Blockchain Papers

Genqing Bian, Wenjing Qu, Bilin Shao

COVID-19 is a serious epidemic that not only endangers human health, but also wreaks havoc on the development of society. Recently, there has been research on using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for COVID-19 detection. As AI has entered the era of big models, deep learning methods based on pre-trained models (PTMs) have become a focus of industrial applications. Federated learning (FL) enables the union of geographically isolated data, which can address the demands of big data for PTMs. However, the incompleteness of the healthcare system and the untrusted distribution of medical data make FL participants unreliable, and medical data also has strong privacy protection requirements. Our research aims to improve training efficiency and global model accuracy using PTMs for training in FL, reducing computation and communication. Meanwhile, we provide a secure aggregation rule using differential privacy and fully homomorphic encryption to achieve a privacy-preserving Byzantine robust federal learning scheme. In addition, we use blockchain to record the training process and we integrate a Byzantine fault tolerance consensus to further improve robustness. Finally, we conduct experiments on a publicly available dataset, and the experimental results show that our scheme is effective with privacy-preserving and robustness. The final trained models achieve better performance on the positive prediction and severe prediction tasks, with an accuracy of 85.00% and 85.06%, respectively. Thus, this indicates that our study is able to provide reliable results for COVID-19 detection.

Omid Moztarzadeh, Mohammad Jamshidi, Saleh Sargolzaei, Fatemeh Keikhaee · 7 authors

Advanced mathematical and deep learning (DL) algorithms have recently played a crucial role in diagnosing medical parameters and diseases. One of these areas that need to be more focused on is dentistry. This is why creating digital twins of dental issues in the metaverse is a practical and effective technique to benefit from the immersive characteristics of this technology and adapt the real world of dentistry to the virtual world. These technologies can create virtual facilities and environments for patients, physicians, and researchers to access a variety of medical services. Experiencing an immersive interaction between doctors and patients can be another considerable advantage of these technologies, which can dramatically improve the efficiency of the healthcare system. In addition, offering these amenities through a blockchain system enhances reliability, safety, openness, and the ability to trace data exchange. It also brings about cost savings through improved efficiencies. In this paper, a digital twin of cervical vertebral maturation (CVM), which is a critical factor in a wide range of dental surgery, within a blockchain-based metaverse platform is designed and implemented. A DL method has been used to create an automated diagnosis process for the upcoming CVM images in the proposed platform. This method includes MobileNetV2, a mobile architecture that improves the performance of mobile models in multiple tasks and benchmarks. The proposed technique of digital twinning is simple, fast, and suitable for physicians and medical specialists, as well as for adapting to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) due to its low latency and computing costs. One of the important contributions of the current study is to use of DL-based computer vision as a real-time measurement method so that the proposed digital twin does not require additional sensors. Furthermore, a comprehensive conceptual framework for creating digital twins of CVM based on MobileNetV2 within a blockchain ecosystem has been designed and implemented, showing the applicability and suitability of the introduced approach. The high performance of the proposed model on a collected small dataset demonstrates that low-cost deep learning can be used for diagnosis, anomaly detection, better design, and many more applications of the upcoming digital representations. In addition, this study shows how digital twins can be performed and developed for dental issues with the lowest hardware infrastructures, reducing the costs of diagnosis and treatment for patients.

Veerasathpurush Allareddy, Sankeerth Rampa, Shankar Rengasamy Venugopalan, Mohammed H. Elnagar · 7 authors

There is a paucity of largescale collaborative initiatives in orthodontics and craniofacial health. Such nationally representative projects would yield findings that are generalizable. The lack of large-scale collaborative initiatives in the field of orthodontics creates a deficiency in study outcomes that can be applied to the population at large. The objective of this study is to provide a narrative review of potential applications of blockchain technology and federated machine learning to improve collaborative care. We conducted a narrative review of articles published from 2018 to 2023 to provide a high level overview of blockchain technology, federated machine learning, remote monitoring, and genomics and how they can be leveraged together to establish a patient centered model of care. To strengthen the empirical framework for clinical decision making in healthcare, we suggest use of blockchain technology and integrating it with federated machine learning. There are several challenges to adoption of these technologies in the current healthcare ecosystem. Nevertheless, this may be an ideal time to explore how best we can integrate these technologies to deliver high quality personalized care. This article provides an overview of blockchain technology and federated machine learning and how they can be leveraged to initiate collaborative projects that will have the patient at the center of care.

R. Sreejith, S. Senthil

The exponential growth in the global population and significant advancements in healthcare broadened the scope of intervention for e-Healthcare through decentralized data access and information exchange, making complex clinical decisions. e-Healthcare can perform several functionalities, including EHR communication, telemedicine, and complex clinical decision systems (CCDS), but large-scale users still find it challenging to maintain interoperability, stability, and scalability. Accommodating an extensive array of stakeholders, which includes patients, doctors, hospitals, and laboratories, demands interoperability to serve scalable services. FHIR frameworks have played a vital role in e-Healthcare designs. Most of the existing HL7-FHIR frameworks have used REST-API using HTTP-query for CRUD tasks that impose numerous rules and constraints, making the process more complex and time-consuming, violating the quality-of-service (QoS) standards on different levels. This paper develops a novel, robust Smart-Contract Authentication Assisted HL7-FHIR framework toward an interoperable e-Healthcare solution. Unlike classical REST API-based FHIR, our proposed method applies a Graph-mapping concept that transforms each resource variable into an equivalent Graph-Mapped Data Structure (GMS), which is subsequently stored in the NoSQL MongoDB database, reducing computational costs and time to meet QoS demands. The proposed model employs three key components, GMS-driven HL7 FHIR Gateway Model, Smart Contract Authentication and Client Model. The Smart Contract function helped verify and authenticate users to ensure privacy and secure EHR exchange. The assessment of the performance of the proposed model reveals a significant reduction in computational time with optimal resource utilization making it a significant and viable option to better the real-world e-Healthcare mechanisms.

Qinghai Miao, Wenbo Zheng, Yisheng Lv, Min Huang · 6 authors

From AlphaGo to ChatGPT, the field of AI has launched a series of remarkable achievements in recent years. Analyzing, comparing, and summarizing these achievements at the paradigm level is important for future AI innovation, but has not received sufficient attention. In this paper, we give an overview and perspective on machine learning paradigms. First, we propose a paradigm taxonomy with three levels and seven dimensions from a knowledge perspective. Accordingly, we give an overview on three basic and twelve extended learning paradigms, such as Ensemble Learning, Transfer Learning, etc., with figures in unified style. We further analyze three advanced paradigms, i.e., AlphaGo, AlphaFold and ChatGPT. Second, to enable more efficient and effective scientific discovery, we propose to build a new ecosystem that drives AI paradigm shifts through the decentralized science (DeSci) movement based on decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). To this end, we design the Hanoi framework, which integrates human factors, parallel intelligence based on a combination of artificial systems and the natural world, and the DAO to inspire AI innovations.

Yinqiu Liu, Hongyang Du, Dusit Niyato, Jiawen Kang · 8 authors

The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC) has brought daunting challenges regarding service latency, security, and trustworthiness. Recently, researchers presented the edge AIGC paradigm, effectively optimize the service latency by distributing AIGC services to edge devices. However, AIGC products are still unprotected and vulnerable to tampering and plagiarization. Moreover, as a kind of online non-fungible digital property, the free circulation of AIGC products is hindered by the lack of trustworthiness in open networks. In this article, for the first time, we present a blockchain-empowered framework to manage the lifecycle of edge AIGC products. Specifically, leveraging fraud proof, we first propose a protocol to protect the ownership and copyright of AIGC, called Proof-of-AIGC. Then, we design an incentive mechanism to guarantee the legitimate and timely executions of the funds-AIGC ownership exchanges among anonymous users. Furthermore, we build a multi-weight subjective logic-based reputation scheme, with which AIGC producers can determine which edge service provider is trustworthy and reliable to handle their services. Through numerical results, the superiority of the proposed approach is demonstrated. Last but not least, we discuss important open directions for further research.

Adarsh Vernekar, Akash Sakhare, Prashant Bhapkar, Saurabh Jadhav · 5 authors

Every industry is expanding too quickly and adjusting to this new technology as it develops. Since it has the potential to deliver more precise and economical patient care, healthcare data management has recently attracted a lot of attention. Even today, many hospitals hold their own autonomous record management system, which causes security issues. In centralized record management systems, data privacy, centralized data stewardship, and system vulnerability problems affect traditional client-server-based and cloud-based health data management systems. Blockchain technology has a promising future in the healthcare industry because of its immutability, transparency, privacy, and security properties, which can address certain critical problems with the health management system. A more patient-oriented approach in healthcare systems is required to improve the accuracy and transparency of medical data. In healthcare systems, health records are the most sensitive asset that must be unique and protected across the system. Our objective is to showcase the potential use of blockchain technology in health record management systems in hospitals. In this paper, we demonstrate a health record management system that uses blockchain technology to store the medical records of a patient across multiple hospitals. The proposed system will mainly help in maintaining consistency issues related to data along with improved security in the system.

Hassaan Malik, Tayyaba Anees, Ahmad Naeem, Rizwan Ali Naqvi · 5 authors

Due to the rapid rate of SARS-CoV-2 dissemination, a conversant and effective strategy must be employed to isolate COVID-19. When it comes to determining the identity of COVID-19, one of the most significant obstacles that researchers must overcome is the rapid propagation of the virus, in addition to the dearth of trustworthy testing models. This problem continues to be the most difficult one for clinicians to deal with. The use of AI in image processing has made the formerly insurmountable challenge of finding COVID-19 situations more manageable. In the real world, there is a problem that has to be handled about the difficulties of sharing data between hospitals while still honoring the privacy concerns of the organizations. When training a global deep learning (DL) model, it is crucial to handle fundamental concerns such as user privacy and collaborative model development. For this study, a novel framework is designed that compiles information from five different databases (several hospitals) and edifies a global model using blockchain-based federated learning (FL). The data is validated through the use of blockchain technology (BCT), and FL trains the model on a global scale while maintaining the secrecy of the organizations. The proposed framework is divided into three parts. First, we provide a method of data normalization that can handle the diversity of data collected from five different sources using several computed tomography (CT) scanners. Second, to categorize COVID-19 patients, we ensemble the capsule network (CapsNet) with incremental extreme learning machines (IELMs). Thirdly, we provide a strategy for interactively training a global model using BCT and FL while maintaining anonymity. Extensive tests employing chest CT scans and a comparison of the classification performance of the proposed model to that of five DL algorithms for predicting COVID-19, while protecting the privacy of the data for a variety of users, were undertaken. Our findings indicate improved effectiveness in identifying COVID-19 patients and achieved an accuracy of 98.99%. Thus, our model provides substantial aid to medical practitioners in their diagnosis of COVID-19.

Yuk Ming Tang, Ho Tung Yip, G.T.S. Ho

Blockchain technology is now being employed across a variety of businesses for smart contracts, data privacy, and supply chain management. A system with a data source can be decentralized, open, safe, and trusted with the help of the new data infrastructure known as blockchain, which permits smooth data transfer in a distributed ledger. But the majority of the currently available healthcare applications either emphasize data exchange or transactions between several parties. In order to enhance collaboration in implant surgery and streamline the operational processes, the authors propose integrating the blockchain to increase data sharing among various stakeholders. The authors have discussed the difficulty and state of implant orthopaedic surgery in this post. The authors outline the usual procedure for implant operations and how incorporating blockchain technology can make it easier. On the other hand, a framework for implementation is put out that takes into account data gathering, data integrity, and stakeholder cooperation.

Ray Dogum, Daniel Uribe

The global non-fungible token (NFT) market size is expected to grow by USD 147.24 billion from 2021 to 2026 at a CAGR of 35.27% and According to Precedence Research, the global metaverse market size is projected to be worth around USD 1.6. Trillion by 2030 and expanding growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.74% from 2022 to 2030. What does this mean for healthcare and where’s the big opportunity? Although we are in the nascent stage for both NFTs and the Metaverse in healthcare, many will agree that some of the biggest transformations in healthcare will be driven by NFTs, specifically as ownership of data and our health records become the increasing focus in healthcare. Metaverse applications in healthcare also provide an enormous opportunity with many seeing this as the next generation of remote patient care and a new medium for patient engagement. Accenture has called the Metaverse the “next horizon in healthcare”. Immersive metaverse experiences can go beyond patient care and can transform training for doctors, surgeons, and healthcare professionals. Join Daniel Uribe of GenoBank.io to explore the varied and exciting applications ahead with NFTs and Metaverse including decentralized science (DeSci), decentralized health research, BioNFTs and the future of genome ownership.

Aya Hamid Ameen, Mazin Abed Mohammed, Ahmed Noori Rashid

Abstract The Internet of medical things (IoMT) is a modern technology that is increasingly being used to provide good healthcare services. As IoMT devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks, healthcare centers and patients face privacy and security challenges. A safe IoMT environment has been used by combining blockchain (BC) technology with artificial intelligence (AI). However, the services of the systems are costly and suffer from security and privacy problems. This study aims to summarize previous research in the IoMT and discusses the roles of AI, BC, and cybersecurity in the IoMT, as well as the problems, opportunities, and directions of research in this field based on a comprehensive literature review. This review describes the integration schemes of AI, BC, and cybersecurity technologies, which can support the development of new systems based on a decentralized approach, especially in healthcare applications. This study also identifies the strengths and weaknesses of these technologies, as well as the datasets they use.

Kashfi Shormita Kushal, Tanvir Ahmed, Md. Ashraf Uddin, Muhammed Nasir Uddin

In recent years, COVID-19 has impacted millions of individuals worldwide, resulting in numerous fatalities across several countries. While RT-PCR technology remains the most reliable method for detecting COVID-19, it is both expensive and time-consuming. As a result, researchers have explored various machine learning and deep learning-based approaches to rapidly identify COVID-19 cases using X-ray images, with reduced costs and shorter processing times. However, preserving patient confidentiality poses challenges within third-party-controlled systems, potentially failing to safeguard patients from potential disgrace and discomfort. Nonetheless, blockchain technology offers the potential to securely store sensitive medical data anonymously, without requiring third-party intervention. Consequently, the combination of deep learning and blockchain could offer a viable solution to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 while ensuring patient privacy protection. In this paper, we propose a hybrid model of blockchain and deep learning model for automatically detecting COVID-19 using chest X-rays (CXR). The deep learning model includes a stacking ensemble of three modified pre-trained Deep Learning (DL) models: VGG16, Xception, and DenseNet169. The model obtained an accuracy of 99.10% and 98.60% for binary and multi-class respectively. Further, To ensure COVID-19 patients’ privacy and security, the Ethereum blockchain has been adopted to store information related to COVID-19 cases. In addition, a smart contract on the blockchain has been designed for handling X-ray images in the Interplanetary File System (IPFS).

Maksim Iavich, Lasha Sharvadze

No abstract is available for this record.

Abdulaziz Aljaloud

In smart systems context, the storage and distribution of health-critical data – medical images, test reports, clinical information etc. that is processed and transmitted via web portal and pervasive devices which requires a secure and efficient management of patients’ medical records. The reliance on centralized data centers in the cloud to process, store, and transmit patients’ medical records poses some critical challenges including but not limited to operational costs, storage space requirements, and importantly threats and vulnerabilities to the security and privacy of health-critical data. To address these issues, this research proposes a framework and provides a proof-of-the-concept named Patient-Centric Medical Image Management System (PCMIMS). The proposed solution PCMIMS utilizes the Ethereum blockchain and Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) to enable secure and decentralized storage capabilities that lack in existing solution for patients’ medical image management. The PCMIMS design facilitates secure access to Patient-Centric information for health units, patients, medics, and third-party requestors by incorporating the Patient-Centric access control protocol, ensuring privacy and control over medical data. The proposed framework is validated through the deployment of a prototype based on smart contract executed on Ethereum TESTNET blockchain that demonstrates efficiency and feasibility of the solution. Validation results highlight a correlation between (i) number of transactions (i.e., data storage and retrieval), (ii) gas consumption (i.e., energy efficiency), and (iii) data size (volume of Patient-Centric medical images) via repeated trials in Microsoft Windows environment. Validation results also indicate computational efficiency of the solution in terms of processing three most common types of Patient-Centric medical images namely (a) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (b) X-radiation (X-Rays), (c) Computed tomography (CT) scan. This research primarily contributes by designing, implementing, and validating a blockchain based practical solution for efficient and secure management of Patient-Centric medical image management in the context of smart healthcare systems.

Nouhaila El Akrami, Mohamed Hanine, Emmanuel Soriano Flores, Daniel Gavilanes Aray · 5 authors

Blockchain and machine learning (ML) has garnered growing interest as cutting-edge technologies that have witnessed tremendous strides in their respective domains. Blockchain technology provides a decentralized and immutable ledger, enabling secure and transparent transactions without intermediaries. Alternatively, ML is a sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) that empowers systems to enhance their performance by learning from data. The integration of these data-driven paradigms holds the potential to reinforce data privacy and security, improve data analysis accuracy, and automate complex processes. The confluence of blockchain and ML has sparked increasing interest among scholars and researchers. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis is carried out to investigate the key focus areas, hotspots, potential prospects, and dynamical aspects of the field. This paper evaluates 700 manuscripts drawn from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database, spanning from 2017 to 2022. The analysis is conducted using advanced bibliometric tools (e.g., Bibliometrix R, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace) to assess various aspects of the research area regarding publication productivity, influential articles, prolific authors, the productivity of academic countries and institutions, as well as the intellectual structure in terms of hot topics and emerging trends. The findings suggest that upcoming research should focus on blockchain technology, AI-powered 5G networks, industrial cyber-physical systems, IoT environments, and autonomous vehicles. This paper provides a valuable foundation for both academic scholars and practitioners as they contemplate future projects on the integration of blockchain and ML.

S. Uma

No abstract is available for this record.

Rima Kaafarani, Leila Ismail, Oussama Zahwe

Blockchain technology has piqued the interest of businesses of all types, while consistently improving and adapting to business requirements. Several blockchain platforms have emerged, making it challenging to select a suitable one for a specific type of business. This paper presents a classification of over one hundred blockchain platforms. We develop smart contracts for detecting healthcare insurance frauds using the top two blockchain platforms selected based on our proposed decision-making map approach which selects the top suitable platforms for healthcare insurance frauds detection application. Our classification shows that the largest percentage of platforms can be used for all types of application domains, the second biggest percentage for financial services, and a small number is to develop applications in specific domains. Our decision-making map and performance evaluations reveal that Hyperledger Fabric surpassed Neo in all metrics for detecting healthcare insurance frauds.

Lennart Ante, Ender Demir

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that provides users with detailed responses and accurate answers to any questions. It has garnered significant attention after its launch in November 2022. We analyze the returns of AI-themed crypto assets around the launch and widespread attention towards ChatGPT. We reveal significant abnormal returns for AI tokens after the launch of ChatGPT, up to 41% over the course of two weeks. Moreover, 90% of tokens exhibit positive abnormal returns. This suggests that the attention towards ChatGPT and AI in general has transitioned to cryptocurrency markets, resulting in positive price effects for AI-related cryptocurrencies.

Jerry Huang, Ken Huang

No abstract is available for this record.

Ken Huang, Anita Xie

No abstract is available for this record.

Md Jobair Hossain Faruk, Hossain Shahriar, Bilash Saha, Abdul Barek

No abstract is available for this record.

Francisca Chibugo Udegbe, Ejike Innocent Nwankwo, Geneva Tamunobarafiri Igwama, Janet Aderonke Olaboye

The integration of blockchain technology in biomedical diagnostics offers a promising solution to the challenges of data security and privacy in infectious disease surveillance. As the digitalization of healthcare systems accelerates, the need to protect sensitive health information becomes increasingly critical. Blockchain, with its decentralized and immutable nature, provides a robust framework for ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of biomedical data. This abstract explores how blockchain technology can be leveraged to enhance data security and privacy in the context of infectious disease surveillance, where rapid and accurate data sharing is essential for effective public health responses. Infectious disease surveillance relies on the collection, analysis, and dissemination of large volumes of data, often shared across multiple institutions and geographical regions. Traditional systems for managing this data are vulnerable to breaches, unauthorized access, and data tampering, which can compromise public health efforts and patient privacy. Blockchain technology addresses these vulnerabilities by enabling secure, transparent, and tamper-proof data exchanges. Each transaction or data entry is recorded in a distributed ledger, accessible only to authorized participants, thus ensuring that the data remains secure and unaltered. Moreover, blockchain’s inherent transparency allows for real-time monitoring and auditing of data flows, which is crucial in the timely detection and response to infectious disease outbreaks. The use of smart contracts within blockchain networks further enhances the automation and efficiency of data management, ensuring that data is only accessed and shared according to predefined rules and conditions. This not only safeguards patient privacy but also builds trust among stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, and public health authorities. In conclusion, the integration of blockchain technology in biomedical diagnostics presents a transformative approach to addressing the critical issues of data security and privacy in infectious disease surveillance. By leveraging blockchain's unique features, healthcare systems can ensure that sensitive diagnostic data is protected, thus supporting more effective and secure public health interventions in the fight against infectious diseases. Keywords: Blockchain, Biomedical Diagnostics, Data Security, Privacy, Infectious Disease Surveillance.

Siva Sai, Vinay Chamola, Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo, Biplab Sikdar · 5 authors

Blockchain (BC) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have independent applications in multiple industries, including banking, finance, healthcare, construction, transportation, hospitality, manufacturing, and insurance, to name a few. Moreover, these two technologies can be integrated seamlessly, thanks to their complementary and mutually supportive features. AI algorithms can make the medical BC storage efficient by their processing algorithms, also playing the role of knowledgeable gatekeepers. BC can support AI models by providing secure, sizeable, traceable, diverse, and immutable healthcare data for the training purpose. The integration of BC and AI has multiple use cases in the healthcare industry ranging from disease prediction to pandemic management. Previously, researchers have reviewed the applications of each of these technologies in healthcare independently. Although the integration of BC and AI has been fruitful, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no work in the past reviewing the confluence of these two technologies in the healthcare sector. We have classified the works based on two different classification schemes: 1) application-based and 2) AI-training paradigm-based classification. We have also provided a compilation of tools used in the integrated systems of BC and AI for healthcare. We identified that the integration of BC and AI technologies had been applied in quite different areas of healthcare ranging from biomedical research to pandemic management. It is also noted that the supervised learning algorithms and federated learning paradigm for secure decentralized AI model training are often used in the integration. Our findings reveal that majority of the reviewed works use BC as a secure database for AI models. Furthermore, we also have pointed out the potential applications of these two technologies in healthcare.

Wei Zhang

Blockchain technology can reduce the need for intermediaries in various types of transactions by providing a decentralized and secure ledger that can be accessed and updated by all parties involved in the transaction. Clinical trials are essential for bringing new drugs and therapies to market, but the current clinical research process is often marred by inefficiencies, data inaccuracies, and a lack of transparency. The implementation of blockchain technology in clinical trials has the potential to address these challenges by providing a secure and transparent platform for data management. By leveraging the power of blockchain, healthcare providers can improve the integrity and accuracy of clinical trial data, enhance trust in the clinical research process, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. In this article, we propose the use of blockchain technology in clinical trials and explore its potential benefits for the healthcare. The implementation of a blockchain-based data management system for clinical trials holds significant potential to address several challenges associated with the current clinical research process. By improving the integrity and security of medical data, enhancing trust, and easing regulatory burden, such a system can promote the efficient and effective conduct of clinical trials. The adoption of a blockchain-based solution for clinical trial data management has the potential to optimize costs, contributing to the sustainability of healthcare services. It also provides a model for future research and development of blockchain-based solutions in the field of clinical research.