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676 results · page 25 of 29
Spyridon Nikolaidis, Ioannis Refanidis
No abstract is available for this record.
Sara Jeza Alotaibi
Today's era of globalization and digital transformation has produced many modern technologies that have influenced modern societies, blockchain being one. This chapter will set out definitions and criteria related to what blockchain is, its advantages and limitations, and its relation to the modern techniques used in the conclusion of smart contracts; and the impact of this technology on fighting administrative and financial corruption. Within this chapter, the central focus is on a new form of contracts founded as a result of the challenge of aligning the current system of the contract with the application of blockchain technology (i.e., to replace the idea of credit intermediation in dealing [notary, bank, management] with another thought based on a peer-to-peer system to increase contractual security and to establish the principle of self-implementation of the contract without the need to mediate with others).
Kelsie Nabben
No abstract is available for this record.
WillemâJan van den Heuvel, Damian A. Tamburri, Damiano DâAmici, Fabiano Izzo · 5 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Roberto GarcıÌa, Ana Cediel, MercĂš TeixidĂł, Rosa Gil
No abstract is available for this record.
Emiliano Soares Monteiro, Rodrigo da Rosa Righi, Rafael Kunst, Cristiano André da Costa · 5 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Kelsie Nabben
Blockchain-based âDecentralized Autonomous Organizationsâ (DAOs) communities risk perpetuating the 1990s Californian Ideology of techno-elitism in their imaginary of âautonomyâ via technological determinism, free-market economics, and âengineeringâ approach to social and political challenges (Barbrook & Cameron, 1996). Imaginations include algorithmic governance via Artificial General Intelligence agents running on decentralized blockchains, hiring labor in DAOs, and bartering payment in cryptocurrency. The role of humans in this imaginary is limited. This piece explores autonomy in blockchain-based DAOs to investigate visions of algorithmic assemblages. Do DAOs imagine a different future where the role of humans is one of symbiosis and augmentation with machines? I draw on cybernetic interpretations of DAOs as âautopoieticâ organisms to imagine a co-constitutive relationship between people and algorithms in the information age. By understanding the promises and practices of blockchain technology and decentralized governance, we can better engage with these emergent objects of social and policy inquiry.
Leena S. Alotaibi, Sultan S. Alshamrani
Smart contracts are simply self-activated contracts between two parties. The idea behind their implementation relies on the concept of blockchain, wherein the details and execution of the contract are turned into code and distributed among users of a network. This process controls counterfeiting and money laundering by its ability to trace who owes whom. It also boosts the general economy. This research paper shows how smart contracts in modern-day systems have changed the approach to money tracing. We present case studies about the uses of smart contracts with high levels of security and privacy. As a building block of smart contracts, a brief description of blockchain is provided in an introduction. Among other cryptography methods and techniques, the usage of hashing and hash functions in blockchain security are also explained. We also explore the real-time applications of blockchain and smart contract techniques in real estate. The main advantage of this research paper is that it discusses a state-of-the-art subject, as most of the articles referenced in this paper are from 2018 and onward.
Victoria L. Lemieux, Chen Feng
No abstract is available for this record.
Arindam Das
In this exploratory research, I develop new knowledge on trust in inter-firm cooperation that leverages recent technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of things in a digital platform ecosystem. In a digital network, advanced algorithms govern and shape inter-firm business processes. While such algorithms introduce efficiency in inter-firm business processes, their limitations, especially their apparent lack of transparency, may affect the key trust dimensions (i.e., reliability, fairness, and goodwill) in the relationships among the participating firms. I introduce algorithmic relationship, a label that embeds the concepts of smart contracts in inter-firm cooperation. Algorithmic relationships involve autonomous and semi-autonomous implementations of smart contracts in all lifecycle stages of inter-firm cooperation. By analyzing extant literature on trust, inter-firm cooperation, business model innovation, and digital platforms, I demonstrate how various factors influence whether firms adopt smart contracts: perceptions about other participantsâ trustworthiness, participantsâ own propensity to trust, participantsâ shared goals and resource embeddedness in the network, perceived risks in inter-firm interactions, and complexity and time criticality of inter-firm interactions. Taking a temporal perspective, I also recognize the present lacunae with smart contracts from various perspectives (algorithm development, algorithm implementation, algorithm governance, and the availability of appropriate legal resources in the event that disputes occur) and demonstrate how these drawbacks impede shared value creation.
Viktor Vasylkovskyi, SĂ©rgio Guerreiro, JoĂŁo Sequeira
Social robots can cause privacy concerns for humans, both because they collect personal data while moving around globally, and because humans can perceive them as social actors. Nowadays, robots can record and transmit (private) data in a human-readable format, which is identified as a problem in human-robot interaction (HRI). Privacy is an individual's right to have control over its data. With this problem in mind, we present BlockRobot - a new privacy-by-design conceptual model for access control of personal data based on Blockchain (BC) technology. With this solution, we ensure data privacy rights by giving each user control over its data in a decentralized manner without the need for an intermediate data controller. This BC solution grants confidentiality, integrity, and non-repudiation of data transparently and fairly to every user. As proof of concept, we demonstrate the initial implementation of a Decentralized Application (DAP) based on EOS Blockchain integrated with robotic events that contain private data. This paper details the experiments conducted with a Social Robot (SR) in a non-lab environment, and the collected data is analyzed using process mining techniques.
Cornelius C. Agbo, Qusay H. Mahmoud
Transformation of data into knowledge is the hallmark of modern medicine. As an evolving field of medicine, e-Health involves the electronic processing of a patient's personal, medical and other health-related data to improve healthcare delivery. Data captured from clinical interactions between patients and their care providers, as well as health data collected through medical sensors, provide a rich source of data, known as patient medical records (PMRs), which can be processed in various ways to enhance the delivery of healthcare services. However, indiscriminate processing of PMRs could potentially result in the violation of the security or privacy of patients. To ensure that PMRs are not processed in ways that could be harmful to the security or privacy of the patients, modern data protection regulations, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), requires healthcare service provides to obtain the consent of a patient for any processing operation on their PMRs. The mechanism by which a patient exercises their right to control who can process their PMRs, when and for what purpose, is referred to as consent management in e-Health. Existing health information technology systems do not provide adequate support for consent management; there is a lack of transparency and auditability in the existing systems to monitor and ensure that healthcare service providers comply to the relevant data protection regulations in processing PMRs. The emerging blockchain technology offers an opportunity to design an e-Health consent management system that is compliant with modern data protection regulations such as GDPR. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of an e-Health consent management framework, based on the state-of-the-art blockchain technologies, for processing PMRs. Our analysis confirms that our system satisfies the requirements for consent management in e-Health.
Dominik Welte, Axel Sikora, Daniel Schönle, Jan Stodt · 5 authors
Blockchain and Industry 4.0 have the potential to revolutionize the way entities work together in the industrial environment. Former paper-based and manual tasks, such as maintenance, will be replaced by smart contracts in combination with automatic data collection. We consider different data sources and possibilities integrating them into a blockchain ecosystem in consideration of integration and security aspects. We identify potential security threats around the blockchain and propose potential countermeasures. Finally, we provide three solutions to protect blockchain users against three threats targeting data corruption, data protection and input falsification.
Scott Thiebes, Sebastian Lins, Ali Sunyaev
Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) brings forth many opportunities to contribute to the wellbeing of individuals and the advancement of economies and societies, but also a variety of novel ethical, legal, social, and technological challenges. Trustworthy AI (TAI) bases on the idea that trust builds the foundation of societies, economies, and sustainable development, and that individuals, organizations, and societies will therefore only ever be able to realize the full potential of AI, if trust can be established in its development, deployment, and use. With this article we aim to introduce the concept of TAI and its five foundational principles (1) beneficence, (2) non-maleficence, (3) autonomy, (4) justice, and (5) explicability. We further draw on these five principles to develop a data-driven research framework for TAI and demonstrate its utility by delineating fruitful avenues for future research, particularly with regard to the distributed ledger technology-based realization of TAI.
Anton Hasselgren, Paul Kengfai Wan, Margareth Horn, Katina Kralevska · 5 authors
The transparent and decentralized characteristics associated with blockchain can be both appealing and problematic when applied to a healthcare use-case. As health data is highly sensitive, it is therefore, highly regulated to ensure the privacy of patients. At the same time, access to health data and interoperability are in high demand. Regulatory frameworks such as GDPR and HIPAA are, amongst other objectives, meant to contribute to mitigating the risk of privacy violations of health data. Blockchain features can likely improve interoperability and access control to health data, and at the same time, preserve or even increase, the privacy of patients. Blockchain applications should address compliance with the current regulatory framework to increase real-world feasibility. This exploratory work indicates that published proof-of-concepts in the healthcare domain comply with GDPR, to an extent. Blockchain developers need to make design choices to be compliant with GDPR since currently, none available blockchain platform can show compliance out of the box.
MarĂa Victoria YĂ©pez Idrovo, MarĂa Paz Vela Sevilla, Bernarda AlegrĂa Haro AillĂłn
La presente investigaciĂłn analiza la figura de los smart contracts o contratos inteligentes, los cuales se caracterizan por su ejecuciĂłn automĂĄtica a travĂ©s de blockchain. Se desmiente la creencia de que por ejecutarse automĂĄticamente, estos contratos estĂĄn exentos de disputas, y se analiza quĂ© tipo de controversias podrĂan surgir de ellos. El presente trabajo sostiene que el arbitraje posee ciertas caracterĂsticas, en particular su deslocalizaciĂłn, flexibilidad y confidencialidad, que lo convierten en el mĂ©todo idĂłneo para resolver disputas derivadas de smart contracts, y analiza cĂłmo dos plataformas han desarrollado mecanismos de resoluciĂłn de disputas para contratos inteligentes. A la luz del procedimiento adoptado por estas plataformas y de la TeorĂa General del Arbitraje, se hace un anĂĄlisis de los desafĂos que implica arbitrar este tipo de contratos.
Wei Xiong, Li Xiong
No abstract is available for this record.
Daniel Drummer, Dirk Neumann
Blockchain technology has enabled so-called smart contracts between different parties on a decentralized network. These self-enforceable and self-executable computerized contracts could initiate a fundamental paradigm shift in the understanding and functioning of our legal practices. Opportunities for their application are increasingly understood, and numerous tests of feasibility have been completed. However, only very few use cases have yet been implemented at scale. This articleâas the first of its kindâcomprehensively analyzes the underlying challenges and locates a key reason for the slow adoption in the discrepancy between legal requirements and IT capabilities. Our work combines a wide range of academic sources and interviews with 30 domain experts from IT, the legal domain and private industry. First, we establish that smart contracts still fall within the boundaries of the general legal framework. We then systematically dissect current shortcomings of smart contracts on three distinct levels, namely, (1) how smart contracts are likely to cause conflicts with existing laws, (2) how smart contracts are intrinsically limited on an individual contract level and (3) how they are impeded by their current technical design. Across those levels, we dissect 20 distinct issues concerning the current implementation of smart contracts for which we derive potential remedies. We further outline implications for policy-makers as well as IT management, and examine how information systems research can play an important role in advancing smart contracts. Finally, we show how managerial and organizational issues might represent an ongoing challenge for the widespread adoption of smart contracts.
Kevin Wallis, Jan Stodt, Eugen Jastremskoj, Christoph Reich
The digital transformation of companies is expected to increase the digital interconnection between different companies to develop optimized, customized, hybrid business models. These cross-company business models require secure, reliable, and traceable logging and monitoring of contractually agreed information sharing between machine tools, operators, and service providers. This paper discusses how the major requirements for building hybrid business models can be tackled by the blockchain for building a chain of trust and smart contracts for digitized contracts. A machine maintenance use case is used to discuss the readiness of smart contracts for the automation of workflows defined in contracts. Furthermore, it is shown that the number of failures is significantly improved by using these contracts and a blockchain.
Charlotte Ene
Abstract Today we are witnesses an explosion of online business, developed on the internet â a special environment that requires own resources and tools and it is governed by specific rules. In this context, a new type of technology has been developed â the distributed ledger system, which allowed the creation of a new form of the agreement - the smart contracts. Smart contract is the next step forward in the process of digitalized contracts, after using the PDF documents with electronic signatures, and it favors the businesses to be carried out completely automatically, without the need for human intervention, and to gain greater efficiency and reduction in costs. This paper will try to provide the answers to several questions, such as: what is a smart contract?; how smart contract will be used?; how smart contract will be enforced?; etc. Moreover, it will be emphasized the advantages of smart contract and the new developments such as âRicardianâ contracts representing more efficient and transparent agreements that can be drafted and enforced on platform. Most important issue of this paper consists in analysis of legal framework of smart contracts using the basic principles of contract law combined with blockchain regulations, taking into account changing the paradigm from âcode is lawâ to âlaw is codeâ.
Mireille Hildebrandt
Abstract This chapter focuses on how machine learning (ML) and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) change the environment of the law, the substance of legal goods, and on the extent to which these changes affect legal protection. ML applications, for example, can decide a person's credit worthiness or employability. Moreover, DLTs can, for instance, self-execute transactions and policies without and beyond the law. One of the main challenges here thus concerns the regulatory effects of these novel technologies and the potential incompatibility of legal protection with techno-regulation (defined as the regulatory effects of a technology, whether or not intended). This challenge will be discussed in terms of automated compliance (âlegal by designâ) and technological articulation of fundamental rights (âlegal protection by designâ).
Jon Crowcroft
The stages of digital technology readiness are viewed through the lens of three contemporary and widely discussed examples, namely distributed ledger technology, machine learning, and the internet of things. I use these examples to clarify when there is really just an old technology being re-branded, when there is something genuinely new and useful, and whether there may be over-claiming.
Thomas F. Stafford, Horst Treiblmaier
Blockchain technology is a secure and distributed information accounting, storage, and retrieval modality which has the ability to disrupt and revolutionize business practices. One such disruption resides in the capability of Blockchain to serve as a secure method for storing and sharing electronic medical records in new and innovative ways. Current medical record storage and transmission methods are proprietary and have interoperability and security problems. To that end, secure, effective, and interoperable electronic records options are highly prized. This article uses a grounded theory approach to qualitative analysis of electronic medical records users in the United States to develop a perspective from industry and scholarly practice on the suitability of Blockchain technologies for electronic medical records, security, and storage.
Oskar Josef Gstrein, Dimitry Kochenov
While the digital layer of social interaction continues to evolve, the recently proclaimed hopes in the development of digital identity could be both naĂŻf and dangerous. Rather than just asking ourselves how we could digitize existing features of identity management, and corresponding financial transactions on a community or state level, we submit that truly useful and innovative digital identities need to be accompanied by some significant rethinking of the essential basics behind the organization of the world. Once digital technologies leave the realm of purely on-line or deeply local projects, the confrontation with the world of citizenshipâs biases and the random distribution of rights and duties precisely on the presumption of the lack of any choice and absolute pre-emption of any disagreement comes into a direct conflict with all the benefits Distributed Ledger Technology purports to enable. Some proponents of Distributed Ledger Technology-based identity systems envisage âcloud communitiesâ with truly âself-sovereignâ individuals picking and choosing which communities they belong to. We rather see a clear risk that when implemented at the global scale, digital identity systems could be deeply harmful, reinforcing and amplifying the most repugnant aspects of contemporary citizenship. In this contribution we present a categorization of existing digital identity systems from a governance perspective, and discuss it on basis of three corresponding case studies which allow us to infer opportunities and limitations of Distributed Ledger Technology based identity. Subsequently, we put our findings in the context of existing preconditions of citizenship law, and conclude with a suggestion of a combination of several tests which we propose to avoid the plunge into a neo-feudal âbrave new worldâ. We would like to draw attention to the perspective that applying digital identity without rethinking the totalitarian assumptions behind the citizenship status will result in perfecting the current inequitable system, which is a move away from striving towards justice and a more dignified future of humanity. We see the danger that those might be provided with plenty of opportunities who already do not lack such under current governance structures, while less privileged individuals will witness their already weak position becoming increasingly worse.