On Using Blockchains for Safety-Critical Systems

Innovation in the world of today is mainly driven by software. Companies need to continuously rejuvenate their product portfolios with new features to stay ahead of their competitors. For example, recent trends explore the application of blockchains to domains other than finance. This paper analyzes the state-of-the-art for safety-critical systems as found in modern vehicles like self-driving cars, smart energy systems, and home automation focusing on specific challenges where key ideas behind blockchains might be applicable. Next, potential benefits unlocked by applying such ideas are presented and discussed for the respective usage scenario. Finally, a research agenda is outlined to summarize remaining challenges for successfully applying blockchains to safety-critical cyber-physical systems

Redefining Auditing in a Blockchain Era: Opportunities and Obstacles for External Auditors

The characteristics and mode of operation of blockchain technology could transform the accounting and auditing industries. The technological advancements introduced by Blockchain are anticipated to significantly influence reporting and auditing procedures, particularly within accounting information systems. The escalating adoption of blockchain technology is poised to alter the comprehensiveness and caliber of information accessible to auditors, thereby impacting the auditing process. Consequently, it is imperative for professionals in accounting and auditing to grasp both the prospects and impediments posed by these innovative technologies. This study endeavors to scrutinize the role of blockchain within the realms of accounting and auditing, both within existing literature and in professional practice

Exploratory literature review of blockchain in the construction industry

First academic publications on blockchain in construction instantiated in 2017, with three documents. Over the course of several years, new literature emerged at an average annual growth rate of 184%, surmounting to 121 documents at time of writing this article in early 2021. All 121 publications were reviewed to investigate the expansion and progression of the topic. A mixed methods approach was implemented to assess the existing environment through a literature review and scientometric analysis. Altogether, 33 application categories of blockchain in construction were identified and organised into seven subject areas, these include (1) procurement and supply chain, (2) design and construction, (3) operations and life cycle, (4) smart cities, (5) intelligent systems, (6) energy and carbon footprint, and (7) decentralised organisations. Limitations included using only one scientific database (Scopus), this was due to format inconsistencies when downloading and merging various bibliographic data sets for use in visual mapping software

BcBIM: A Blockchain-Based Big Data Model for BIM Modification Audit and Provenance in Mobile Cloud

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is envisioned as an indispensable opportunity in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries as a revolutionary technology and process. Smart construction relies on BIM for manipulating information flow, data flow, and management flow. Currently, BIM model has been explored mainly for information construction and utilization, but rare works pay efforts to information security, e.g., critical model audit and sensitive model exposure. Moreover, few BIM systems are proposed to chase after upcoming computing paradigms, such as mobile cloud computing, big data, blockchain, and Internet of Things. In this paper, we make the first attempt to propose a novel BIM system model called bcBIM to tackle information security in mobile cloud architectures. More specifically, bcBIM is proposed to facilitate BIM data audit for historical modifications by blockchain in mobile cloud with big data sharing. The proposed bcBIM model can guide the architecture design for further BIM information management system, especially for integrating BIM cloud as a service for further big data sharing. We propose a method of BIM data organization based on blockchains and discuss it based on private and public blockchain. It guarantees to trace, authenticate, and prevent tampering with BIM historical data. At the same time, it can generate a unified format to support future open sharing, data audit, and data provenance

Blockchain-Supported Food Supply Chain Reference Architecture

Department of Management EngineeringA food security issue increased rapidly due to numerous food frauds and tragic incidents and overall growth in the scale of food supply chain network in the last years. Since the recent evolution of Blockchain technology, it promises high potential ability to guarantee and trace the originality of products in supply chain network The main purpose of this research work is to build general Blockchain-supported food supply chain reference architecture model along with supplementary guidelines which could be applied in real-life supply chain cases with or without customization or inspire their design of supply chain system. A case driven bottom-up approach is used to create the reference architecture with the help of BOAT framework as a base tool to align the case details. A total of three food supply chain cases were utilized for the development of reference architecture and third case study of Mongolian meat trade supply chain was examined with the proposed solution and finally evaluated by the local experts. I believe this reference framework will help fellow researchers and industry practitioners to use this as a base knowledge without beginning from the scratches because current literature lacks extremely in this field. In overall, I expect this work will contribute to the current literature in the followings: 1. To expand the implementation mechanism of Blockchain solutions in general supply chain cases especially in food supply chain. 2. To provide practical exemplary implementation of real life case scenarios 3. To provide detailed analysis of benefits and weaknesses of using Blockchain in food supply chainope

A Review of Blockchain Technology Based Techniques to Preserve Privacy and to Secure for Electronic Health Records

Research has been done to broaden the block chain’s use cases outside of finance since Bitcoin introduced it. One sector where block chain is anticipated to have a big influence is healthcare. Researchers and practitioners in health informatics constantly struggle to keep up with the advancement of this field's new but quickly expanding body of research. This paper provides a thorough analysis of recent studies looking into the application of block chain based technology within the healthcare sector. Electronic health records (EHRs) are becoming a crucial tool for health care practitioners in achieving these objectives and providing high-quality treatment. Technology and regulatory barriers, such as concerns about results and privacy issues, make it difficult to use these technologies. Despite the fact that a variety of efforts have been introduced to focus on the specific privacy and security needs of future applications with functional parameters, there is still a need for research into the application, security and privacy complexities, and requirements of block chain based healthcare applications, as well as possible security threats and countermeasures. The primary objective of this article is to determine how to safeguard electronic health records (EHRs) using block chain technology in healthcare applications. It discusses contemporary HyperLedgerfabrics techniques, Interplanar file storage systems with block chain capabilities, privacy preservation techniques for EHRs, and recommender systems

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

The enterprise blockchain design framework and its application to an e-Procurement ecosystem

The research work of this paper has been partially funded by the project VORTAL INTER DATA (n° 038361), co-financed by Vortal and COMPETE Program P2020. We would also like to thank UNIDEMI, DEMI, and LASI for providing us with the research infrastucture and resources to conduct this research. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier LtdBlockchain technologies have seen a steady growth in interest from industries as the technology is gaining maturity. It is offering a novel way to establish trust amongst multiple stakeholders without relying or trusting centralised authorities. While its use as a decentralised store of value has been validated through the emergence of cryptocurrencies, its use case in industrial applications with multiple stakeholder ecosystems such as industrial supply chain management, is still at an early stage of design and experimentation where private blockchains are used as opposed to public blockchains. Many enterprise blockchain projects failed to gain traction after initial launches, due to inefficient design, lack of incentives to all stakeholders or simply because the use of blockchain was not really necessary in the first place. There has been a need for a framework that allows blockchain designers and researchers to evaluate scenarios when a blockchain solution is useful and design the key configurations for an enterprise blockchain solution. Literature on blockchain architectures are sparse and only applicable to specific use cases or functionalities. This paper proposes a comprehensive Enterprise Blockchain Design Framework (EBDF), that not only identifies the relevant use cases when a blockchain must be utilised, but also details all the characteristics and configurations for designing an enterprise blockchain ecosystem, applicable to multiple industries. To validate the EBDF, we apply the same to the Vortal e-Procurement ecosystem allowing for multiple platforms to interoperate with greater transparency and accountability over the proposed blockchain framework. In this use case, many vendors bid for procurement procedures, often for publicly managed funds where it is extremely vital that full transparency and accountability is ensured in the entire process. Ensuring that certain digital certification functions, such as timestamps are independent from e-Procurement platform owners has been a challenge. Blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution for not only ensuring transparency and immutability of records, but also providing for interoperability across different platforms by acting as a trusted third-party. The applied framework is used to design a Hyperledger based blockchain solution with some of the key architectural elements that could fulfil these needs while presenting the advantages of such a solution.publishersversionpublishe