Web 3.0 is envisioned as a decentralized paradigm, where blockchain serves as a core technology for transparent and tamper-proof data management. Among various blockchain architectures, consortium blockchains have emerged as the preferred platform for enterprise-grade Web 3.0. For consortium blockchains, newly generated blocks are generally propagated to all consensus nodes for validation through the gossip protocol. However, gossip-based propagation may introduce substantial message redundancy and tail latency. Moreover, the consensus nodes exhibit heterogeneous availability patterns, and existing block propagation schemes often overlook such temporal constraints. Therefore, the joint optimization of propagation timeliness and delivery coverage remains an open problem. In this paper, we propose a deliverable block propagation optimization framework for consortium blockchain-enabled Web 3.0. We first propose a delivery-aware timeliness metric called Age of Validated Block (AoVB), which excludes block receptions occurring outside the availability window of each consensus node, thereby measuring only actionable synchronization latency. This metric is unified with the block arrival rate into a hybrid cost objective that balances timeliness against delivery. To solve this complex optimization problem, we propose a Graph-based Hierarchical Deep Reinforcement Learning (GHDRL) method, which comprises a graph isomorphism network-based assignment module and a graph attention network-based propagation module. The two modules are optimized jointly under a two-stage training strategy. Numerical results show that GHDRL consistently outperforms all compared schemes across network scales from 50 to 500 peers, achieving up to 19.2% lower hybrid cost than the best-performing neural baseline. Moreover, the model generalizes from 100-peer training instances to 500-peer deployments without retraining.
Remote examination platforms have experienced exponential growth, yet centralized architectures remain susceptible to data manipulation, unauthorized record alteration, and deficient audit mechanisms. This work introduces a federated, permissioned blockchain framework built upon Hyperledger Fabric, integrated within an AI-driven online examination platform designated as Evalon. The proposed architecture distributes ledger maintenance across multiple authorized institutional peers, recording cryptographic digests of examination lifecycle events—including candidate authentication, session boundaries, proctoring anomalies, and grade finalization—without exposing personally identifiable information on-chain. A Byzantine fault-tolerant ordering service coupled with endorsement policies ensures that no single administrative entity can unilaterally modify committed records. The blockchain substrate operates alongside a microservices backend deployed on serverless cloud infrastructure, facilitating real-time event validation through RESTful APIs and deterministic smart contracts. Complementing the integrity layer, computer vision models perform continuous behavioral analysis, detecting multi-face presence, gaze deviation, and anomalous motion patterns during live sessions. Experimental evaluation across 12,000 simulated examination sessions demonstrates a 99.7% hash verification success rate, sub-second ledger commit latency under concurrent loads of 500 transactions per second, and a 34% reduction in undetected integrity violations compared with conventional centralized logging. The combined framework establishes a tamper-resistant, auditable, and scalable ecosystem suitable for academic, certification, and enterprise assessment deployments.
HCTGS v8.0 presents a concept-of-proof architecture for transforming salt lake brine — currently treated as industrial waste or environmental threat — into the primary feedstock for a post-plastic, post-cement, post-titanium material economy. The document establishes magnesium, the lightest structural metal on Earth, as the central output of the HCTGS gravity-driven extraction cascade, deployable across six industrial sectors simultaneously. The global resource base across salt lakes in Tibet (Siling Co, 1,000+ lakes), Chile (Salar de Atacama), Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni), the US Great Basin, East Africa's Rift Valley, Central Asia, and Australia exceeds 4.5 million tonnes of extractable magnesium per year — 4.5× current world production, which relies predominantly on energy-intensive thermal reduction processes with a carbon footprint of 25–35 t CO₂ per tonne. HCTGS brine extraction reduces this carbon footprint by 70–85% and production cost by 40–60%, because magnesium is recovered as a Tier 3 co-product of gravity-driven water and lithium processing — not mined as a standalone commodity. Six application pillars are developed in technical depth: (1) Packaging — Bio-Magnesium (unalloyed Mg-Ca) for single-use items that biodegrade into soil nutrients (Mg(OH)₂) within months, replacing 140 million tonnes/year of plastic waste; (2) Medicine — bioresorbable Mg-Ca and Mg-Zn-Ca orthopaedic implants (MAGNEZIX® CE-marked 2013, magnesium phosphate cement FDA-approved 2021) that eliminate ~6 million second surgeries per year globally; (3) Transportation — magnesium body structures (AZ91, AM60) reducing EV mass by 30–40%, breaking the mass-battery-mass spiral; (4) Electronics — EMI shielding without halogenated compounds, eliminating dioxin release from e-waste incineration; (5) Construction — historically validated magnesium cements (Sorel 1867, Ming Dynasty oxychloride mortars 14th c., Persian Mg(OH)₂ waterproofing 2,500 years continuous service, Tibetan MgKPO₄ plasters 15th c.) that match or exceed Portland cement strength while absorbing 0.5 kg CO₂/kg instead of emitting 0.9 kg CO₂/kg; (6) Bio-composites — Mg-Hemp, Mg-Algae, Mg-Chitosan materials that participate in ecosystems rather than contaminating them. (7) Fuel — A thermal cascade closes the last external dependency: Mg-powder from the trichter combusts at 2,500°C driving MgCl₂ calcination (producing MgO for Sorel cement). Exhaust heat at 300–500°C pre-heats brine to within 6–16°C of the altitude-adjusted boiling point. Solar closes the final gap. One combustion event, three outputs: cement feedstock, process heat, and steam for desalination. The fuel is the product. The fuel's waste is the construction material. The fuel's exhaust is the process energy. Zero fossil input. Zero CO₂. Zero import. A dual-track national strategy (60% export, 40% domestic absorption) prevents Dutch disease while building material sovereignty. At full deployment across ten major salt lakes: 18 billion m³ fresh water/year (50 million people), 180 GW gravity baseload, 500,000 t Mg/year, and 50 million t CO₂ avoided over 20 years — not through offsets, but through material substitution. The document revives empirical knowledge from Ming Dynasty engineering manuals (《营造法式》), Tibetan monastic oral traditions, Sorel's original 1867 patents, and Persian qanat construction, reconnecting them with modern salt lake chemistry through the HCTGS supply chain.
The proliferation of digital assets has catalyzed a profound decoupling between intangible property and traditional inheritance jurisprudence. Under the existing legal framework in Taiwan, practitioners must rely on the testamentary forms prescribed in Article 1189 of the Civil Code, which are fundamentally ill equipped to handle cryptographic assets. Specifically, Notarized Wills (Article 1191) necessitate full disclosure to a notary, creating a “Privacy–Security Paradox” where revealing private keys exposes assets to misappropriation. Conversely, while Sealed Wills (Article 1192) offer confidentiality, they are plagued by risks of physical degradation and technical non-executability. This study proposes zkWill, an EVM-compatible decentralized testamentary framework designed to bridge these structural gaps. By leveraging Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), zkWill achieves a state of “blind compliance,” verifying that a sealed will meets the statutory requirements of the Civil Code without disclosing its underlying content. The system integrates the Permit2 protocol for secure asset migration and combines AES-256 encryption with IPFS to immunize testaments against centralized storage failures. Unlike conventional services that demand custodial trust, zkWill employs decentralized oracles to trigger automated execution, ensuring legacy distribution without compromising wallet private keys. Empirical data from the Arbitrum Sepolia testnet confirms that the framework maintains constant verification efficiency and a judicially resilient audit trail, providing a paradigm that harmonizes legal pragmatism with cryptographic security for digital inheritance.
We present a formal verification of Wolstenholme's theorem -- $\binom{2p}{p} \equiv 2 \pmod{p^3}$ for prime $p \geq 5$ -- in Lean~4 with Mathlib. The proof proceeds by expanding the shifted factorial product $\prod_{k=1}^{p-1}(p+k)$ to second order in $p$, identifying the quadratic coefficient as the second elementary symmetric product, and showing its divisibility by $p$ via power sum vanishing in $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$. The formalization comprises nine lemmas across approximately 800 lines of Lean, with zero \texttt{sorry} declarations. To our knowledge, this is the first formal verification of Wolstenholme's theorem in Lean~4. The proof was discovered through a collaboration between a relational analogy engine for theorem proving and human-directed formalization.
Javier Cifuentes-Faura, Hind Alofaysan, Magdalena Radulescu, Buhari Doğan
This study employs novel decomposed connectedness and portfolio analysis to assess the dynamic spillover effects among carbon finance, artificial intelligence, green energy markets, and bitcoin. The findings indicate that the average total connectedness index is 62%, especially during extreme market conditions. The decomposition of this measure into contemporaneous and lagged connectedness reveals that 56% of the metric can be attributed to contemporaneous dynamics. The portfolio exhibits high Hedging Effectiveness, particularly in extreme market conditions, suggesting that green assets can mitigate risks during periods of financial and geopolitical turmoil. The outcome shows that investments in Bitcoin and technology-related assets often yield the highest returns from 2018 to 2023. Based on the findings, relevant investment policies have been suggested for investors and policy decision-makers.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem is a complex and ever-evolving system composed of various protocols. One of these protocols is lending, which has seen significant growth in recent times. However, the motivations behind investors’ interest in this area remain largely unknown. Lending protocols operate on predefined algorithms that automatically provide loans to users, allowing them to actively participate in DeFi lending platforms on public blockchain networks. The adaptation of these algorithms to a blockchain network within the framework of state legislation has not been explored in depth. This determines the importance of the study. The object of the study is to compare lending in a blockchain network with traditional forms; the subject is to identify the factors that influence decentralized lending and its relationship with traditional finance. The aim of this study is to develop a model architecture that can be used to create decentralized credit applications within a consortium blockchain network that uses a native currency, such as a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The main objectives of this study are:1) using data on transactions from the Aave lending protocol, one of the leading decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems in terms of market capitalization, to identify the motivations that drive participants to engage in DeFi lending activities; 2) based on research into the DeFi token ecosystem and its market, as well as analogues of traditional financial lending models, to develop a mathematical model and an architectural diagram for a decentralized lending system built on a consortium blockchain with a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as the native currency. The results of the study are presented in the form of a mathematical model and a diagram of the architecture for a decentralized lending system based on a consortium blockchain network using a consortium with a native cryptocurrency, known as CBDC.
The scientific article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the legal nature of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as objects of civil rights under the legislation of Ukraine. The relevance of the research is обусловed by the rapid development of the NFT market, the absence of specific legislative regulation, and the necessity of adapting Ukrainian civil legislation to the challenges of the digital economy. The paper analyzes the technical nature of NFTs as a prerequisite for their proper legal qualification. It examines the functioning of blockchain technology as a distributed ledger, the minting process, the role of smart contracts in automating the performance of contractual terms, and the distinctions between the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards. The article substantiates a critical thesis: an NFT does not constitute the digital object itself but rather represents a digital certificate of authenticity confirming ownership of the token as a digital asset. The position of NFTs within the system of objects of civil rights of Ukraine is determined. The study demonstrates the impossibility of qualifying NFTs as “things” in the classical sense or as securities, due to the absence of issuer obligations and the absolute uniqueness (non-fungibility) of tokens, or their limited fungibility exclusively within a single series governed by a unified smart contract. The most accurate legal qualification is recognized as a combination of the concepts of a “digital thing” (Article 179¹ of the Civil Code of Ukraine) and a “secured virtual asset” within the meaning of the Law of Ukraine “On Virtual Assets” (not yet in force), as NFTs meet the criteria of an intangible asset, constitute objects of civil rights, possess economic value, and are expressed as a set of data in electronic form. It is further established that a smart contract may be regarded as a civil law agreement in relation to an NFT token. Particular emphasis is placed on the fundamental distinction between ownership of an NFT and copyright in the underlying work. It is established that the acquisition of a token does not automatically entail the transfer of economic copyright. The transfer of such rights requires the conclusion of a separate written agreement in compliance with copyright legislation. The article also analyzes international regulatory approaches to NFTs, in particular the provisions of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) of the European Union. It is proposed to consider blockchain-based registration systems as evidence of the fact of creation of a work and the emergence of copyright. Finally, proposals are formulated for improving Ukrainian legislation in the field of NFT regulation.
The scientific article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the legal nature of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as objects of civil rights under the legislation of Ukraine. The relevance of the research is обусловed by the rapid development of the NFT market, the absence of specific legislative regulation, and the necessity of adapting Ukrainian civil legislation to the challenges of the digital economy. The paper analyzes the technical nature of NFTs as a prerequisite for their proper legal qualification. It examines the functioning of blockchain technology as a distributed ledger, the minting process, the role of smart contracts in automating the performance of contractual terms, and the distinctions between the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards. The article substantiates a critical thesis: an NFT does not constitute the digital object itself but rather represents a digital certificate of authenticity confirming ownership of the token as a digital asset. The position of NFTs within the system of objects of civil rights of Ukraine is determined. The study demonstrates the impossibility of qualifying NFTs as “things” in the classical sense or as securities, due to the absence of issuer obligations and the absolute uniqueness (non-fungibility) of tokens, or their limited fungibility exclusively within a single series governed by a unified smart contract. The most accurate legal qualification is recognized as a combination of the concepts of a “digital thing” (Article 179¹ of the Civil Code of Ukraine) and a “secured virtual asset” within the meaning of the Law of Ukraine “On Virtual Assets” (not yet in force), as NFTs meet the criteria of an intangible asset, constitute objects of civil rights, possess economic value, and are expressed as a set of data in electronic form. It is further established that a smart contract may be regarded as a civil law agreement in relation to an NFT token. Particular emphasis is placed on the fundamental distinction between ownership of an NFT and copyright in the underlying work. It is established that the acquisition of a token does not automatically entail the transfer of economic copyright. The transfer of such rights requires the conclusion of a separate written agreement in compliance with copyright legislation. The article also analyzes international regulatory approaches to NFTs, in particular the provisions of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) of the European Union. It is proposed to consider blockchain-based registration systems as evidence of the fact of creation of a work and the emergence of copyright. Finally, proposals are formulated for improving Ukrainian legislation in the field of NFT regulation.
As cross-chain interoperability advances, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols enable illicit funds to be reorganized into uniform liquid assets that flow throughout the cryptocurrency market. Such operations can bypass monitoring targeted at individual blockchains and thereby weaken current regulatory frameworks. Motivated by these, we introduce UniDetect, a multi-chain cryptocurrency fraud account detection method based on large language models (LLMs). Specifically, we use domain knowledge to guide the LLM to generate general transaction summary texts applicable to heterogeneous blockchain accounts, which serve as evidence for fraud account detection. Furthermore, we introduce a two-stage alternating training strategy to continuously and dynamically enhance the multimodal joint reasoning for detecting fraudulent accounts based on both the textual evidence and the transaction graph patterns. Experiments on multiple blockchains show that UniDetect outperforms existing methods 5.57% to 7.58% in Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS). For cross-chain zero-shot detection, UniDetect identifies over 94.58% of fraudulent accounts. It also generalizes well to non-blockchain data, delivering a 6.06% improvement in F1 over existing methods. The dataset and source code are available at https://github.com/msy0513/UniDetect.
Cultural and creative industries face persistent challenges in securing sustainable financing and equitable governance, particularly under traditional models reliant on centralized intermediaries and public subsidies. This study examines the potential of decentralized autonomous organizations, enabled by blockchain technology, to address these constraints through innovative governance and financing mechanisms. Using a quantitative methodology supported by t -tests, bootstrap resampling and analysis of variance (ANOVA), the analysis draws on multiple public data sets to assess the effects of these organizations on financing access, market performance, income stability and governance inclusivity across the sector. The results show that decentralized organizations substantially expand available financing, with treasury sizes far exceeding traditional benchmarks, and increase market engagement through high-value digital asset sales, although differences in broader market potential are not statistically significant. Income stability improves in several projects, while governance outcomes vary by subsector, with inclusive decision-making often challenged in larger communities. Grounded in digital economy, organizational, stakeholder and sustainability theories, the study fills a critical empirical gap in research on decentralized models within cultural and creative contexts. It offers actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners and highlights the need for future work on subsector dynamics and regulatory frameworks that can support the democratizing potential of decentralized governance.
El Canon de la Soberanía Infraestructural La presente publicación constituye la respuesta oficial y técnico-científica del Ecosistema TAMV ONLINE frente a los dilemas de la ética digital en contextos de desigualdad estructural. En un escenario global donde la tecnología suele ser impuesta desde centros de poder hegemónicos, este documento marca un hito al presentar una Arquitectura Civilizatoria nacida en el Sur Global (Real del Monte, Hidalgo, México), diseñada para transformar la ética de un discurso abstracto en una infraestructura ejecutable. A diferencia de las propuestas teóricas tradicionales, esta obra se fundamenta en la praxis de su CEO y Arquitecto Jefe, Edwin Oswaldo Castillo Trejo, quien articula una defensa de la "Tecnodiversidad" mediante el despliegue de sistemas reales, auditables y soberanos. Descripción del Documento: Protocolo TAMV-SOVEREIGN-ARCH v1.0 El documento se estructura como un Marco de Gobernanza y Estándar Técnico unificado, desglosando los pilares que permiten a una comunidad transitar de la dependencia tecnológica a la autoría digital. A través de sus secciones, el lector encontrará: Validación Académica Inmutable: El uso estratégico de Identificadores Persistentes (PIDs) como ORCID, DOI y ISNI, que blindan la producción intelectual del Sur Global frente al extractivismo epistémico. Arquitectura de Kernel MD-X: La descripción técnica de los motores de observabilidad (MD-X4) y evolución (MD-X5), capaces de absorber y reconfigurar sistemas externos bajo normativas éticas territoriales (Protocolo Hoyo Negro). Mediación Cognitiva e IA Ética: El despliegue de Isabella Villaseñor AI, una inteligencia artificial gobernada por el UTAMV AI Academic Core, que prioriza la formación humana y la Taxonomía de Bloom sobre la automatización comercial. Implementación Phygital: El caso de estudio de RDM Digital, demostrando cómo la Web3 y el Metaverso pueden revitalizar economías locales y proteger el patrimonio cultural sin ceder la soberanía de los datos. Framework de Evaluación: Un estándar exportable diseñado para que gobiernos e instituciones evalúen su nivel de autonomía digital y resistencia frente al colonialismo de datos. Este documento es, en esencia, el plano arquitectónico para la libertad digital, estableciendo que la única ética universal posible es aquella que se programa en la infraestructura y se vive en el territorio.
Education 3.0, AI and HyFi are the three pillars of the Kohenoor Ecosystem where Education is the enabler and this perhaps is the only way to transform the world into a more productive and future-embracing place. This document presents a defensive technical disclosure describing a Hybrid-Finance (HyFi) CeDeFi operational infrastructure developed by Kohenoor Technologies. The architecture integrates Education 3.0, Multilayered Hybrid Intelligence Engine and programmable decentralized settlement execution, supervised decision processes, structured governance control, and workforce operational enablement into a coordinated financial operating framework. The system is intended to enable organizations to operate blockchain-based financial processes as recurring business operations rather than isolated transactions. It defines coordinated operational layers consisting of settlement mapping, intelligence interpretation, supervised decision execution, and human operational readiness. The disclosure documents the research progression, implementation embodiments, and architectural definitions of the system and is published to establish publicly verifiable prior art. The referenced implementations illustrate functional embodiments and do not limit the architecture to any specific network, software platform, or digital asset. Also attached herewith is the executive overview of Kohenoor Ecosystem R&D, finalized after seven years of rigorous research, testing, and model refinement. Lead Researcher: Ahmad Bilal Khan, Founder of Kohenoor Technologies and principal architect of the KAI Alpha+ framework. ORCID Profile A cryptographic timestamp proof accompanies this publication to attest to the existence of the document at the time of disclosure. Test ProEdge(Alpha): kenhyfi.kohenoor.tech Keywords: #kenhyfi #kai #hyfi #kohenoortechnologies #futureofeducation #futureoffinance #futureofai #kohenoorken #cryptocurrencies #kohenoorken #AI #actionai #agenticai #AGI #ArtificialGeneralIntelligenceAGI #AIAssistant #education3 #defi #hybridfinance #hyfi #cedefi #blockchain #innovation #settlements #auditreadycertificates #DASC #cybersecurity #web3 #businessintelligence #proedge #industrygradetrainings #quantumcomputing
Platform monopolies have turned the contemporary internet into digital feudalism, extracting profit from human connection while enabling surveillance and censorship. Iran’s 2019 near-blackout, which cut connectivity to 5 %, exposed how centralized architectures become authoritarian chokepoints. Yet scholarship remains fragmented: most studies isolate protocols instead of synthesizing how technical design and political economy co-evolve. We compare federated systems such as ReP2P Matrix, Nostr’s peer-to-peer networks, Bluesky’s AT Protocol, blockchain communication hybrids, and Named Data Networking. Our multi-method study of decentralized internet alternatives blends traffic analytics of 4 million Nostr users on 600 relays, performance benchmarks, economic sustainability modeling, and architectural case studies. We ask whether these designs can fulfil the promise of a truly decentralized internet. The evidence is mixed. SendingNetwork scales group messaging linearly, and Waku proves spam-resistant peer-to-peer networks with <300 ms proof generation; however, no single protocol reconciles censorship resistance, usability, and economic sustainability. Nostr delivers uncompromising censorship resistance yet consumes 35 × the resources of centralized systems. Bluesky’s growth leaves 98.9 % of identities non-portable. Community mesh networks invite new hierarchies of technical privilege. Accepting irreducible trade-offs must guide emerging web3 governance. Communities will choose architectures aligned with their values, but meaningful decentralization will remain aspirational until funding models and accessibility gaps are resolved.
The management of radio frequency spectrum is undergoing a paradigm shift from static, centralized command-and-control models to dynamic, market-driven approaches. However, the realization of Dynamic Spectrum Management has been hindered by the lack of an automated, trustworthy, and intelligent coordination infrastructure that can operate without a central authority while preserving participant privacy. In this paper, we introduce BLAST (Blockchain-based LLM-powered Agentic Spectrum Trading), a comprehensive framework that integrates Large Language Model (LLM) Agents with a permissioned blockchain infrastructure to create a fully autonomous, private, and secure spectrum trading ecosystem. We propose a novel agent architecture that implements the Cognitive Radio cycle through a sequential decision pipeline (perceive, plan, act) enabling agents to reason strategically about economic value and market dynamics. We evaluate the framework through three distinct market mechanisms: Direct Sale, First-Price Sealed-Bid, and Second-Price (Vickrey) Sealed-Bid auctions. Experimental results demonstrate that the Second-Price (Vickrey) auction is the optimal choice for maximizing social welfare and allocative efficiency, capturing up to 71% of the theoretical surplus by incentivizing truthful bidding. We also compare the proposed model against a baseline non-LLM heuristic agentic model and show that utilizing LLM agents yields significant improvements in market competition, reduced wealth and asset concentration, and increased system welfare. Furthermore, we validate the system's privacy preservation, confirming that sensitive bid values remain isolated in private data collections while only cryptographic hashes are committed to the public ledger.
João Miguel Guerreiro Fernandes, Samih Eisa, Miguel L. Pardal
From production to consumption, ensuring food quality and traceability depends on reliable monitoring of environmental conditions across the supply chain. Ambient sensing devices can collect relevant data such as temperature and humidity, but ensuring its integrity among stakeholders remains a challenge. This work presents AmBox, a system that enables device-to-blockchain ambient sensing for food traceability. AmBox connects sensors to a blockchain, ensuring secure, verifiable, and tamper-resistant data collection with minimal intermediaries. It manages sensor commissioning and operation with the adequate business context. AmBox can operate with standalone nodes or within a distributed node-mote architecture, allowing flexible deployment at different points along the supply chain. A prototype using Raspberry Pi and ESP32 hardware can record sensor data directly on Hyperledger Fabric. Experimental results show that AmBox provides timely and reliable data that can increase transparency and trust between the supply chain stakeholders.
Digital payment systems have become a cornerstone of consumer finance in Africa. Prominent payment categories include money transfer applications, mobile money, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). While there are studies exploring how and why people use individual digital payment systems (both in Africa and beyond), we lack a good understanding of why people choose between different categories of payment systems, and how they view the tradeoffs between different categories. We conducted qualitative interviews in three African countries -- Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe -- to understand how and why people use various payment systems, and what influenced them to start using these systems. Our study highlights several notable findings regarding tradeoffs between perceived utility, privacy, and security. For example, many users trust government issuers to protect them from scams, but they do not trust those same institutions to build reliable systems and products or prioritize customer satisfaction. We also find that most users have accounts on multiple payment systems, and conduct a complex selection process using different platforms for different types of payments. This selection process is driven in part by financial considerations, but also by security, privacy, and trust preferences. Our findings suggest compelling directions for regulators and the research community to design systems that balance users' trust and utility needs.
Alaa Alqaryuti, Haya Aljaghoub, Khaled Salah, Ahmad Mayyas
The growing adoption of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVS) has increased the need for secure, transparent, and verifiable certification and lifecycle tracking of hydrogen-related components. Current practices rely on fragmented documentation and centralized record-keeping, which creates risks of data manipulation, incomplete maintenance histories, and limited visibility for regulators and service providers. This paper introduces a blockchain-based framework that integrates decentralized storage, oracle-driven automation, and three interoperable smart contracts to manage stakeholder registration, component certification, vehicle assembly validation, and maintenance tracking. Implemented and evaluated in an EVM-compatible environment, the system enforces strict role-based access control, generates immutable audit trails, and automates both failure-based and mileage-based maintenance triggers using real-time inputs. A gas-cost analysis demonstrates that all contract functions operate at minimal cost under current Ethereum conditions, supporting the feasibility of real-world deployment. Overall, the proposed framework improves traceability, regulatory compliance, and operational accountability by enabling near real-time verification of certification records and reducing manual audit processing steps compared to traditional document-based certification workflows. • Blockchain ensures secure, tamper-proof FCEV component traceability. • Smart contracts automate certification, assembly, and maintenance. • Oracle triggers enable real-time, failure-, and scheduled service. • Framework improves compliance, transparency, and lifecycle oversight.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Samrendra Roy, Souvik Chakraborty, Rizwan-uddin, Syed Bahauddin Alam
Neural operators have emerged as powerful surrogates for partial differential equation (PDE) solvers, yet they are typically trained as monolithic models for individual PDEs, require energy-intensive GPU hardware, and must be retrained from scratch when new physics emerge. We introduce the Spiking Compositional Neural Operator (SCNO), a modular architecture combining spiking and conventional components that addresses all three limitations. SCNO maintains a library of small spiking neural operator blocks, each trained on a single elementary differential operator (convection, diffusion, reaction), and composes them through a lightweight input-conditioned aggregator to solve coupled PDEs not seen during block training. A small correction network learns cross-coupling residuals while keeping all blocks and the aggregator frozen, preserving zero-forgetting modular expansion by construction. We evaluate SCNO on eight PDE families including five coupled systems and a nuclear-relevant 1-group neutron diffusion equation. SCNO with correction achieves the lowest relative $L^2$ error on four of five coupled PDEs, outperforming both a monolithic spiking DeepONet (by up to 62%, mean over 3 seeds) and a standard ANN DeepONet (by up to 65%), while requiring only 95K trainable parameters versus 462K for the monolithic baseline. To our knowledge, this is the first compositional spiking neural operator and the first proof-of-concept for modular neuromorphic PDE solving with built-in forgetting-free expansion.
The Connes–van Suijlekom truncated Weil quadratic form, indexed by a cutoff parameter c that controls the primes p ≤ c entering the operator, produces a ground state whose Fourier–Mellin zeros provably lie on the critical line; whether they converge to the Riemann zeros as c → ∞ is open (Connes 2026; Connes–Consani–Moscovici 2025). We present, to our knowledge, the first independent public implementation of the Connes–van Suijlekom Galerkin matrix at sixteen cutoffs (c = 13 through 67, plus c = 100). Across the in-sample window c = 13 through c = 67 at N = 100, the first-zero absolute error |γ1 − γ1Riemann| shrinks monotonically from ∼2×10−55 to ∼1.5×10−168 — a 113-OOM convergence across fifteen cutoffs. The smallest-positive even-sector eigenvalue λmineven separately reaches ∼10−334 at c = 100, N = 250 (275-OOM span from c = 13). Out-of-sample test at c = 100. On the four-point N-sweep N ∈ {100, 150, 200, 250} at dps = 500, consecutive first-difference ratios 0.837 and 0.836 match to two decimal places. Aitken-Δ2 on the two overlapping triples yields log10|λ∞even| ≈ −536.8 and ≈ −533.7, approaching the Connes 2026 §6.4 heuristic prediction (≈ −530.4) monotonically with N (6.4 and 3.3 OOM gaps out of |x∞| ∼ 530). The same eigenvector recovers γ1, …, γ10 to 307–329 matching digits at N = 250, dps = 500. Under the unitary equivalence with Connes–Consani–Moscovici Lemma 5.1, this is the deepest such Galerkin-truncation recovery in the public Connes–van Suijlekom / Connes–Consani–Moscovici literature, subject to a hypothesis-status caveat: the raw finite-N matrix carries a small block of dps-stable negative-sign eigenvalues, so we report the smallest-positive branch (continuum positivity of QWλ is RH-equivalent and is not assumed at λ = √100). The fit |log10 λmin| ≈ 13.24 c0.634 on c ≤ 67 at N = 100 is shown to be a finite-N rate, falsified at c = 100, N = 200 by 49 OOM in the direction of faster decay. Structural observations include approximate eigenvector c-invariance (overlap ≥ 0.9498 on all 105 cutoff pairs despite eigenvalues differing by 113 OOM), multi-zero convergence universality (all ten detectable zeros within 3.8% of each other), an empirical Galerkin-convergence exponent s(c) ≈ 55 log c − 128, un-rescaled Galerkin bulk-spectrum Poisson statistics (β < 0.05; this is a structural diagnostic of the truncated operator, not a test of Montgomery's conjecture, which applies to locally-rescaled zero spacings), and tight bulk invariants log|det Qc| ≈ −65.6 c + 542 (R2 = 0.997). We make no claim of proof; the contribution is reproducible numerical data and its careful interpretation under the existing CvS / CCM framework. All code, data, and ancillary files are publicly available.
Shannon's rate-distortion theory treats source symbols as unstructured labels. When the source is a knowledge base equipped with a logical proof system, a natural fidelity criterion is closure fidelity: a reconstruction is acceptable if it preserves the deductive closure of the original. This paper develops a rate-distortion theory under this criterion. Central to the theory is the irredundant core-a canonical generating set extracted by a fixed-order deletion procedure, from which the full deductive closure can be rederived. We prove that the zero-distortion semantic rate equals a quantity that is strictly below the classical entropy rate whenever the knowledge base contains redundant states. More generally, the full semantic rate-distortion function depends only on the core; redundant states are invisible to both rate and distortion. We derive a semantic source-channel separation theorem showing a semantic leverage phenomenon: under closure fidelity, the required source rate is reduced by an asymptotic leverage factor greater than one, allowing the same knowledge base to be communicated with proportionally fewer channel uses-not by violating Shannon capacity, but because redundant states become free. We also prove a strengthened Fano inequality that exploits core structure. For heterogeneous multi-agent communication, an overlap decomposition gives necessary and sufficient conditions for closure-reliable transmission and identifies a semantic bottleneck in broadcast settings that persists even over noiseless channels. All results are verified on Datalog instances with up to 24,000 base facts.
With the help of pact technology, a program that has been developed, the smart contract can take place between two or more entities without any third-party actor. Although smart contracts provide transparency and efficiency, security flaws in smart contracts have resulted in costly attacks, including re-entrancy, integer overflows, and access control violations. Current tools for intelligent contract verification, such as Mythril, Oyente, and Securify, mainly apply symbolic execution, taint analysis, and pattern matching to identify vulnerabilities. However, these tools have many false positives, take a lot of time to execute, and don't scale efficiently with large numbers of contracts. In this context, the paper presents VeriChain. This formal verification framework combines Control Flow Graph (CFG) analysis, symbolic execution, and static analysis to improve vulnerability detection and tackle the challenges above. VeriChain systematically constructs the contract’s Control Flow Graph (CFG), explores CFG execution paths with symbolic execution, and employs a set of rules for performing rule-based static analysis that can uncover vulnerabilities. Using CFG-based dependency tracking, VeriChain achieves enhanced analysis of dependencies among functions and coverage of execution paths, thereby reducing the number of false positives while achieving accurate detection results. The experimental results show that VeriChain obtains 98.3% detection accuracy, higher than Mythril, Oyente, and Securify. Compared to existing tools, VeriChain has a much lower false-positive rate (1 false alarm) and a much faster execution time (Running in only 2.3 seconds). This framework gives a structured security assessment by categorizing the vulnerabilities according to severity and execution traces, ensuring that the smart contracts are accessed under heavy security verification pre-deployment. With its ability to accomplish highly accurate results efficiently whilst providing structured ways to report on security, VeriChain will be an influential component in delivering safe, innovative contract launches to decentralized applications for blockchain developers and security analysts.
Smart contract security audits are essential for trust in decentralized finance (DeFi), yet audit reports from different firms vary widely in scope definition, severity labels, fix verification, and report structure. These differences make it hard for developers, users, and other stakeholders to assess risk. In this paper, we address these issues by empirically analyzing 160 audit reports from 26 leading auditing firms to uncover patterns and gaps in current practices. Using qualitative content analysis, we extract a taxonomy of 19 common properties that audit reports include (or omit). We then apply Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to identify five distinct “report style families” used by auditors, and perform a temporal trend analysis to see if the industry is converging on certain best practices. Finally, we synthesize a feature model that specifies a minimal defensible baseline for audit reports, distinguishing mandatory sections from optional extensions to support traceability and consistent interpretation across reports. This model enables reproducible comparisons across auditors, strengthens accountability for scope definition and fix verification, and provides an evidence base to improve the quality and uniformity of smart contract audit reporting.