Revisões sistemática da literatura está se tornando cada vez mais comum nas mais variadas áreas de estudo. Este trabalho apresenta uma revisão sistemática da utilização da tecnologia Blockchain com Smart Contracts aplicado para a área de logística. A pesquisa foi baseada na execução de consultas através de strings de busca específicas em duas bases de conhecimentos renomadas na área científica. Verificou-se que, apesar da existência de um número considerado de artigos sobre o tema, especificamente a aplicação da tecnologia de Blockchain com Smart Contracts voltados para a área de logística ainda se apresenta com uma nova competência de estudos e aplicações empresariais. A pesquisa é baseada em buscas através de Strings mapeando especificamente a aplicação da tecnologia de Smart Contracts aplicados a logística. Verificou-se que apesar dos artigos encontrados abordarem o mesmo tema, há um grande número de propostas para a aplicação da tecnologia e um número pequeno de artigos quando se trata de artigos focando exclusivamente a aplicação da tecnologia. A partir dos resultados apresentados pode-se concluir que, as aplicações de Smart Contracts voltados para a área logística é um campo fértil para o desenvolvimento de inúmeras aplicações para as empresas e de pesquisas acadêmicas.
The majority of rural Indian households remain dependent on traditional, inefficient and harmful household energy technologies. Rural households make their energy decisions with respect to the Water-Energy-Food security (WEF) Nexus jointly, however, previous research initiatives have analyzed household energy access problem in isolation. Taking this WEF nexus into account, this thesis investigates factors influencing household energy transition and identifies an optimal village energy system (VES) for the rural communities in Uttar Pradesh, India. The thesis also analyzes the distributional impacts of VES on different categories of rural households.<br /> Using detailed household survey data, Logit and Zoib (zero one inflated beta) regression techniques were applied to analyze household's activities and to identify factors influencing household energy transition. The results showed that regular non-agricultural income of household's male member increases the probability of household's modern cooking energy and modern lighting transition by 8.6% and 13.6%, respectively. It was found that household's higher agricultural dependence and resource endowments (more labor and cattle) lead to higher share of traditional bioenergy consumption in the total cooking energy mix. Proximity to markets and high household income were observed to positively influence household modern cooking and lighting transition. Local institutions such as local bio-energy markets and barter trade for labor- bioenergy were observed to have significant influence on household energy choice. Results also showed that government's policy instrument such as household connection to government LPG scheme is associated with 20.5% increased probability of household using modern cooking energy as its primary cooking fuel. Results also indicated that social factors such as higher female education and young age of household head are associated with household's increased modern cooking energy consumption in its total cooking energy mix.<br /> The thesis utilized linear optimization technique to formulate a village energy model in GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling Software). The model identified an optimal Village Energy System (VES) considering all possible energy sources and technologies (energy systems) as well as their linkages with food security. Results confirmed energy systems interdependencies for the rural communities. For instance, results showed that the levelized cost of electricity generation from biomass gasifier power system is 2.54 INR/ MJ as compared to 2.89 INR/ MJ from grid electricity-battery based power system. However, model selected the latter for fulfilling village's night time power needs while it assigned higher shadow price of 0.143 INR / MJ to the former. This happened because possible utilization of gasifier power system was expected to create scarcities of local bio-energy resources, resulting in costlier cooking energy system for the village. It was found that DES (Decentralized Energy System) provides demand side energy management opportunities with different energy prices at different timings of the day. Results also showed that high cost of finance deters possible adoption of renewable power technologies, such as solar power.<br /> Lastly, the thesis constructed an agricultural household model linked with VES to analyze VES's welfare consequences on rich and poor households. Here, household had the opportunity to purchase VES's energy services and sell its bio-energy feedstocks to VES. For the poor household, this interaction with VES led to its increased agricultural production with around 22% increase in its farm area cultivation in summers, as well as led to reduction in its off-farm labor by around 11% which is then utilized in its own agriculture. Overall, this interaction resulted in around 4% increase in poor household's annual income. On the down side, this interaction led to poor household shifting towards dirtier cooking energy technologies, resulting in increased external costs and CO2 emissions by around 27% and 45%, respectively. On the other hand, VES did not impact rich household's food production and only marginally increased its economic gain. However, it led to rich household shifting towards cleaner cooking energy thereby resulting in reduction of its external costs almost by half.
Recently, Halal food has drawn remarkable attention of many consumers around the world. Besides to being unsafe, Halal food such as meat can encounter several issues throughout its supply chain and logistics. At any time, Halal integrity is not guaranteed and risks of becoming non-Halal is the major concern of all parties along the supply chain. To respond to Muslim consumers’ trust concerns in Halal food, many traceability systems were proposed in previous studies based on emerging technologies and recommended to be incorporated into Halal food supply chains. Nevertheless, all of these systems are centralized, opaque and not enough transparent. To mitigate these problems, blockchain technology is introduced as a ground-breaking innovation with greater decentralization, visibility and transparency. This paper makes a major contribution in suggesting Halal meat supply chain traceability system for real-time food tracing based on embedding Islamic dietary law into HACCP, blockchain and Internet of Things.
Recently, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have gained extensive attention from both academia and industry. AVs are a complex system composed of many subsystems, making them a typical target for attackers. Therefore, the firmware of the different subsystems needs to be updated to the latest version by the manufacturer to fix bugs and introduce new features, e.g., using security patches. In this paper, we propose a distributed firmware update scheme for the AVs' subsystems, leveraging blockchain and smart contract technology. A consortium blockchain made of different AVs manufacturers is used to ensure the authenticity and integrity of firmware updates. Instead of depending on centralized third parties to distribute the new updates, we enable AVs, namely distributors, to participate in the distribution process and we take advantage of their mobility to guarantee high availability and fast delivery of the updates. To incentivize AVs to distribute the updates, a reward system is established that maintains a credit reputation for each distributor account in the blockchain. A zero-knowledge proof protocol is used to exchange the update in return for a proof of distribution in a trust-less environment. Moreover, we use attribute-based encryption (ABE) scheme to ensure that only authorized AVs will be able to download and use a new update. Our analysis indicates that the additional cryptography primitives and exchanged transactions do not affect the operation of the AVs network. Also, our security analysis demonstrates that our scheme is efficient and secure against different attacks.
Abstract This special section shifts analytical attention onto efforts undertaken by dispersed sets of actors operating in online communities to mobilize a novel internet‐based technology that mysteriously appeared at the height of market volatility in 2008. Applications of blockchain technologies and the challenges presented to longstanding patterns of financial globalization are analysed by a group of scholars with backgrounds in anthropology, political science and sociology. This introductory article first elaborates what blockchain technologies consist of before foreshadowing the insights that the following interdisciplinary investigations yield for comprehending the implications that technological changes pose for global finance specifically and globalization more generally.
This paper develops the optimal causal path algorithm and applies it within a fully-fledged statistical arbitrage framework to minute-by-minute data of the S&P 500 constituents from 1998 to 2015. Specifically, the algorithm efficiently determines the optimal non-linear mapping and the corresponding lead–lag structure between two time series. Afterwards, this study explores the use of optimal causal paths as a means for identifying promising stock pairs and for generating buy and sell signals. For this purpose, the established trading strategy exploits information about the leading stock to predict future returns of the following stock. The value-add of the proposed framework is assessed by benchmarking it with variants relying on classic similarity measures and a buy-and-hold investment in the S&P 500 index. In the empirical back-testing study, the trading algorithm generates statistically and economically significant returns of 54.98% p.a. and an annualized Sharpe ratio of 3.57 after transaction costs. Returns are well superior to the benchmark approaches and do not load on any common sources of systematic risk. The strategy outperforms in the context of cryptocurrencies even in recent times due to the fact that stock returns contain substantial information about the future bitcoin returns.
Diabetes Mellitus, usually called only Diabetes, is a worldwide chronic metabolic disorder that is characterized by abnormal oscillations in blood sugar levels. Such levels should be monitored by diabetes patients, which traditionally have had to take blood samples by finger-pricking, at least between twice and four times a day. Finger-pricking has a number of drawbacks that can be tackled by Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs), which are able to determine blood sugar levels throughout the day and not only at specific time instants. In this paper, the design of an IoT CGM-based system is proposed, whose collected blood sugar sample values can be accessed remotely; thus being able to monitor patients, specifically dependent ones (e.g., children, elders, and pregnant women) and warn them in the case where a dangerous situation is detected. In order to create such a system, a fog computing system, based on distributed mobile smart phones, has been devised to collect data from the CGMs. Moreover, the use of a blockchain is proposed, to receive, validate, and store the collected data with the objective of avoiding untrusted sources and, thus, to provide a transparent and trustworthy data source of a population, which can vary in age, ethnicity, psychology, education, self-care, and/or geographic location, in a rapid, flexible, scalable, and low-cost way. These crowdsourced data can enable novel mHealth applications for diagnosis, patient monitoring, or even public health actions, which can help to advance in the control of the disease and raise global awareness on the increasing prevalence of diabetes.
Tiago M. Fernández‐Caramés, Óscar Blanco-Novoa, Manuel Suárez-Albela, Paula Fraga‐Lamas
Industry 4.0 has paved the way for a world where smart factories will automate and upgrade many processes through the use of some of the latest emerging technologies. One such technology is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which have evolved a great deal in the last several years in terms of technology (e.g., control units, sensors, UAV frames) and have reduced significantly their cost. UAVs can help industry in automatable and tedious tasks, like the ones performed on a regular basis for determining the inventory and for preserving the traceability of certain items. Moreover, in such tasks, it is essential to determine whether the collected information is valid or true, especially when it comes from untrusted third-parties. In such a case, blockchain, another Industry 4.0 technology that has become very popular in other fields like finance, has the potential to provide a higher level of transparency, security, trust and efficiency in the supply chain and enable the use of smart contracts. Thus, in this paper, the design and preliminary results are presented of a UAV-based system aimed at automating the inventory and keeping the traceability of industrial items attached to Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags. Such a system can use a blockchain to receive the inventory data collected by UAVs, validate them, ensure their trustworthiness and make them available to the interested parties.
Almost a decade on from the launch of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies continue to generate headlines and intense debate. What started as an underground experiment by a rag tag group of programmers armed with a Libertarian manifesto has now resulted in a thriving $230 billion ecosystem, with constant on-going innovation. Scholars and researchers alike are realizing that cryptocurrencies are far more than mere technical innovation; they represent a distinct and revolutionary new economic paradigm tending towards decentralization. Unfortunately, this bold new universe is little explored from the perspective of Islamic economics and finance. Our work aims to address these deficiencies. Our paper makes the following distinct contributions We significantly expand the discussion on whether cryptocurrencies qualify as "money" from an Islamic perspective and we argue that this debate necessitates rethinking certain fundamental definitions. We conclude that the cryptocurrency phenomenon, with its radical new capabilities, may hold considerable opportunity which merits deeper investigation.
Blockchain systems and smart contracts provide ways to securely implement multi-party transactions without the use of trusted intermediaries, which currently underpin many commercial transactions. However, they do so by transferring trust to computer systems, raising the question of whether code can be trusted. Experience with high value losses resulting from incorrect code has already shown that formal verification of smart contracts is likely to be beneficial. This note investigates the specification and verification of a simple form of multi-party transaction, atomic swaps. It is argued that logics with the ability to express properties of strategies of players in a multi-agent setting are conceptually useful for this purpose, although ultimately, for our specific examples, the less expressive setting of temporal logic suffices for verification of concrete implementations. This is illustrated through a number of examples of the use of a model checker to verify atomic swap smart contracts in on-chain and cross-chain settings.
The choice of the consensus method ultimately determines throughput, scalability, tamper resistance, and consistency of a blockchain system. However, across all the types of blockchain (private, semi-private, consortium, or public), there is no consensus method that uniformly addresses all these traits. Verifiable lottery algorithms (Proof of ...) increase tamper resistance but show weakness in throughput and scalability, while established methods like PAXOS and RAFT provide no additional protection against tampering. In this paper, we introduce Right to Sign which aims to provide additional tamper resistance by cryptographic signatures over a broad range of available consensus finding methods.
Liudmila Zavolokina, Florian Spychiger, Claudio J. Tessone, Gerhard Schwabe
Recent research reports the need for consistent incentives in blockchain-based systems. In this study, we investigate how incentives for a blockchain-based inter-organizational network should be designed to ensure a high quality of data, exchanged and stored within the network. For this, we use two complementary methodological approaches: an Action Design Research approach in combination with agent-based modelling, and demonstrate, through the example of a real-world blockchain project, how such an incentive system may be modelled. The proposed incentive system features a rating mechanism influenced by measures of data correction. We evaluate the incentive system in a simulation to show how effective the system is in terms of sustaining a high quality of data. Thus, the paper contributes to our understanding of incentives in inter- organizational settings and, more broadly, to our understanding of incentive mechanisms in blockchain economy.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors impacting the student satisfaction with the public and private universities of Malaysia and Pakistan, which are countries representing South/South-East Asia in cross-culture perspective.The study has applied a quantitative survey design guided by five hypotheses.A questionnaire was distributed among the students of private and public universities.A conceptual framework has been developed based on the modification of Student Satisfaction Index (SSI) model to measure the satisfaction of students from different aspects, such as university image, university location, quality of academic staff, university facilities, student expectation, overall student satisfaction.The research method used was a survey-based questionnaire that consisted of a total of 396 responses from the university students.The data were analyzed with SPSS and SmartPLS 3; the results indicate that when the comparison was made separately between private and public universities of Malaysia and Pakistan.The comparative statistical score was obtained using independent sample t-Test, the university facilities of Malaysian universities resulted higher than universities in Pakistan.Therefore, the independent sample ttest results conclude that the university facilities have a significant evidence (p=0.00) to support our research findings that university facilities do affect the student satisfaction more in Malaysia (mean=4.1788)than Pakistan (mean =3.7212) and the research hypothesis is significant that there is a significant difference in student satisfaction towards university facilities in Malaysia and Pakistan.Similarly, the quality of academic staff (p=0.035) has a significant effect on student satisfaction in Malaysia (mean=3.8283) and Pakistan (mean=3.6641).Furthermore, this leads the student expectation and overall student satisfaction level of Malaysia students are higher than students in Pakistan.However, student satisfaction level on university image and university location in Malaysia and Pakistan do not differ.The study is useful for university management to improve university students satisfaction.The future researchers are recommended further explore demographic and cultural variables impact on student satisfaction.
This paper addresses the issue of secure and trusted Internet of Things (IoT) networks by adopting the emerging blockchain technologies. This paper proposes a new hybrid blockchain technology to address the trusted IoT issues such as trustless communications and decentralized applications. Besides, we also present that the pseudonymous authentication technique can use a puzzle-solving computation to enable trustless communications for the IoT and provide the capabilities of near real-time transactions. In our previous work, we presented a decentralized software framework for the IoT by using a p2p network and the concept of the blockchain. In this paper, we outline the core components of the hybrid blockchain and delve deeper the algorithms of the hybrid consensus to provide the capabilities for our hybrid blockchain technology.
Bitcoin is a decentralised virtual currency whose usage has skyrocketed since its introduction in January 2009. Bitcoin is a form of electronic cash that was introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and deployed on 3 January 2009. To understand how peers in the Bitcoin network can collectively generate a transaction ledger, we must first understand what a Bitcoin transaction looks like. The Bitcoin protocol allows for the generation of bitcoins and the basic transfer of bitcoins from one participant to another, but one might naturally wonder where to spend bitcoins, or if there is any way to obtain them besides mining them oneself. In theory, the use of pseudonyms within Bitcoin provides a property called unlinkability, which says that users’ transactions using one set of pseudonyms should not be linked to their transactions using a different set of pseudonyms.
L. Horoshkova, Ievgen Khlobystov, Victoriya Trofymchuk
In work is proved, that it is impossible to ensure sustainability development of the state without creation of conditions of sustainability development of administrative - territorial units on the basis of model, which components is to economic, social and ecological structure by. The proved necessity of a concentration of attention on an ecological component. Is shown, that one of major ecological-economic tools of nature protection activity in Ukraine are the ecological tax and tax for pollution of an environment. By results of the analysis of dynamics of the tax for pollution of an environment is established, that last years the volumes of emissions of polluting substances have decreased. Is established, that the increase of volumes of the ecological tax in the incomes of the local budgets in 2015 is connected to the beginning of decentralization and brought in changes in the Tax code. Is proved, that the delay of rates of growth of receipt of the ecological tax in the local budgets is by a consequence of inefficient system of filling of the budgets of the incorporated territorial communities (ITC) and local budgets. The estimation a level of development of the economic mechanism of regulation and stimulation rational nature usage is carried out on the basis of parameters of nature protection financing. The analysis of dynamics of change of volumes of the charges on protection of an environment is carried out. Is established, that the charges of the budget of Ukraine grow by protection of environmental natural environment annually, but rates of this growth reduce meaning by the inflationary factors. Is established, that there is a delay of rates of financing from the state budget with simultaneous increase of financing from the local budgets. It has given the bases to assert, that created IТC more is weighed concern to ecological politics and necessity of financing of nature protection measures. The interrelation between receipt of the ecological tax in the budgets and dynamics of the charges on nature protection measures is investigated. Is established, that dynamics of receipt of the ecological tax in the budget does not coincide with dynamics of the charges of the budget on protection of an environment. It testifies to imperfection regulating mechanisms of ecological politics, both on the equal states, and at a level of separate territories. The necessity of development of the methodological approaches to a substantiation of effective directions of realization of state politics in sphere of protection an environment at a level IТC, recommendations for their scientific support, development of a complex of measures on their introduction and improvement of working organization-legal base is proved. The analysis of dynamics both sources financing of the capital and current investments in protection of an environment is carried out. Is shown, that dynamics of rates of growth of the capital investments is astable, owing to what there are no cardinal changes of an ecological situation in the country. Is shown, that the rates of growth of the current investments are insignificant, at a level of an official rate of inflation, which reduces their economic efficiency. The analysis of structure of sources financing of the capital and current investments in nature protection activity is carried out. The received results have confirmed the made conclusions concerning an inefficiency of state politics of realization of the capital investments in nature protection measures.
Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Ravi Vatrapu, Pradeep Ray, Gora Sengupta · 5 authors
In recent years, there has been growing research attention and practitioner interest in exploring the suitability of Blockchain technology for decentralised applications in multiple domains. This paper investigates the application of Blockchain technology to address some of the key challenges in the domain of Social Business (SB). SB is a business model for investments in social causes for the socio-economic development of under-privileged communities. In this paper, we have identified and discuss principles and applications of Blockchain that enhance trust, transparency, and auditability in SB activities. We outline the challenges related to creating a native cryptocurrency for SB, and barriers to infrastructure and technology adoption by different SB stakeholders.
Boris Radovanov, Aleksandra Marcikić, Nebojša Gvozdenović
Because of increasing interest in cryptocurrency investments, there is a need to quantify their variation over time. Therefore, in this paper we try to answer a few important questions related to a time series of cryptocurrencies. According to our goals and due to market capitalization, here we discuss the daily market price data of four major cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin (LTC). In the first phase, we characterize the daily returns of exchange rates versus the U.S. Dollar by assessing the main statistical properties of them. In many ways, the interpretation of these results could be a crucial point in the investment decision making process. In the following phase, we apply an autocorrelation function in order to find repeating patterns or a random walk of daily returns. Also, the lack of literature on the comparison of cryptocurrency price movements refers to the correlation analysis between the aforementioned data series. These findings are an appropriate base for portfolio management. Finally, the paper conducts an analysis of volatility using dynamic volatility models such as GARCH, GJR and EGARCH. The results confirm that volatility is persistent over time and the asymmetry of volatility is small for daily returns.
Luís Picciochi Oliveira, Liudmila Zavolokina, Ingrid Bauer, Gerhard Schwabe
The growing usage of tokens in real-world blockchain projects – mostly visible in ICOs – has unveiled the need to understand what blockchain tokens in fact represent and how they relate to their underlying business model. Previous research has contributed to this gap but often lacks a comprehensive understanding of tokens and their design as well as of the growing and rapidly-changing complexity in token landscape. This has crucial implications for assessing tokens' value and utility. Applying a structured, scientific approach towards blockchain tokens, we provide a comprehensive token classification and a decision-aid on token design. This is based on a literature review and an empirical study to cover this research gap. Our work offers a novel contribution in an emerging field within the Blockchain research domain and proposes structured analytical tools which can be used by both practitioners and researchers.
The narrative of a Bitcoin is a bubble is very common. We employ statistical techniques to empirically evaluate such claim. A branch of literature links the existence of a bubble in some financial asset’s price to strict local martingales — a finitely lived asset has a bubble if, and only if, it is a strict local martingale under the equivalent risk-neutral measure. A diffusion process is a strict local martingale if its volatility increases faster than linearly as its level grows. We apply a nonparametric method to estimate the volatility function of Bitcoin daily and high frequency prices, as well as of more traditional financial assets. We then estimate the stochastic volatility model of Andersen and Piterbarg (2007), whose parameter space has a specific subset under which the asset’s price is a strict local martingale. Results suggest the existence of a bubble in Bitcoin prices from early 2013 to mid 2014, but, interestingly, not in late 2017.