This article explores the theoretical discourse on managing public finances (PF) of territorial communities (TCs) in Ukraine under conditions of politico-economic uncertainty and ongoing conflict. It examines the role of PF in addressing societal needs, ensuring economic viability, and promoting financial autonomy within the decentralization framework. Public finances are defined as a system of economic relations encompassing the formation, distribution, and utilization of centralized and decentralized funds to fulfill public interests, aligning with legislative priorities. The study analyzes PF components, including local budgets, communal enterprise revenues, credit resources, and targeted funds, emphasizing transparency in line with IMF fiscal transparency recommendations. The reinstatement of medium-term budget planning through the Budget Declaration for 2025–2027 enhances financial discipline and policy predictability, despite challenges posed by prolonged conflict and defense spending. It is argued that continuing reforms in the financial sector should facilitate the creation of a foundation for sustainable growth in the future, while reforms in public finance, particularly in optimizing expenditures in education and healthcare, will help effectively manage increasing defense-industrial costs, boost tax revenues, and strengthen fiscal discipline and economic efficiency. The banking sector's stability, supported by robust capital and liquidity, fosters economic growth by facilitating credit access for TCs. Suggested strategies for improving PF management, such as income diversification, fiscal consolidation, and strategic planning to mitigate systemic risks. Harmonization with EU financial regulations strengthens competitiveness and attracts foreign investment. The research highlights the importance of public-private partnerships and alternative financing sources like grants and loans to ensure TC resilience. Future studies should focus on overcoming challenges such as limited tax bases, dependency on transfers, and adapting financial strategies to wartime constraints, contributing to sustainable socio-economic development of TCs.
The evolution of the state’s role in digital finance from a passive observer to an active regulator and a full participant in the digital market has been studied. With the rapid tokenization of assets, the traditional financial system is facing unprecedented challenges caused by decentralization, anonymity of operations, large-scale regulatory arbitration, and the threat of laundering illegal income in the new digital environment. A comprehensive analysis of the digital financial instruments structure has been provided, and the potential of their impact on the global and national economies has been assessed. Particular attention has been paid to the risks of decentralized finance, including threats to monetary sovereignty and the challenges of using smart contracts. The paper examines the foreign and Russian experience of the crypto industry regulation, demonstrating a global trend away from strict prohibitions towards creating comprehensive legal regimes. The practical cases of various states have been analyzed, reflecting their strategies of adaptation to new digital technologies. The trend towards involving central banks in the digitalization process by developing their own digital currencies as a legitimate alternative to private crypto assets has been highlighted. It has been concluded that it is necessary to find a sound balance between stimulating technological in novation and ensuring national economic security
Rouwaida Abdallah, Guillermo Toyos Marfurt, Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni
This work has been accepted for publication in the proceedings of 3SCEA 2026 conference. The deposited manuscript corresponds to the author-accepted version presented at the conference. The final published version will appear in the official conference proceedings. Abstract: Traceability remains a critical challenge in modern supply chains, particularly as industries transition towards sustainability and circular economy models. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) emerges as a vital tool to consolidate and share comprehensive product information across its lifecycle. In this paper, we propose a decentralized, customizable, and self-deployable DPP system, leveraging blockchain technology and an extension of the Fractional Non-Fungible Token (F-NFT) model. This approach enables fine-grained traceability of individual product components and events across the supply chain, ensuring transparency and verifiability. A key strength of our system lies in its flexibility, enabling businesses to deploy tailored solutions without reliance on centralized service providers. The proposed system empowers stakeholders with greater control over product data while supporting selective information sharing. We present a functional implementation of the system and discuss the crucial design decisions that support its real-world applicability.
This paper analyses the World Bank initiatives in promoting its role in decentralizing climate finance through the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) and the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP) in Lamu County, Kenya. A qualitative case study is used to examine the substantial tension between the Bank's perception of its institutional function, its actual bureaucratic performance, and the pressing demands, through the intersection of Function of Role Theory and Climate Resilience Theory. A significant implementation gap is revealed from the empirical findings, highlighting that the creation of the local ward committees in the projects purportedly regularizes climate governance. However, the strict procurement regulations provided by the Bank, systemic delays in the release of funds, and strict environmental standards have compromised local sovereignty. Misplaced expectations are frequently encounters through these efforts and the occurrence of elite capture, hindering marginalized groups from cultivating genuine and transformative resilience. This paper concludes that the international development finances must abandon rigid technological imposition in favour of adaptable funding models and genuinely integrate local survival knowledge to thrive in extremely fragile socio-ecological zones.
Open access
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Large controllable loads, such as Bitcoin-mining facilities, are increasingly viewed as valuable sources of power-system flexibility, yet the conditions under which this flexibility is realized remain poorly understood. We examine this issue in the Texas power market, where large loads face both wholesale electricity prices and incentives created by coincident-peak-based transmission charges. We find that mining load declines as costs rise across both channels, and this response is moderated by hashprice, a measure of expected revenue for Bitcoin miners. When hashprice is higher, mining load is less responsive to electricity-sector costs. This pattern is consistent with aggregate mining load arising from heterogeneous devices operated around distinct breakeven points. The wholesale-price response illustrates this mechanism most clearly. Mining load remains largely online at low electricity prices but begins to decline once prices exceed an implied curtailment threshold, and higher hashprice shifts this threshold to higher wholesale prices. Bitcoin miners therefore respond to electricity-sector costs, but the available flexibility varies with revenue conditions in the crypto-financial sector. Treating such loads as stable demand-response resources may overstate their available flexibility.
Cordyceps militaris is a high-value medicinal mushroom known for its bioactive compounds, including cordycepin and polysaccharides, which have driven demand for scalable and economically efficient cultivation systems. This study presents an integrated techno-economic analysis (TEA) of Cordyceps production in modular shipping-container units under two operational strategies: (i) a centralized system with on-site substrate and spawn preparation, and (ii) a decentralized system relying on commercially produced spawn at a single grow-only site. Red rice was used as the cultivation substrate at two production scales (50 and 100 lb/day) and evaluated using a five-year financial model that incorporated capital expenditure (CapEx), operating expenditure (OpEx), revenue, net cash flows, discounted cash flows, and net present value (NPV). The model assumed 80% debt and 20% equity financing, a WACC of 6.48%, and a 30% corporate tax rate. GHG emissions were quantified within a farm-gate boundary encompassing electricity consumption, CO 2 from mushroom respiration, and raw material transportation. Centralized systems required higher initial CapEx ($212,232 and $375,408) but benefited from substantially lower raw-material costs, resulting in superior operating margins and annual cash flows. In contrast, decentralized systems incurred two-to three-fold higher substrate-related costs, which constrained profitability despite lower upfront capital requirements. As a result, centralized systems achieved significantly higher NPVs and shorter payback. Sensitivity analysis confirmed that the selling price and biological efficiency are the dominant drivers of NPV, while the electricity price has minimal influence across all scenarios. Centralized container-based production offers a more economically viable and scalable pathway for commercial Cordyceps cultivation.
Background: In Italy, Departments of Prevention (Dipartimenti di Prevenzione, DPs) are primary organizational units for disease prevention, health promotion, and environmental health. Constitutional decentralization (2001) generated significant regional variability. While national data exist, in-depth regional analyses are lacking. Objectives: To provide a systematic descriptive analysis of organizational structure, governance mechanisms, and workforce composition of DPs in the Triveneto area (Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano), contextualized within national and international frameworks. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study using 2022 Italian Prevention Observatory national survey data. A structured 87-item questionnaire assessed organizational structure, governance, staffing, and quality systems. Results: A total of 10 of 14 DPs participated (71.4% coverage; 5.2 million inhabitants, 87% of Triveneto population). All maintained three mandated core services (Public Health and Hygiene, Veterinary Public Health, and Occupational Health and Safety), employing medians of 35%, 23%, and 14% of staff, respectively. Management Committees were active in 80% of DPs (vs. 77.6% nationally). Quality certification (30%) and institutional accreditation (50%, Veneto only) showed inconsistent implementation. The workforce was predominantly non-executive (65% vs. 67% nationally), reflecting progressive task reallocation. Median staff density: 3235 inhabitants/staff member (vs. 2608 nationally). Conclusions: Participating DPs—predominantly from the Veneto Region—demonstrate comprehensive service coverage and established governance structures, yet face standardization challenges. Findings should be interpreted in light of Veneto overrepresentation (8/10 participating DPs). Alignment with territorial care reforms (Ministerial Decree 77/2022) and National Recovery Plan investments could enhance integration, digital infrastructure, and preparedness capacity.
Gary Hahn, Emilio C. Piesciorovsky, Raymond Borges Hink, Aaron Werth
Modern electrical grids face growing stability risks from customer-owned generators, especially at points of common couplings (PCCs). Disruptive behavior from power-electronic sources can cause protective relays to isolate problematic generators, making measurement integrity critical. This article presents a distributed ledger technology (DLT) approach that uses smart contracts to evaluate PCC voltage measurements and trigger backup breaker operations. The approach is framed as a verifiable, multi-organization attestation and audit layer, not as a real-time control security mechanism. In the proposed architecture, voltage measurements from a hardware protective relay are anchored on a DLT through the Cyber Grid Guard (CGG) system for attestation by both the grid utility and customer-owned generator. A Voltage Service Limits (VSLs) smart contract evaluates the on-chain measurements against allowable phase-voltage limits derived from the ANSI C84.1 standard. The framework is validated in a hardware-relay-in-the-loop test bed under sustained-undervoltage, sustained-overvoltage, and transient line-to-line fault scenarios. The results show that the VSL smart contract can process these measurements and issue backup breaker actions consistent with the defined service-limit criteria, demonstrating the DLT potential as a verifiable audit layer at the PCC that complements primary protection.
The relevance of this study is driven by the necessity to transform modern civil law doctrine toward a post-non-classical stage. Civil law constantly faces challenges from newly emerging relationships. The new decentralized internet, Web3, has shifted the paradigm for perceiving the elements of civil legal relations; as this article demonstrates, a new legal object exists on the blockchain, even though current civil norms state otherwise. In this regard, decentralized autonomous organizations are not merely a technological phenomenon but also a challenge to existing civil law theories and an instrument for protecting human rights amid the identity crisis of the information society and "surveillance capitalism". The purpose of this work is to substantiate a paradigm shift in research on decentralized autonomous organizations and to analyze their legal status by deconstructing the values they defend: privacy, dignity, and autonomy. The methodology is based on the axiological and historical approaches to Roman law and Kantian ethics to comprehend the depth of privacy problems and the relevance of these decentralized entities, alongside the synergetic method, which views a decentralized autonomous organization as a dissipative structure. The results demonstrate that such an organization is an autopoietic system where the protocol acts as a slaving principle (teleonomy of the code), while in bifurcation points preserving teleology of the community. It is argued that applying general corporate laws is dogmatically flawed due to the absence of affectio societatis (mutual trust) and undermines the very causa finalis of these decentralized systems – advocating for a decentralized internet and a shift of power to users, rather than creating just another form of a limited liability company. Prospects for further research include the proposal to treat these decentralized organizations as a sui generis construct. It is concluded that regulators should create "strange attractors" by applying the legal construct of Zweckvermögen (purpose-bound patrimony) to smart contracts, allowing these structures to participate in offline legal relationships without destroying their unique nature.
This public technical research article reconstructs a Lazarus-attributed fake-interview ecosystem targeting software developers, Web3 engineers, and cryptocurrency-adjacent organizations between 2024 and 2026. The investigation began after a fake technical interview reached Red Asgard in December 2025. The article documents the resulting investigation into malicious repositories, command-and-control panels, FTP and HTTP exfiltration, fake cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptomining infrastructure, operator-side development systems, blockchain-intelligence exposure, and related monetization tracks. The public version includes aggregate victimology, infrastructure reconstruction, malware and protocol analysis, counting methodology, attribution framework, public-safe indicators, detection logic, and defensive guidance. The public version deliberately excludes plaintext credentials, victim identifiers, private keys, session tokens, replayable C2 access mechanics, operator personal identifying information not cleared for release, and specific named unnotified victims. Restricted evidence packages are retained for vetted law-enforcement, CERT, provider, counsel-controlled, and affected-party disclosure channels. Original public article: https://redasgard.com/research/inside-the-machine
The relevance of this study is driven by the necessity to transform modern civil law doctrine toward a post-non-classical stage. Civil law constantly faces challenges from newly emerging relationships. The new decentralized internet, Web3, has shifted the paradigm for perceiving the elements of civil legal relations; as this article demonstrates, a new legal object exists on the blockchain, even though current civil norms state otherwise. In this regard, decentralized autonomous organizations are not merely a technological phenomenon but also a challenge to existing civil law theories and an instrument for protecting human rights amid the identity crisis of the information society and "surveillance capitalism". The purpose of this work is to substantiate a paradigm shift in research on decentralized autonomous organizations and to analyze their legal status by deconstructing the values they defend: privacy, dignity, and autonomy. The methodology is based on the axiological and historical approaches to Roman law and Kantian ethics to comprehend the depth of privacy problems and the relevance of these decentralized entities, alongside the synergetic method, which views a decentralized autonomous organization as a dissipative structure. The results demonstrate that such an organization is an autopoietic system where the protocol acts as a slaving principle (teleonomy of the code), while in bifurcation points preserving teleology of the community. It is argued that applying general corporate laws is dogmatically flawed due to the absence of affectio societatis (mutual trust) and undermines the very causa finalis of these decentralized systems – advocating for a decentralized internet and a shift of power to users, rather than creating just another form of a limited liability company. Prospects for further research include the proposal to treat these decentralized organizations as a sui generis construct. It is concluded that regulators should create "strange attractors" by applying the legal construct of Zweckvermögen (purpose-bound patrimony) to smart contracts, allowing these structures to participate in offline legal relationships without destroying their unique nature.
The x402 protocol has crossed from prototype to infrastructure for the agentic web, driving 130 million all-time transactions and embedded in Google Cloud, Cloudflare, and Stripe. Yet bridging synchronous HTTP requests with asynchronous blockchain finality creates state-synchronization challenges, and x402's security has so far been examined only in piecemeal vendor disclosures. It is moreover not one artefact but a stack of an HTTP semantic, per-chain schemes, and a long tail of SDK and deployment choices whose required guarantees prior work has not established. We perform a systematic security analysis organized around five invariants grounded in specifications, literature, and vendor expectations, resolving every violation to the responsible layer. We identify four flaw classes: cross-resource substitution, duplicate-settlement race (independently corroborated by subsequent third-party reports), allowance overdraft, and denial of settlement. Against official SDKs and a production deployment, these reach resource-leakage ratios up to 100%. For pay-per-token scheme we prove a structural limit: no output-only pricing can be both fair to honest users and bounded against inflation of the hidden "thinking" tokens, the price of fairness being a $\sqrt{1+Θ}$ manipulation gap. We propose per-flaw mitigations and a defense triple with provable guarantees, cutting per-call reasoning cost by 47% and inverting attacker leverage from 8.7$\times$ to 0.9$\times$ at only 2.8% overhead. All findings have been disclosed.
The article examines the distribution and use of budgetary resources across different levels of governments in post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Ukraine. The relevance of the study derives from the need to assess fiscal decentralization models in the context of institutional transformation and current challenges, including those related to wartime conditions. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the institutional structure of subnational governance, the degree of fragmentation of local communities, and the patterns of budgetary resource allocation. Particular attention is given to the comparative assessment of revenue and expenditure structures, with an emphasis on ensuring cross-country comparability by excluding social security funds from the general government sector. The results indicate that most post-socialist countries have a centralized pattern of revenue formation combined with a relatively decentralized execution of public expenditures. This configuration gives rise to an asymmetry between the sources of financial resources and the responsibilities for their use. It is argued that this asymmetry represents a structural feature of intergovernmental relations and constrains the financial autonomy of local governments. The analysis also shows that more fragmented municipal systems are associated with higher levels of revenue centralization and stronger dependence on intergovernmental transfers, whereas larger territorial communities tend to provide a more stable basis for local fiscal capacity. In the case of Ukraine, a dual trend is observed. On the one hand, decentralization reforms have strengthened the financial capacity of local communities; on the other hand, wartime conditions have led to a temporary re-centralization of financial resources and an expanded role of the central government in financing priority expenditures. The findings may be used to improve the allocation of budgetary resources and to achieve a better alignment between revenue assignment and expenditure responsibilities, particularly in the context of post-war recovery.
The convergence of digital accounting and blockchain technology represents one of the most consequential transformations in contemporary financial management. This study conducts a systematic literature review to examine how blockchain technology reshapes financial record-keeping, transparency, auditability, and accountability in the era of decentralization. Drawing from 25 peer-reviewed publications spanning 2021 to 2026, this research synthesizes empirical findings and theoretical frameworks concerning the adoption, implementation, and outcomes of blockchain-based accounting systems. The review identifies four principal dimensions of transformation: (1) immutable ledger infrastructure that eliminates retrospective manipulation of financial data; (2) smart contract automation that reduces human error and accelerates financial closing cycles; (3) distributed ledger technology (DLT) integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting information systems (AIS); and (4) real-time financial reporting that enhances stakeholder decision-making. This paper further explores persistent challenges, including regulatory ambiguity, interoperability limitations, energy consumption concerns, and the skills gap among accounting professionals. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of ESG reporting dimensions and decentralized governance implications into the blockchain-accounting nexus, areas insufficiently addressed in prior reviews. Findings indicate that blockchain adoption can reduce financial fraud, improve audit efficiency by up to 40%, and enable continuous real-time reporting, fundamentally altering the role of the accountant in a digitally decentralized economy.
О. А. Єрмоленко, Н. М. Лисьонкова, О. А. Карвацький
The article explores the evaluates the transformative potential of blockchain technology in modernizing Ukraine’s budgetary processes. Current public finance management faces systemic challenges, including opaque resource allocation, corruption risks, and inefficient oversight, as traditional centralized architectures lack real-time verifiability and remain susceptible to manipulation. As a decentralized distributed ledger technology, blockchain provides a robust framework for immutable record-keeping, cryptographic security, and comprehensive traceability. Specifically, smart contracts enable programmable governance by automating conditional payments in public procurement and social programs upon the verification of specific milestones, significantly reducing human intervention and establishing a tamper-proof single source of truth. International benchmarks, such as Georgia’s land registry and Estonia’s e-governance applications, demonstrate the efficacy of decentralized systems in ensuring data integrity. In the Ukrainian context as of 2026, implementation remains primarily in the pilot stage. While projects like the e-hryvnia and the State Land Cadastre have faced delays due to wartime constraints, humanitarian initiatives have successfully utilized blockchain for transparent donor tracking. The transition to this technology promises a substantial reduction in administrative costs and the restoration of institutional trust essential for post-war recovery and European Union integration. However, structural hurdles persist, ranging from technical scalability and high infrastructure costs to regulatory gaps and institutional resistance. A successful transition requires a phased strategy that prioritizes targeted pilots in high-risk sectors while harmonizing national legislation with international frameworks. By investing in digital infrastructure and comprehensive training, Ukraine can position blockchain as the cornerstone of a resilient, corruption-resistant public finance system.
The rapid evolution of digital assets and the integration of distributed ledger technology into the traditional financial system are fundamentally transforming the architecture of global capital flows. By the end of 2025, the stablecoin market demonstrated unprecedented growth, exceeding a market capitalization of $300 billion, while the total transaction volume of these instruments throughout 2025 reached a record $33 trillion. In parallel, large-scale tokenization of real-world assets is underway, with the total on-chain market volume surpassing $29 billion.
O presente artigo aborda a atividade de lavagem de dinheiro por meio de bitcoins. Para a análise, foi realizado estudo sobre o funcionamento dessa criptomoeda, do Sistema Bitcoin, bem como os aspectos mais relevantes dessa tecnologia, do ponto de vista jurídico. Em seguida, são apresentados os elementos típicos do delito de lavagem de capitais, a fim de estipular os limites da norma penal. Por fim, são explicitadas hipóteses por meio das quais o fluxo de reciclagem de valores poderia ocorrer, a partir do uso de bitcoins.
Abstract Urban regeneration has emerged as a critical strategy for addressing housing shortages and spatial inefficiencies in rapidly urbanizing megacities. However, many urban regeneration approaches are market-driven and often prioritize economic growth over social equity, leading to persistent gaps in affordable housing delivery. This study investigates the institutional barriers to affordable housing provision in Shenzhen, China—a pioneer in market-oriented urban regeneration—through a neo-institutional economics (NIE) lens. Combining policy analysis and 26 semi-structured interviews with government officials, developers, and residents, the research identifies three interconnected institutional obstacles: (1) ambiguous property rights rooted in the rural-urban dual land system, which prolongs negotiation and approval processes; (2) high transaction costs arising from fragmented governance and bureaucratic complexities; and (3) misaligned incentives among stakeholders that prioritize commercial gains over public welfare. Empirical findings reveal that over 80% of urban village regeneration projects face delays exceeding one year due to tenure disputes, while 70% of developers spatially marginalize affordable housing to maximize profits. These dynamics form a self-reinforcing “institutional trap,” where path dependency on land-finance regimes and weak regulatory constraints perpetuate housing inequity. The study contributes to urban scholarship by adapting insights from New Institutional Economics into an integrative tripartite analytical lens (“institutional structure–transaction costs–behavioural choices”, STB) that traces cascading transaction costs across project stages and links them to actors’ strategic, normative and reputational behaviours in Shenzhen’s market-driven regeneration regime. It challenges the assumption that market efficiency aligns with social goals and underscores the need for institutional reforms to reconcile growth with equity. Policymakers must address structural contradictions, such as rigid land ownership regimes and decentralized governance, to break the low-equilibrium trap. The findings hold global relevance for megacities grappling with similar tensions between market-driven regeneration and inclusive development.
The integration of smart contracts is transforming logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) by improving transparency, visibility, and accountability. This study examines how automated digital agreements and secure nutritional labeling enhance credibility and safety in the food industry. Using encrypted ledgers and records, smart contracts help address challenges such as counterfeit products, fraudulent labeling, and ethical violations. The study aimed to evaluate smart contracts as a strategic tool for managing information throughout a food product’s lifecycle, with emphasis on sustainability and ethical LSCM practices. A quantitative methodology was used, collecting survey data from 130 urban consumers in India who shop both online and offline. The survey captured consumer views on ethical consumption, organic versus processed foods, eco-friendly packaging, and pricing transparency. Findings show that although smart contracts are still emerging in the food sector, they can address major systemic issues. By defining accountability measures, these contracts can align societal well-being with industrial efficiency. This paper contributes to supply chain management research by highlighting the shift toward distributed information systems and emphasizing the importance of smart contracts in creating a transparent, ethical, and safe food supply chain for modern consumers.
An analysis of the ethical and intergenerational dimensions of contemporary energy-finance transitions by systematically mapping the scholarly intersection between crude oil price volatility and cryptocurrency markets is conducted in this study. Drawing on a comprehensive bibliometric and topic-modelling analysis of 4,147 Scopus-indexed publications published between 2014 and 2024, the research investigates how emerging digital financial systems interact with oil market instability and broader sustainability concerns. By integrating Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modelling with co-citation and keyword network analysis, the study reveals evolving research themes related to energy financialization, decentralized finance, environmental externalities, and regulatory uncertainty. Beyond its technical contributions, the findings highlight critical ethical questions surrounding climate responsibility, distributive justice, and intergenerational equity, particularly in relation to energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining and speculative responses to oil price shocks. The paper advances the concept of moral imagination by demonstrating how financial and technological innovation can either reinforce unsustainable trajectories or support ethically grounded sustainability transitions. The results offer policy-relevant insights for regulators, investors, and institutions seeking to balance economic resilience with long-term environmental responsibility and justice for future generations.
Online cancer peer-support communities generate large volumes of patient-authored and caregiver-authored text that may reflect distress, coping, and informational needs. Automated emotional tone classification could support scalable monitoring, but supervised modeling depends on label quality and may benefit from explicit context features. Using the Mental Health Insights: Vulnerable Cancer Survivors & Caregivers dataset, we compared five model families (TF–IDF Logistic Regression, Random Forest, LightGBM, GRU, and fine-tuned ALBERT) on a three-class target (Negative/Neutral/Positive) derived from four original categories. We introduced two extensions: (i) LLM-based annotation to generate parallel “AI labels” and (ii) token-based augmentation that prepends LLM-extracted structured variables (reporter role and cancer type) to the post text. Models were trained with a 60/20/20 stratified train/validation/test split, with hyperparameters selected on validation data only. Test performance was summarized using weighted F1 and macro one-vs-rest AUC with bootstrap confidence intervals, with paired comparisons based on McNemar tests and false discovery rate adjustment. The LLM annotator produced substantial redistribution in the four-class label space, shifting prevalence toward very negative relative to the original labels; the shift persisted but attenuated after collapsing to three classes. Across all model families, token augmentation improved held-out performance, with the largest gains for GRU and consistent improvements for ALBERT. Augmentation also reduced polarity-reversing errors (Negative ↔ Positive) for ALBERT, while adjacent errors (Negative ↔ Neutral) remained the dominant residual failure mode. These results indicate that LLM-based supervision can introduce systematic measurement shifts that require auditing, yet LLM-extracted context incorporated via simple token augmentation provides a pragmatic, model-agnostic mechanism to improve downstream emotional tone classification for supportive oncology decision support.
Introduction. The article examines the role of fifth-generation (5G) networks in the development of logistics systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The integration of 5G, IoT, and edge computing forms the technological foundation of Logistics 4.0, smart cities, and digital supply chains. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the possibilities and advantages of using 5G networks in logistics by analyzing their interaction with IoT and edge computing, as well as to assess the impact of 5G on the efficiency of supply chain management. Research Methods. The study employs methods of systems and comparative analysis, generalization of scientific sources, tabular comparison of the technical characteristics of 4G and 5G networks, and a logical-analytical method to identify the key areas of 5G application in logistics. Results. It has been established that the implementation of 5G in logistics systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) provides a new level of supply chain management. A comparative analysis of the technical characteristics of 4G and 5G networks demonstrates a significant reduction in data transmission latency, a substantial increase in bandwidth, and the possibility of massive connectivity of IoT devices within local and global logistics networks. This creates prerequisites for continuous data collection, transmission, and processing of large volumes of data in real time. It is proven that the integration of 5G with edge computing enables the decentralization of the IT architecture of logistics systems, reduces the load on central servers, and minimizes risks associated with long-distance data transmission. The key areas of application of 5G technology in logistics are identified. It is established that the use of 5G in cargo monitoring systems ensures highly accurate tracking of transportation parameters, while warehouse logistics automation based on 5G creates conditions for the efficient operation of robotic complexes, autonomous vehicles, and drones. Conclusion. 5G networks constitute a basic infrastructure for the formation of intelligent, adaptive, and resilient logistics systems. At the same time, the effective implementation of 5G requires a comprehensive consideration of cybersecurity, infrastructural, and organizational risks, which is a prerequisite for enhancing the competitiveness of logistics networks in the digital economy.
Recent large language models (LLMs) incorporate reasoning capabilities that allow them to perform well in predicting whether a smart contract respects a certain property, suggesting a complementary approach to traditional formal-methods-based techniques for smart contract verification. However, the application of LLMs in such context has two major issues: 1) properties expressed in natural language are intrinsically ambiguous, and 2) answers returned by LLMs have no guarantee of correctness. In this paper, we address both issues simultaneously by: 1) introducing a new formal specification language that extends Solidity with abstract types, and 2) designing a workflow that combines LLMs with type checking and concrete execution to generate and validate violation witnesses (i.e., counterexamples). The key idea is to represent a specification as a Solidity test with (existentially quantified) variables of abstract type; finding an instantiation of these variables to concrete values (of the correct type) concretizes the test into an executable counterexample (PoC) for the target property. We implemented our procedure in the tool Neuroforger, experimentally evaluating it on a smart-contract verification dataset drawn from literature, obtaining promising results that demonstrate its potential applicability in the wild.
Quantum computing poses significant challenges to traditional zero-knowledge proof schemes based on number-theoretic assumptions. As a result, code-based cryptography has attracted increasing attention for its resistance against quantum computing. In this paper, we study the Rank Syndrome Decoding problem (RSD) and investigate its ZK proof formulation within the MPC-in-the-Head framework. To prove the possession of a secret witness, we reformulate the secret witness as a mixed-field matrix multiplication preserving the rank constraint, and then obtain a representation that aligns naturally with the local-view paradigm of MPC-in-the-Head. Utilizing this value-to-calculation technique, we introduce the RSD relation into a ZKBoo-style (2, 3)-secret-sharing MPC-in-the-Head framework and obtain an RSD-based zero-knowledge proof scheme via mixed-field secret sharing. The resulting scheme reduces the proof size relative to generic formulations while preserving completeness, soundness, and zero-knowledge for the interactive protocol. The Fiat–Shamir non-interactive extension is analyzed only in the classical random oracle model; we do not claim QROM security for this variant.