Blockchain systems, technologies and applications: a methodology perspective

In the past decade, blockchain has shown a promising vision to build trust without any powerful third party in a secure, decentralized and scalable manner. However, due to the wide application and future development from cryptocurrency to the Internet of things, blockchain is an extremely complex system enabling integration with mathematics, computer science, communication and network engineering, etc. By revealing the intrinsic relationship between blockchain and communication, networking and computing from a methodological perspective, it provided a view to the challenge that engineers, experts and researchers hardly fully understand the blockchain process in a systematic view from top to bottom. In this article we first introduce how blockchain works, the research activities and challenges, and illustrate the roadmap involving the classic methodologies with typical blockchain use cases and topics. Second, in blockchain systems, how to adopt stochastic process, game theory, optimization theory, and machine learning to study the blockchain running processes and design the blockchain protocols/algorithms are discussed in details. Moreover, the advantages and limitations using these methods are also summarized as the guide of future work to be further considered. Finally, some remaining problems from technical, commercial and political views are discussed as the open issues. The main findings of this article will provide a survey from a methodological perspective to study theoretical model for blockchain fundamentals understanding, design network service for blockchain-based mechanisms and algorithms, as well as apply blockchain for the Internet of things, etc

Privacy-aware Biometric Blockchain based e-Passport System for Automatic Border Control

In the middle of 1990s, World Wide Web technology initially steps into our life. Now, 30 years after that, widespread internet access and established computing technology bring embodied real life into Metaverse by digital twin. Internet is not only blurring the concept of physical distance, but also blurring the edge between the real and virtual world. Another breakthrough in computing is the blockchain, which shifts the root of trust attached to a system administrator to the computational power of the system. Furthermore, its favourable properties such as immutable time-stamped transaction history and atomic smart contracts trigger the development of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Combining above two, this thesis presents a privacy-aware biometric Blockchain based e-passport system for automatic border control(ABC), which aims for improving the efficiency of existing ABC system. Specifically, through constructing a border control Metaverse DAO, border control workload can be autonomously self-executed by atomic smart contracts as transaction and then immutably recorded on Blockchain. What is more, to digitize border crossing documentation, biometric Blockchain based e-passport system(BBCVID) is created to generate an immutable real-world identity digital twin in the border control Metaverse DAO through Blockchain and biometric identity authentication. That is to say, by digitizing border crossing documentation and automatizing both biometric identity authentication and border crossing documentation verification, our proposal is able to significantly improve existing border control efficiency. Through system simulation and performance evaluation by Hyperledger Caliper, the proposed system turns out to be able to improve existing border control efficiency by 3.5 times more on average, which is remarkable. What is more, the dynamic digital twin constructed by BBCVID enables computing techniques such as machine learning and big data analysis applicable to real-world entity, which has a huge potential to create more value by constructing smarter ABC systems

Internet of Things From Hype to Reality

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant mindshare, let alone attention, in academia and the industry especially over the past few years. The reasons behind this interest are the potential capabilities that IoT promises to offer. On the personal level, it paints a picture of a future world where all the things in our ambient environment are connected to the Internet and seamlessly communicate with each other to operate intelligently. The ultimate goal is to enable objects around us to efficiently sense our surroundings, inexpensively communicate, and ultimately create a better environment for us: one where everyday objects act based on what we need and like without explicit instructions

An Empirical Investigation Of Information Technology Mediated Customer Services In China

Information technology mediated customer service is a reality of the 21st century. More and more companies have moved their customer services from in store and in person to online through computer or mobile devices. Using 208 respondents collected from two Chinese universities, this paper investigates customer preference over two service delivery model (either in store or online) on five type of purchasing (retail, eating-out, banking, travel and entertainment) and their perception difference in customer service quality between those two delivery model. Results show that a majority of Chinese students prefer in store and in person for eating out. For ordering tickets for travel and entertainment, they prefer computer/mobile device. For retail purchasing and banking, less than half of the students prefer in person services. In general, the results show that ordering through computer/mobile devices has become more popular in China and has received higher rating for most of customer service quality except security compared to ordering in store. In addition, it is found that there exist a gender difference in purchasing preference and perception in service delivery quality in China

Facilitating or Enabling Value Creation? Reconfiguring value creation in financial services

FinTech on lyhennelmä sanoista Financial Technology ja finanssiteknologian odotettiin disruptoivan rahoitusalaa. Rahoitusalan muutos ei kuitenkaan johdu pelkästään startupeista, vaan se alkoi jo vuoden 2008 finanssikriisistä. Digitalisaation ja sääntelyn muutosten seurauksena perinteiset finanssipalvelujen tarjoajat – pankit ja vakuutusyhtiöt – ovat joutuneet uudistamaan liiketoimintamallejaan. Samaan aikaan uudet tulokkaat, FinTech-startupit ovat kasvattaneet markkinaosuuttaan etenkin maksamisessa ja sijoittamisessa. Aiempi FinTechin tutkimus on keskittynyt pääasiassa FinTech-startup- yrityksiin ja -innovaatioihin, mutta toimialan laajuisia muutoksia arvonluonnissa ei ole vielä tunnistettu. Tämän väitöskirjan tarkoituksena on tutkia ja analysoida, miten arvonluonti viritetään uudelleen finanssipalveluissa. Tämä tutkimus perustuu neljään kvalitatiiviseen artikkeliin, joissa ilmiötä tarkastellaan eri näkökulmista. Finanssipalvelujen arvonluontia ja liiketoimintamalleja tutkiessa huomataan, että digitalisaatio ja sääntely muuttavat prosessien ja resurssien omistajuutta arvonluonnin perustana. Artikkeli I tavoitteena oli ymmärtää, mitä tekoälyteknologian käyttö tarkoittaa arvonluonnissa vakuutuspalveluissa. Artikkeli II tutki muutoksia markkinatulokkaan ja vakiintuneen toimijan näkökulmasta. Artikkeli III analysoi palveluinnovaatioita markkinatulokkaan näkökulmasta ja esittää viitekehyksen innovaatioiden luomiseen. Lopuksi Artikkeli IV keskittyi seuraamaan, kuinka perinteiset rahoituspalveluntarjoajat reagoivat FinTech ilmiöön löytääkseen strategisen edun. Keskeisenä tuloksena tämä tutkimus esittelee uuden viitekehyksen arvonluonnin uudelleen virittämiselle. Lisäksi tässä väitöskirjassa ehdotetaan termiä ”Value enabler” (arvonluonnin mahdollistaja) käytettäväksi uudella tavalla. Se kuvaa “näkymättömiä”-palveluntarjoajia, jotka käyttävät rajapintoja (API) jakamaan prosessejaan ja resurssejaan kumppaneille, jotka sitten yhdistämällä nämä resurssit ja prosessit tukevat asiakkaan arvonluontiprosessia.FinTech, abbreviated from Financial Technology, is a phenomenon which was expected to disrupt financial services. However, the turmoil in the industry is not only to do with startups, having started already with the 2008 financial crisis. The digitalization and regulatory changes that followed forced incumbent financial service providers – including banks and insurance companies – to revise their business models, meaning the technology they create and what they get from their partners. At the same time, new market entrants, known as FinTech start-ups, are increasing their market share especially in payments and investments. Previous research on FinTech has focused mainly on startups and innovation, meaning that industry-wide changes in value creation are yet to be discovered. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore and analyze how value creation is reconfigured in financial services. The research builds on four qualitative studies reported in articles that discuss the phenomenon from different perspectives. The aim in Article I enhances the understanding of how Artificial Intelligence technology is used as a means of value creation in insurance services. Article II considers the changes from the perspectives of a market entrant and an incumbent. Article III analyzes service innovation from the market entrant’s perspective, and builds a framework of the innovation stack. Finally, Article IV follows how incumbent financial service providers reacted to the FinTech phenomenon to find a strategic fit. According to the conclusions drawn from these articles, digitalization and regulation transform the ownership of processes and resources as the foundation of value creation. As a result, a new framework for the reconfiguration of value creation is introduced in this dissertation. A new concept, namely the Value Enabler, is suggested. This refers to incognito service providers using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to share their processes and resources among their partners, which then in combination with their own resources and processes facilitate the customer’s value-creation process. Managerial implications are presented and avenues for future research are mapped on the basis of the research results

Proceedings of the Conference on Production Systems and Logistics: CPSL 2022

[no abstract available