Search Results (1,414)

Infectious disease outbreaks continue to pose a significant threat to global health, underscoring the importance of timely detection and reliable reporting for effective interventions. Traditional reporting systems often rely on hierarchical data flows, which introduce delays, inconsistencies, and vulnerabilities, as highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Blockchain, a disruptive technology, offers a promising solution. This study proposes a blockchain-based infectious disease reporting system built on Hyperledger Fabric that supports multi-level reporting and governance across national health systems. The architecture preserves hierarchical structures while enabling real-time reporting across authorized health stakeholders. It separates public test results from sensitive patient information, with private data secured via Private Data Collections and anchored using cryptographic hashes. Smart contracts enforce role-based access and validation, ensuring data integrity and controlled oversight. The system prototype was deployed within Docker containers and evaluated using illustrative COVID-19 case data. Network performance was benchmarked using Hyperledger Caliper, measuring throughput, latency, and resource utilization. The results demonstrate proper system functioning and stable transaction processing under the tested experimental conditions, supporting the feasibility of the proposed architecture for privacy-preserving multi-level infectious disease reporting systems. Full article

Background: Blockchain is increasingly proposed to strengthen pharmaceutical traceability, anti-counterfeiting, and chain of custody in multi-actor supply chains, but the evidence base remains heterogeneous in technical rigor and operational clarity. Methods: We conducted a mapping review of Scopus and Web of Science to map publication patterns, identify dominant thematic configurations, and compare citation-salient studies across recurring solution profiles and operational design dimensions. The final corpus comprised 103 records. Results: The literature expanded rapidly from 2019 to 2025, with notable geographic concentration and dissemination mainly through technically focused outlets. Keyword analysis identified a core traceability theme, an implementation stream centered on smart contracts, Ethereum, and security, and additional streams involving vaccines and regulatory or credentialing concerns. Citation-salient studies clustered into implemented systems and prototypes, architecture or framework proposals, and contextual maturity or decision-layer evidence. Across these profiles, transferability depended less on platform choice than on governance and access-control assumptions, modular smart contract roles, and verifiable on-chain/off-chain data placement. Conclusions: Chain-of-custody semantics and evaluation methods remain inconsistently formalized, limiting cross-study comparability and the interpretability of operational claims. Benchmark-oriented assessments and minimal reporting standards specifying governance parameters, logistics scope and checkpoints, workload, measurement conditions, and concrete evidence artifacts are needed. Full article

This study synthesizes peer-reviewed literature to examine how blockchain technology supports Automated Project Governance (APG), focusing on the organizational, institutional, and human conditions under which potential governance contribution is realized. A systematic literature review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines, yielding twenty-one empirically and conceptually grounded studies. Screening reliability was strengthened through independent dual screening at the full-text eligibility stage (inter-rater κ = 0.81). Seven blockchain-enabled governance mechanisms are synthesized and comparatively assessed in terms of evidentiary support and research maturity, suggesting that blockchain’s decentralized and immutable architecture may support transparency, accountability, and coordination when embedded within appropriate governance arrangements, but these benefits do not arise automatically from technological adoption. The synthesis further identifies enabling conditions, including stakeholder acceptance, organizational governance readiness, and institutional alignment, and maps explicit research gaps for each mechanism to guide future empirical inquiry. By grounding the synthesis in the Technology Acceptance Model and Institutional Theory, the study provides a literature-derived, socio-technical framework for understanding blockchain adoption in APG and offers governance-oriented insights for organizations and policymakers. Full article

Blockchain-based auctions often utilize smart contracts to automate auction rules, with much research focusing on enhancing privacy and fairness through cryptographic techniques. However, the authenticity of external data input into these systems is frequently overlooked. In particular, rational nodes may manipulate bidding data by submitting false types to maximize their utility, compromising market fairness and the reliability of auction outcomes. The aim of this study is to propose an alternative blockchain-based auction mechanism to incentivize nodes to report types honestly. We propose the Mixed-Node Advertising Auction (MNAA) mechanism for digital advertising auctions on blockchain systems. MNAA integrates quasi-linear and value maximization utility models to design allocation and pricing rules that eliminate nodes’ incentives to misreport their types, ensuring the authenticity of data submitted to the auction. To enhance efficiency, MNAA employs state channel technology and off-chain smart contracts, reducing main chain interactions. Theoretical analysis confirms that MNAA incentivizes truthful behavior and ensures security and correctness. Simulation results show that MNAA outperforms Generalized Second Price (GSP), Mixed Bidders with Private Classes (MPR), and Vickrey–Clarke–Grooves (VCG) auctions in terms of liquid social welfare (LSW), publisher revenue, and allocation efficiency, while also improving the transaction throughput and showing good performance in terms of transaction costs and latency. Full article

The sustainability of higher education systems increasingly depends on the integrity, transparency, and long-term verifiability of academic credentials. Widespread diploma fraud, unauthorized modification of academic records, and fragmented verification mechanisms undermine institutional trust, graduate mobility, and public confidence in educational outcomes. These challenges directly affect the social and governance dimensions of sustainable development, particularly in the context of universities’ digital transformation. This study proposes a blockchain-based approach to support the sustainable governance of academic documents by strengthening transparency, accountability, and auditability. The proposed system employs cryptographic hash anchoring and smart contract–based enforcement to verify academic credentials such as diplomas, transcripts, and certificates. Document contents are processed and stored off-chain, while cryptographic representations and essential metadata are immutably recorded on an EVM-compatible blockchain, ensuring data privacy and resistance to tampering. Any modification to a document results in a mismatch between the original and recomputed hashes, making fraudulent alterations immediately detectable. A web-based application and a role-restricted smart contract were implemented to support document issuance, verification, and immutable audit logging. System evaluation based on blockchain transaction evidence confirms reliable document registration, deterministic verification outcomes, and verifiable linkage between institutional actions and on-chain records. The results indicate that blockchain-based document verification can contribute to the reduction in corruption risks and improve transparency, strengthening institutional trust and supporting sustainable digital governance in higher education systems. Full article

The widespread adoption of smart contracts, self-executing agreements on the blockchain, is hindered by the complexity of translating real-world contracts, often written in multiple languages, into their digital counterparts. This paper addresses this challenge by introducing an innovative approach based on Contract Text Markup Language (CTML), an extensible markup language specifically designed to facilitate the automatic generation of smart contracts from multilingual contracts. CTML overcomes traditional method limitations by employing a two-stage transformation process: (1) Contract Abstraction and Markup: CTML redefines grammar rules and incorporates encoding extensions to transform multilingual contracts into structured, marked-up contracts. This process effectively abstracts the essential details of the original contract, enabling language-agnostic interpretation. (2) Domain-Specific Language (DSL) Translation and Smart Contract Code Generation: The marked-up contract is then seamlessly translated into a DSL program, capturing the legal concepts in a machine-readable format. Finally, the DSL program is automatically compiled into executable smart contract code, ready for deployment on the blockchain. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using a legal contract in both English and Chinese. Therefore, the CTML-based approach can automatically generate smart contracts from multilingual contracts, enabling a more inclusive and accessible smart contract ecosystem. Full article

Blockchain adoption across industries has led to the emergence of multiple independent blockchain platforms, creating challenges for cross-chain data exchange and system interoperability. This paper addresses this challenge by examining interoperability frameworks that enable communication between heterogeneous blockchain networks. We adopt a platform-oriented analysis to study widely used blockchain ecosystems, focusing on the mechanisms they employ for cross-chain communication and asset transfer. To demonstrate practical applicability, we present a conceptual supply chain scenario that illustrates how interoperable architectures enable interactions among multiple blockchain entities. Finally, we identify key open research challenges, including data management, cross-chain query processing, privacy, governance, scalability, and protocol standardisation. The findings highlight both the capabilities and limitations of existing interoperability solutions and outline directions for future research. Full article

This study presents ZK-EHR, a decentralized access control framework designed to enable secure and privacy-preserving sharing of encrypted electronic health records across institutional boundaries. Unlike existing blockchain-based EHR access control systems that expose user identities on-chain or lack cryptographic privacy guarantees, ZK-EHR decouples authorization from identity disclosure by integrating zk-SNARK-based proofs with blockchain smart contracts to verify policy compliance without revealing user roles, affiliations, or credentials. The framework employs three differentiated actor roles—Patient (Data Owner), Doctor (Care Provider), and Researcher (Authorized Analyst)—with distinct policy-driven access workflows, a custom Groth16 zero-knowledge circuit for role-based constraint enforcement, and a modular architecture combining on-chain verification with off-chain encrypted storage via IPFS. Concrete design proposals for access revocation and replay attack prevention are introduced to address operational security requirements. The system was evaluated under multiple operational and adversarial scenarios. Experimental results indicate consistent on-chain verification latency (approximately 390 ms), reliable rejection of tampered submissions, and per-verification gas consumption of 216,631 gas. A comparative analysis against representative baseline systems demonstrates that ZK-EHR uniquely combines identity anonymity, on-chain cryptographic policy enforcement, and auditable encrypted record retrieval. These findings establish the feasibility of zk-SNARK-based access control for decentralized, verifiable, and privacy-aware EHR management. Full article

Global supply chains face intensifying pressures from disruption, regulatory complexity, and sustainability mandates, requiring a shift toward more resilient and adaptive coordination. While artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain have been recognised as complementary enablers, their implementation remains largely fragmented, existing as isolated tools linked by manual data exchange rather than integrated, programmable logic. This paper addresses this orchestration gap by proposing the Dynamic Resource Orchestration Framework for AI-Blockchain Integrated Supply Chains (DROF-AIBC). Grounded in Resource Orchestration Theory (ROT) and Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT), the framework provides a theoretical foundation for the strategic and autonomous orchestration of digital resources. Unlike classic supply chain orchestration, which focuses on the linear coordination of physical assets and legacy systems, DROF-AIBC conceptualises an “intelligent conductor” as a coordination mechanism combining AI-driven analytics and smart contract-based execution. This mechanism supports the configuration, optimisation, and monitoring of resources in response to changing external signals, effectively closing the loop between analytical insights and verifiable execution. The paper further substantiates how this autonomous capability serves as a foundational roadmap for the Industry 5.0 paradigm, embedding human-centricity through Explainable AI (XAI) to provide a “provenance of logic”, promoting circular economy sustainability, and fostering systemic resilience in turbulent environments. The framework aims to provide both a theoretical foundation and a practical roadmap for orchestrating AI and blockchain to advance resilient, sustainable and adaptive supply chains. Full article

The agriculture sector plays a pivotal role in global economies, and optimizing its perishable food supply chain (PFSC) is vital to ensuring food security and transparency. The purpose of the study is to develop a blockchain-based smart contract to secure and provide transparency about perishable goods in the PFSC while delivering the goods between the stakeholders, such as farmers, mandis, and wholesalers. The study enhances collaboration between stakeholders by implementing smart contracts. The delivery status and the transactions have been safely recorded and verified by the stakeholder in the PFSC to ensure data integrity all the way through. The blockchain application has reduced fraud and streamlined the flow of goods and information. Moreover, this study emphasizes providing farmers with a straightforward route to the market to empower them. The benefits for the stakeholders are optimizing inventory control and developing appropriate decision-making skills. A three-echelon PFSC can become more resilient and is able to meet changing market demands by implementing blockchain-based smart contracts. Finally, the study employs blockchain technology to establish a decentralized and efficient PFSC, confirming a tamper-resistant system and enhancing stakeholder trust and collaboration. Full article

Document authentication remains a pressing challenge in various domains, including financial services, academic credentialing, healthcare, and supply chain management. Existing centralized verification systems are vulnerable to manipulation, inefficiency, and limited transparency. Blockchain technology, with its immutability and tamper-resistant capabilities, offers a strong decentralized alternative; however, many current implementations lack structured, issuer-bound relationships for documents. This paper proposes a blockchain-based model that leverages a hierarchical token structure to authenticate and trace the provenance of high-value digital documents, with a focus on financial records. The model introduces the concept of an issuer-bound parent token and document-linked child tokens, enforcing a structured trust relationship between a legitimate institution and the documents it issues. By combining on-chain cryptographic hashing with off-chain file references, the approach is designed to balance verifiability with scalability. We implement a proof-of-concept using Ethereum-compatible smart contracts on a permissioned blockchain and evaluate it in a consortium-style financial setting. Our functional analyses demonstrate the model’s ability to ensure document integrity, provenance, and resistance to document fraud. This work offers a practical and extensible foundation for secure digital document authentication and verification in financial and other trust-sensitive settings. Full article

There is diminished transparency, fragmented information exchange, and lack of trust among geographically dispersed stakeholders, which increasingly challenge global supply chains. The classic centralized systems of supply chain management are not always capable of being able to offer real-time traceability and data integrity which is dependable and effective in contract enforcement. The proposed study is a blockchain-based smart contract design that is focused on ensuring increased transparency, traceability and trust in global supply chain management. The suggested framework will combine automated smart contracts, cryptographic provenance tracking, permissioned blockchain consensus, and a decentralized trust score evaluation mechanism to overcome some of the major operation and governance challenges. A simulated assessment with a multi-tier global supply chain setting of 15 blockchain nodes and 12,000 transactions was performed through experimentation. The findings show that the proposed system attained an average transaction delay of 210 ms, which is very low compared to centralized systems (520 ms), with throughput being raised to 120 transactions per minute. End-to-end traceability performance also improved significantly, with a reduction in trace-back time to 8 s compared with 95s this represents a 100% tampering detection rate. The consensus mechanism ensured that the ledger integrity failed only at a rate of less than 1.1%, even when more than 30% of nodes were faulty. Risk-wise, the trust evaluation algorithm dynamically enhanced reliable supplier scores up to 12%, which facilitated the selection of reliable partners. On the whole, the results prove that smart contracts based on blockchains can drastically enhance the efficiency of operations, data integrity, and confidence in global supply chains, with the platform capable of providing a resilient and scalable backbone for the future supply chain management model. Full article

The rapid proliferation of large language models has created significant opportunities for personalized education, yet existing systems rarely account for user competency as a determinant of interaction quality. This study introduces Persona in The Loop (PITL), a dual-mode adaptive framework that recommends AI personas for blockchain and smart contract education applications. PITL employs 100 AI personas organized across two domains, ten sub-specialties, and five Dreyfus competency levels, recommending personas via either similarity-based mode grounded in Cognitive Load Theory or complementary mode grounded in the Zone of Proximal Development, with an adaptive switching mechanism driven by NASA-TLX cognitive load feedback. A mixed-method study with 150 participants using a 2 × 5 factorial design showed that the complementary mode produced higher learning gains, while the similarity-based mode yielded lower cognitive load and higher code quality. The adaptive mechanism outperformed both fixed-mode conditions on learning gain and code quality. The Mode × Dreyfus interaction was significant for cognitive load and task duration but not for learning gains, suggesting mode effects on learning outcomes are consistent across competency levels. Qualitative interviews with 20 participants corroborated quantitative findings. PITL offers a theoretically grounded and empirically validated approach to competency-based AI persona recommendation in educational contexts. Full article

Background: Blockchain and Multi-Agent System (MAS) are increasingly combined to support decentralized, secure, and autonomous peer-to-peer energy trading in microgrid environments. Objectives: This systematic review investigates how blockchain and MAS are integrated to support microgrid energy trading, identifies architectural and operational models, examines real-world implementations, and highlights technical, regulatory, and security challenges. Unlike prior reviews that focus on blockchain or MAS in isolation, this study provides a unified and comparative analysis of their joint integration. Methods: Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a systematic search was conducted in IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and ScienceDirect, with the last search performed on 10 January 2025. Eligible studies focused on blockchain–MAS integration in microgrid energy trading; non-energy and non-microgrid applications were excluded. Study selection was performed independently by two reviewers, and methodological quality was assessed using an adapted Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist. A narrative synthesis categorized integration levels, blockchain platforms, MAS roles, and implementation contexts. Results: A total of 104 studies were included. Three dominant integration levels were identified—basic, intermediate, and advanced—distinguished by how decision-making responsibilities are distributed between MAS and smart contracts. Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric were the most commonly used platforms. MAS agents perform concrete operational functions such as bid and offer generation, price negotiation, matching, and local energy optimization, fundamentally transforming control and monitoring processes. By enabling distributed, intelligent agents to perform real-time sensing, analysis, and response, an MAS enhances system resilience and adaptability. This architecture allows for proactive fault detection, dynamic resource allocation, and coherent, large-scale operations without centralized bottlenecks. Blockchain ensured transparency, trust, and secure transaction execution. Major challenges include scalability constraints, interoperability limitations with legacy grids, regulatory uncertainty, and real-time performance issues. Limitations: Most included studies were simulation-based, with limited real-world deployment and substantial heterogeneity in evaluation metrics. Conclusions: Blockchain–MAS integration shows strong potential for secure, transparent, and decentralized microgrid energy trading. Addressing scalability, regulatory frameworks, and interoperability is essential for large-scale adoption. Future research should emphasize real-world validation, standardized integration architectures, and AI-enabled MAS optimization. Funding: No external funding. Registration: This systematic review was not registered. Full article

Using transaction cost economics (TCE) and agency theory, this paper examines how blockchain, smart contracts, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) reconfigure financial services across payments, wealth management, real estate, and corporate governance. Three research questions are addressed: (1) What are the quantifiable efficiency gains from blockchain-based real-time settlement compared with legacy systems? (2) How do blockchain technologies reduce intermediation and agency costs in wealth management and real estate? (3) Finally, to what extent do DAOs resolve or transform traditional corporate governance problems? By combining a present-value model calibrated to U.S. Automated Clearing House (ACH) data ($86.2 trillion in annual volume), comparative institutional analysis, and synthesis of empirical evidence from pilot implementations and on-chain governance metrics, this paper makes three principal contributions. First, real-time settlement yields approximately $12 billion in annual opportunity cost savings at the baseline 7.5% discount rate, with sensitivity analysis producing a range of $8–15 billion. The majority of gains accrue from moving to same-day or within-hour settlement. Second, tokenization and smart contract escrow substantially reduce real estate intermediation costs, blockchain-based digital identity streamlines wealth management onboarding, and a stablecoin taxonomy classifies fiat-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, and algorithmic designs by risk profile. Third, on-chain data reveal persistent governance token concentration (Gini > 0.98) and low voter participation (typically below 10%), exposing a gap between DAO theory and practice. Blockchain-specific risks are mapped to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, and mechanism design solutions, such as quadratic voting and AI-assisted proposal evaluation, are proposed to address whale dominance. Effective adoption requires hybrid architecture combining on-chain automation with off-chain structures for accountability and regulatory compliance. Full article