected devices pushes the requirement for scalable IoT architectures capable of maintaining the security and privacy of collected data. The latter is a particularly critical aspect when considering sensitive data, e.g., medical records. One solution to address this challenge is to modify the centralized back-end model to one based on a Blockchain, changing the way IoT data is stored and shared by providing a decentralized peer-to-peer network. This technology enables naming and tracking for connected devices, and in the case of this article, features a high availability of Personal Health Records, yet protecting patients’ privacy through the use of cryptography. Furthermore, the addition of Fog computing mechanisms helps to achieve real-time data processing, supports precision medicine, and avoids single points of failure. As a result, devices have a local and more resilient ecosystem for operation. In this context, this work proposes an architecture model named FogChain, which combines the technologies Blockchain, Fog computing, and the IoT for the healthcare domain. Our main contribution is the FogChain model itself, and its concept of overcoming IoT constraints by employing a differential approach, adding an intermediary Fog layer near to the edge to improve their capabilities and resources. Experiments demonstrate that FogChain can achieve a 62.6% faster response time when compared to Cloud-like Blockchain infrastructures. The results obtained from the evaluation endorses the capacity of our model in achieving its goals while retaining application performance.

Ziaur Rahman, Xun Yi, Ibrahim Khalil, Andrei Kelarev

The world has been experiencing a mind-blowing expansion of blockchain technology since it was first introduced as an emerging means of cryptocurrency called bitcoin. Currently, it has been regarded as a pervasive frame of reference across almost all research domains, ranging from virtual cash to agriculture or even supply-chain to the Internet of Things. The ability to have a self-administering register with legitimate immutability makes blockchain appealing for the Internet of Things (IoT). As billions of IoT devices are now online in distributed fashion, the huge challenges and questions require to addressed in pursuit of urgently needed solutions. The present paper has been motivated by the aim of facilitating such efforts. The contribution of this work is to figure out those trade-offs the IoT ecosystem usually encounters because of the wrong choice of blockchain technology. Unlike a survey or review, the critical findings of this paper target sorting out specific security challenges of blockchain-IoT Infrastructure. The contribution includes how to direct developers and researchers in this domain to pick out the unblemished combinations of Blockchain enabled IoT applications. In addition, the paper promises to bring a deep insight on Ethereum, Hyperledger blockchain and IOTA technology to show their limitations and prospects in terms of performance and scalability.

Clement Nartey, Eric Tutu Tchao, James Dzisi Gadze, Eliel Keelson · 7 authors

Digitization and automation have engulfed every scope and sphere of life. Internet of Things (IoT) has been the main enabler of the revolution. There still exist challenges in IoT that need to be addressed such as the limited address space for the increasing number of devices when using IPv4 and IPv6 as well as key security issues such as vulnerable access control mechanisms. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that has immense benefits such as enhanced security and traceability. Thus, blockchain can serve as a good foundation for applications based on transaction and interactions. IoT implementations and applications are by definition distributed. This means blockchain can help to solve most of the security vulnerabilities and traceability concerns of IoTs by using blockchain as a ledger that can keep track of how devices interact, in which state they are and how they transact with other IoT devices. IoT applications have been mainly implemented with technologies such as cloud and fog computing, and AI to help address some of its key challenges. The key implementation challenges and technical choices to consider in making a successful blockchain IoT (BIoT) project are clearly outlined in this paper. The security and privacy aspect of BIoT applications are also analyzed, and several relevant solutions to improve the scalability and throughput of such applications are proposed. The paper also reviews integration schemes and monitoring frameworks for BIoT applications. A hybrid blockchain IoT integration architecture that makes use of containerization is proposed.

Darrell Yonathan, Diyanatul Husna, F. Astha Ekadiyanto, I Ketut Eddy Purnama · 10 authors

This paper discusses the implementation of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain system for telemedicine data storage. Telemedicine is one of the currently developing digital technologies in the health and medical sectors. Telemedicine can be more efficient when seeking treatment because patients do not need to see a doctor face to face. When using blockchain technology, the stored data becomes more transparent for each node in the blockchain network but has verification on every transaction which takes time and gas costs. However, telemedicine has several risks and problems, one of which is long data storage process time because there must be a verification process first to ensure data security. Another problem faced is the issue of the gas fee of the blockchain telemedicine system which is billed in every data storage transaction. In this study, a blockchain system was introduced for managing and securing databases on telemedicine. The implementation of this blockchain system was carried out on a website page that can add data to and retrieve data from the blockchain system. The results of this study showed that blockchain was successfully implemented to store telemedicine data with Ethereum. The analysis in this paper refers to the set and gets functions. The set function is used to send data to the blockchain, and the get function is used to retrieve data from the blockchain. From testing, the Get function has a much faster execution time than the Set function because the Get function does not require verification to retrieve its data. In the iterations carried out—namely 1, 10, and 100—the longest time on average was at 100 iterations when compared to the other iterations. In the tests carried out, the more characters that were stored, the more gas costs must be paid. In the tests, the percentage increase in costs was 0.34% per character.

Sanjib K. Deka, Subhasish Goswami, Abhinav Anand

Maintenance of immutable vaccination records and provision of accessing the records in order to prove immunity has been the need of the hour. The recent spread of Covid19 and related uncertainty over vaccinations and immunity have made the search for a secure trustable system for reporting vaccination data more essential. Multiple digital, as well as paper-based solutions have been tested but none has been reported successful enough. In this paper, a technique has been proposed to solve the problem by introducing blockchain-based solution to maintain records of vaccination and proof of immunity for individuals. The purpose has been to present a safe and efficient solution to the problem and hence the model proposed is based on concepts of smart contracts and built over Ethereum blockchain. The paper goes on to give a detailed study of the technique based on discussions of its various aspects like design, development and feasibility.

Tharaka Hewa, Mika Ylianttila, Madhusanka Liyanage

No abstract is available for this record.

Efe Bozkir, Shahram Eivazi, Mete Akgün, Enkelejda Kasneci

Eye tracking data collection in the virtual reality context is typically carried out in laboratory settings, which usually limits the number of participants or consumes at least several months of research time. In addition, under laboratory settings, subjects may not behave naturally due to being recorded in an uncomfortable environment. In this work, we propose a proof-of-concept eye tracking data collection protocol and its implementation to collect eye tracking data from remotely located subjects, particularly for virtual reality using Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts. With the proposed protocol, data collectors can collect high quality eye tracking data from a large number of human subjects with heterogeneous socio-demographic characteristics. The quality and the amount of data can be helpful for various tasks in data-driven human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.

Alessandra Pieroni, Noemi Scarpato, Lorenzo Felli

The Internet of Things (IoT) as a concept is fascinating and exciting, with an exponential growth just beginning. The IoT global market is expected to grow from 170 billion USD in 2017 to 560 billion USD by 2022. Though many experts have pegged IoT as the next industrial revolution, two of the major challenging aspects of IoT since the early days are having a secure privacy-safe ecosystem encompassing all building blocks of IoT architecture and solve the scalability problem as the number of devices increases. In recent years, Distributed Ledgers have often been referred to as the solution for both privacy and security problems. One form of distributed ledger is the Blockchain system. The aim of this paper consists of reviewing the most recent Blockchain architectures, comparing the most interesting and popular consensus algorithms, and evaluating the convergence between Blockchain and IoT by illustrating some of the main interesting projects in this research field. Furthermore, the paper provides a vision of a disruptive research topic that the authors are investigating: the use of AI algorithms to be applied to IoT devices belonging to a Blockchain architecture. This obviously requires that the devices be provided with adequate computational capacity and that can efficiently optimize their energy consumption.

Vipul Badhe, Pooja Nhavale, Sonal Todkar, Prajakta Shinde · 5 authors

While the number of universities, tertiary education students and number of graduates per year constantly increase, the need to easily verify degree certificates generates new business opportunities. In this paper we project two financial models balancing where the price for the service is balanced between the graduate and the employer as the main stakeholders of that service. Students demand a proof-of-certification at low cost and easy to check, employers also demand quick and trustable verification of degrees when recruiting. As large number of students graduate every year, the problem of fake certificates is a big issue. One can easily get fake certificates in India. Companies hiring thousands of fresher spend large amount of money to get the educational certificates and transcripts verified of applicants. A Digital Certificate using blockchain technology can address this problem. Blockchain is a decentralized distributed digital ledger collectively maintained by a network of computers, called nodes. The data in the blockchain cannot be modified by a person without the consent of everyone else who maintains the records. This makes the data secure.

Peiying Zhang, Xue Pang, Neeraj Kumar, Gagangeet Singh Aujla · 5 authors

With the advent of the Internet of things (IoT) era, more and more devices are connected to the IoT. Under the traditional cloud-thing centralized management mode, the transmission of massive data is facing many difficulties, and the reliability of data is difficult to be guaranteed. As emerging technologies, blockchain technology and edge computing (EC) technology have attracted the attention of academia in improving the reliability, privacy and invariability of IoT technology. In this paper, we combine the characteristics of the EC and blockchain to ensure the reliability of data transmission in the IoT. First of all, we propose a data transmission mechanism based on blockchain, which uses the distributed architecture of blockchain to ensure that the data is not tampered with; secondly, we introduce the three-tier structure in the architecture in turn; finally, we introduce the four working steps of the mechanism, which are similar to the working mechanism of blockchain. In the end, the simulation results show that the proposed scheme can ensure the reliability of data transmission in the Internet of things to a great extent.

Gagangeet Singh Aujla, Anish Jindal

The in-house health monitoring sensors form a large network of Internet of things (IoT) that continuously monitors and sends the data to the nearby devices or server. However, the connectivity of these IoT-based sensors with different entities leads to security loopholes wherein the adversary can exploit the vulnerabilities due to the openness of the data. This is a major concern especially in the healthcare sector where the change in data values from sensors can change the course of diagnosis which can cause severe health issues. Therefore, in order to prevent the data tempering and preserve the privacy of patients, we present a decoupled blockchain-based approach in the edge-envisioned ecosystem. This approach leverages the nearby edge devices to create the decoupled blocks in blockchain so as to securely transmit the healthcare data from sensors to the edge nodes. The edge nodes then transmit and store the data at the cloud using the incremental tensor-based scheme. This helps to reduce the data duplication of the huge amount of data transmitted in the large IoT healthcare network. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of the block preparation time, header generation time, tensor reduction ratio, and approximation error.