The creation of blockchain-based software applications requires today considerable technical knowledge, particularly in software design and programming. This is regarded as a major barrier in adopting this technology in business and making it accessible to a wider audience. As a solution, no-code and low-code approaches have been proposed that require only little or no programming knowledge for creating full-fledged software applications. In this paper we review academic approaches from the discipline of model-driven engineering as well as industrial no-code and low-code development platforms for blockchains. We further present a case study for an integrated no-code blockchain environment for demonstrating the state-of-the-art in this area. Based on the gained insights we derive requirements for the future development of no-code and low-code approaches that are dedicated to the field of blockchains.
For the development of blockchain smart contracts, a structured approach based on the principles of the Model Driven Architecture can be beneficial and facilitate the implementation of smart contracts. This paper presents such an approach, which, in combination with Unified Modeling Language (UML) Class and State machine diagrams, allows the smart contract structure and behavior logic to be modeled in several abstraction layers. This paper delves into details on how the model-to-model transformations from the specified Blockchain Platform Independent Model (PIM) with specified state-like behavior can be used to produce a Solidity Platform Specific Model (PSM). Subsequently, we elaborate on how the Solidity PSM is used for Solidity smart contract code generation by employing model-to-text transformations. The paper also demonstrates the process of our proposed transformations and code generation using smart contract code examples from Solidity documentation. Based on the examples, a Blockchain PIM is specified and transformed to Solidity PSM, which is then used for Solidity smart contract code generation. The generated smart contract code is then compiled, deployed on the Ethereum blockchain JavaScript virtual machine, and compared to the original smart contract code in terms of Solidity code metrics, similarity scores, and execution costs. The evaluation results indicate that our approach could be successfully used to model and later generate smart contract code.
Miguel Morales‐Sandoval, J. A. Llorens Molina, Heidy M. Marin-Castro, J. L. Gonzalez‐Compean
In an Inter-Organizational Business Process (IOBP), independent organizations (collaborators) exchange messages to perform business transactions. With process mining, the collaborators could know what they are actually doing from process execution data and take actions for improving the underlying business process. However, process mining assumes that the knowledge of the entire process is available, something that is difficult to achieve in IOBPs since process execution data generally is not shared among the collaborating entities due to regulations and confidentiality policies (exposure of customers’ data or business secrets). Additionally, there is an inherently lack-of-trust problem in IOBP as the collaborators are mutually untrusted and executed IOBP can be subject to dispute on counterfeiting actions. Recently, Blockchain has been suggested for IOBP execution management to mitigate the lack-of-trust problem. Independently, some works have suggested the use of Blockchain to support process mining tasks. In this paper, we study and address the problem of IOBP mining whose management and execution is supported by Blockchain. As contribution, we present an approach that takes advantage of Blockchain capabilities to tackle, at the same time, the lack-of-trust problem (management and execution) and confident execution data collection for process mining (discovery and conformance) of IOBPs. We present a method that (i) ensures the business rules for the correct execution and monitoring of the IOBP by collaborators, (ii) creates the event log, with data cleaning integrated, at the time the IOBP executes, and (iii) produces useful event log in XES and CSV format for the discovery and conformance checking tasks in process mining. By a set of experiments on real IOBPs, we validate our method and evaluate its impact in the resulting discovered models (fitness and precision metrics). Results revealed the effectiveness of our method to cope with both the lack-of-trust problem in IOBPs at the time that contributes to collect the data for process mining. Our method was implemented as a software tool available to the community as open-source code.
Flavio Corradini, Alessandro Marcelletti, Andrea Morichetta, Andrea Polini · 7 authors
As a disruptive technology, the blockchain is continuously finding novel application contexts, bringing new opportunities and radical changes. In this paper, we use blockchain as a communication infrastructure to support multi-party business processes. In particular, through smart contracts specifically generated by the mentioned business process, it is possible to derive a trustable infrastructure enabling the interaction among parties. Moreover, the emergence of different blockchain technologies, satisfying different characteristics, gives the possibility to support the same business process dealing with different non-functional needs. In this paper, we propose a novel engineering methodology supported by a practical framework called Multi-Chain. It permits to derive, using a model-driven strategy, a blockchain-based infrastructure, that can be deployed over a specific blockchain technology (e.g., Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric). The objective is to permit the single definition and multiple deployments of the business process, to deliver the same functionalities, but satisfying different non-functional needs. In such a way, organisations willing to cooperate can select the multi-party business process and the blockchain technology they would like to use to satisfy their needs. Using Multi-Chain, they will be able to automatically derive from a Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) choreography diagram a blockchain infrastructure ready to be used. This overcomes the need to get acquainted with many details of the specific technology.
Recently, Blockchain technology adoption has expanded to many application areas due to the evolution of smart contracts. However, developing smart contracts is non-trivial and challenging due to the lack of tools and expertise in this field. A promising solution to overcome this issue is to use Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), however, using models still involves a learning curve and might not be suitable for non-technical users. To tackle this challenge, chatbot or conversational interfaces can be used to assess the non-technical users to specify a smart contract in gradual and interactive manner. In this paper, we propose iContractBot, a chatbot for modeling and developing smart contracts. Moreover, we investigate how to integrate iContractBot with iContractML, a domain-specific modeling language for developing smart contracts, and instantiate intention models from the chatbot. The iContractBot framework provides a domain-specific language (DSL) based on the user intention and performs model-to-text transformation to generate the smart contract code. A smart contract use case is presented to demonstrate how iContractBot can be utilized for creating models and generating the deployment artifacts for smart contracts based on a simple conversation.
Με την παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή εργασία θα μελετήσουμε τις βασικές έννοιες του blockchain, των smart contracts καθώς και την ασφάλεια των τελευταίων. Tα smart contracts καταλαμβάνουν πολλούς τομείς της βιομηχανίας προκειμένου να αυτοματοποιηθούν οι διαδικάσιες και να εξαλειφθεί ο εξωτερικός διαμεσολαβητής. Συνεπώς, η ασφάλεια τους λαμβάνει όλο και μεγαλύτερη αξία και προσοχή. Θα αναλύσουμε γνωστές ευπάθειες των smart contracts και τρόπους αποφυγής τους με έμφαση στα εργαλεία στατικής ανάλυσης.
Université du Luxembourg, Gilbert Fridgen, Sven Radszuwill, André Schweizer · 5 authors
In the financial services industry, many people assume blockchain to have significant impacts. From research and practice, we observe two main paradigms of how organizations interact with blockchain. First, organizations use blockchain to optimize existing processes (blockchain-based business process optimization (BPO)). Second, organizations use blockchain to disrupt existing processes, foster disintermediation, and enable disruptive business models (blockchain-based business process disruption (BPD)). However, we lack scientific research that evaluates its de facto potential. We bridge this gap by following a design science research approach to design blockchain-based business process re-engineering (BPRE) for a letter of credit that combines the advantages of BPO and BPD. We conduct three design cycles and develop three artefacts: a BPO, a BPD, and a BPRE approach. Our BPRE approach combines the advantages of partial disintermediation (i.e., increased efficiency and transparency) with the advantages of intermediaries (i.e., process flexibility, liquidity provision, and dispute mediation).
Abstract The current, fast market changes require enterprises to dynamically adapt the way they conduct their business. This poses many challenges for information technology. Market requirements for immediate response to business changes became the basis of the idea of a real-time information processing (RTE) company. RTE provides real-time information to employees and business partners. Integrated IT systems supporting management constitute a common platform – the foundation of a real-time enterprise. The aim of the article is to present the basic problems of building an IT system that is the basis of a real-time information processing (RTE) company. It is a summary of our work on this type of system. The article justifies the thesis about the need to build a system for the RTE's requirements and the conditions of its implementation. Such a system is designed to provide employees and business partners with the information they need in real time. The use of integrated systems such as ERP, CRM, SCM, and so on provides the ability to implement the main business processes of a real-time enterprise. The article presents both literature analysis and the characteristics of own work on designing IT systems for RTE. Particular attention was paid to the analysis of success factors (determinants) in system design and the use of MUST methodology (MUST is a Danish acronym for theories of and methods for design activities). The final part of the article presents a proposal for further work on IT systems for RTE in the context of existing trends such as DARQ technology (Distributed Ledger, Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, Quantum computing).
Jan 1, 2021·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Cristian Gómez, Francisco Javier Pérez Blanco, Juan M. Vara, Valeria De Castro · 5 authors
Administrations are constantly making great efforts to cope with the right of citizens to high-quality e-Government services. Since the advent of blockchain and smart contracts, they are trying to incorporate these technologies into their service offerings, which results in a complex task due to their nature and their inherent complexity. On the other hand, business and business process modeling facilitates the understanding and agreement between the different parties involved in the design of e-government services. All this given, this work introduces a model-based proposal to ease the integration of smart contracts into e-government services.
Decentralized systems have been widely developed and applied to address security and privacy issues in centralized systems, especially since the advancement of distributed ledger technology. However, it is challenging to ensure their correct functioning with respect to their designs and minimize the technical risk before the delivery. Although formal methods have made significant progress over the past decades, a feasible solution based on formal methods from a development process perspective has not been well developed. In this paper, we formulate an iterative and incremental development process, named formalism-driven development (FDD), for developing provably correct decentralized systems under the guidance of formal methods. We also present a framework named Seniz, to practicalize FDD with a new modeling language and scaffolds. Furthermore, we conduct case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of FDD in practice with the support of Seniz.
U ovom radu će biti predstavljene mogućnosti primene blokčejn tehnologije za podršku sistemima za glasanje i opisan razvoj jednog takvog sistema u vidu aplikacije na Ethereum blokčejn platformi. Aplikacija je implementirana na distribuiran i decentralizovan način kako bi se ispitale prednosti i mane softverskog rešenja ovog tipa.
While digital transformation is still a challenge for many companies when introducting digital technologies in existing processes and business models, digital ubiquity stands for the next step in digitalization. It characterizes the omnipresence of a large range of digital technologies, connectivity, and data as well as entirely digital organizations. This includes for example upcoming technologies such as distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence or augmented reality and according interfaces and data sources as well as decentralized apps and autonomous organizations. The challenge thus becomes to optimally deal with these opportunities and deploy them efficiently in business scenarios. In this paper we will investigate the role of enterprise modeling under this paradigm and how it can contribute to a well-structured, systematic understanding of complex digital phenomena for supporting business and technological decisions.
Qinghua Lu, An Binh Tran, Ingo Weber, Hugo O'Connor · 9 authors
Abstract Blockchain has attracted broad interests to build decentralised applications. A typical class of applications uses blockchain for the management of cross‐organisational business processes as well as assets. However, developing such applications without introducing vulnerabilities is hard for developers, not the least because the deployed code is immutable and can be called by anyone with access to the network. Model‐driven engineering (MDE) helps to reduce those risks, by combining proven code snippets as per the model specification, which is easier to understand than source code. Therefore, in this article, we present an approach for integrated MDE across business processes and asset management (e.g., for settlement). Our approach includes methods for fungible/non‐fungible asset registration, escrow for conditional payment, and asset swap. The proposed MDE approach is implemented in a smart contract generation tool called Lorikeet, and evaluated in terms of feasibility, functional correctness, and cost effectiveness.
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik, insb. im Dienstleistungsbereich, Nürnberg, Germany, Philipp Klinger, Freimut Bodendorf
Cross-organizational business processes involving multiple participants are choreographed, thus rely on mutual trust of collaborators or need to be coordinated by a central instance.Using Smart Contracts, business processes can be executed without a mutually trusted and centralized orchestrating authority.Former Blockchain-based execution framework proposals focus on orchestration diagrams as a basis for execution.Contrary, this work focuses on BPMN process collaboration diagrams as implementation basis and makes additional transformation steps obsolete.With the herein proposed framework for execution of cross-organizational process collaborations, another approach for the implementation and execution of interorganizational processes on a Blockchain is presented, including a voting mechanism for process deployment as well as a subscription service to facilitate process handovers between participants more efficiently.The framework is exemplified and evaluated with a use case from a large German industrial manufacturing company.
Marijana Srećković, Goran Šibenik, Thomas Preindl, Wolfgang Kästner · 5 authors
The increasing digitalization and thus evidently advancing change in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, requires new business models, processes and strategies. Blockchain (BC), smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) are still underused in AEC. BC and its potential of inclusion into the communication between project stakeholders has shown that it is not just a technology that is ready to use, but requires a thorough insight into the design process of domain-specific stakeholders, their interests and their collaboration workflows for a holistic Building Information Modeling (BIM) and BC-supported solution for the design phase. This paper introduces process modeling of BIM-workflows in the design phase. We propose a conceptual framework for the implementation of a design process with BC based on the integration of three underlying theories: design theory, configuration theory and task-technology fit. The main assumption is, before we can capture processes (1) we need to understand them (design theory) in order to re-engineer them for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) (2) we need to adapt them to changing requirements (configuration theory), and finally (3) continually re-adjust Information Technology (IT) and processes interdependence (task-technology fit).
Jan 1, 2020·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Sarra Alqahtani, Xinchi He, Rose Gamble, Papa Mauricio
The smart contract technology has increasingly attracted the attention of different industries. However, a significant number of smart contracts deployed in practice suffer from several bugs, which enable malicious users to cause damage. The research community has shifted their focus to verifying the correctness of smart contracts using model checkers and formal verification methods. The majority of the research investigates the correctness of systems built on one smart contract. This paper proposes a verification approach for systems composed of interacting smart contracts developed and controlled by different entities. We use the NuSMV model checker and the Behavioral Interaction Priority tool to model the behaviors of smart contracts and their interactions with the aim of verifying their compliance with the systems’ functional requirements. These requirements are formalized by Linear Temporal Logic propositions. The applicability of our approach is illustrated using a case study from The American Petroleum Institute and implemented using Hyperledger Fabric.
Jan 1, 2020·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Florian Gräbe, Niclas Kannengießer, Sebastian Lins, Ali Sunyaev
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) enables a new way of inter-organizational collaboration via a shared and distributed infrastructure. Meanwhile, there is plenty of DLT designs (e.g., Ethereum, IOTA), which differ in their capabilities to meet use case requirements. A structured comparison of DLT designs is required to support the decision for an appropriate DLT design. However, existing criteria and processes are abstract or not suitable for an in-depth comparison of DLT designs. We select and operationalize DLT characteristics relevant for a comprehensive comparison of DLT designs. Furthermore, we propose a comparison process, which enables the structured comparison of a set of DLT designs according to application requirements. The proposed process is validated with a use case analysis of three use cases. We contribute to research and praxis by introducing ways to operationalize DLT characteristics and generate a process to compare different DLT designs accordingly to their suitability in a use case.
The increasing digitization of financial services by the late 2010s resulted in the generation of massive volumes of transactional data across payment systems, trading platforms, digital banking applications, and regulatory reporting pipelines. These transaction logs, originally designed for auditing, reconciliation, and failure recovery, gradually emerged as a valuable source of behavioral and operational insight. However, the scale, velocity, and structural heterogeneity of transactional logs posed significant challenges to traditional analytical techniques, which were often optimized for static datasets or narrowly defined reporting use cases. As a result, organizations began exploring systematic approaches to mine patterns from transaction logs in order to better understand system behavior, detect anomalies, and improve decision-making. Pattern mining from transaction logs refers to the process of discovering recurring structures, sequences, correlations, and deviations within recorded transactional events. By September 2019, this practice was informed by a combination of data mining research, distributed systems logging techniques, and operational analytics developed in large-scale production environments. Unlike conventional business intelligence queries, pattern mining emphasizes the identification of latent relationships and temporal structures that are not explicitly encoded in application logic. These patterns may reflect normal operational workflows, emergent system behaviors, or early indicators of faults, fraud, or performance degradation. In financial systems, transaction logs capture more than simple state changes; they encode regulatory-relevant actions such as authorization decisions, settlement progressions, risk evaluations, and ledger mutations. Mining patterns from these logs enables institutions to analyze end-to-end transaction lifecycles, correlate technical events with business outcomes, and identify systemic inefficiencies or vulnerabilities. Importantly, such analysis must operate within strict constraints related to data privacy, auditability, and regulatory compliance, distinguishing transaction log mining in financial domains from analogous practices in less regulated environments. This paper examines pattern mining from transaction logs as understood and applied by September 2019, situating it within the broader evolution of logging, distributed systems observability, and data mining research. It synthesizes academic literature and industry practices to propose a conceptual and architectural framework for extracting meaningful patterns from transactional data at scale. The analysis focuses on methodological considerations, architectural layering, and practical challenges encountered in regulated, high-throughput systems, while avoiding retrospective interpretations based on post-2019 technologies or techniques.
Blockchain technology provides a tamper-proof mechanism to execute inter-organizational business processes involving mutually untrusted parties. Existing approaches to blockchain-based process execution are based on code generation. In these approaches, a process model is compiled into one or more smart contracts, which are then deployed on a blockchain platform. Given the immutability of the deployed smart contracts, these compiled approaches ensure that all process instances conform to the process model. However, this advantage comes at the price of inflexibility. Any changes to the process model require the redeployment of the smart contracts (a costly operation). In addition, changes cannot be applied to running process instances. To address this lack of flexibility, this paper presents an interpreter of BPMN process models based on dynamic data structures. The proposed interpreter is embedded in a business process execution system with a modular multi-layered architecture, supporting the creation, execution, monitoring and dynamic update of process instances. For efficiency purposes, the interpreter relies on compact bitmap-based encodings of process models. An experimental evaluation shows that the proposed interpreted approach achieves comparable or lower costs relative to existing compiled approaches.