Application of Blockchain and Internet of Things to Ensure Tamper-Proof Data Availability for Food Safety

Food supply chain plays a vital role in human health and food prices. Food supply chain inefficiencies in terms of unfair competition and lack of regulations directly affect the quality of human life and increase food safety risks. This work merges Hyperledger Fabric, an enterprise-ready blockchain platform with existing conventional infrastructure, to trace a food package from farm to fork using an identity unique for each food package while keeping it uncomplicated. It keeps the records of business transactions that are secured and accessible to stakeholders according to the agreed set of policies and rules without involving any centralized authority. This paper focuses on exploring and building an uncomplicated, low-cost solution to quickly link the existing food industry at different geographical locations in a chain to track and trace the food in the market.Comment: Journal of Food Quality, 202

Rewritable and sustainable 2D barcode for traceability application in smart IoT based fault-tolerant mechanism.

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, two-dimensional (2D) barcodes are widely used in smart IoT applications as a perception portal. In industries with many circulations and testing links like traceability, since the existing 2D barcode cannot be changed once it is printed, it can only be replaced with more expensive radio frequency identification (RFID) labels or new 2D barcodes, causing a waste of human resources and costs. For better circulation efficiency and resource utilization, we propose a new design of the rewritable and sustainable 2D barcode based on the fault-tolerance mechanism. The ability to add new information in the 2D barcode can be achieved through data encryption and the insertion of a rewritable layer. It means the message of 2D barcodes could be changed, and increases the flexibility and liquidity of the 2D barcode application. Besides, the encoding and decoding method of the proposed 2D barcode is presented. Experimental results have illustrated the superiority of rewritable and sustainable 2D barcodes in the traceability of herbal medicine compared with the conventional 2D barcodes, and demonstrated the feasibility of the design. The findings show the potential for significant application in the field of traceability in smart IoT, as well as in the manufacturing industry and logistics

The Economics of the Internet of Things in the Global South

While the Internet of Things (IoT) is not new, its key components are becoming increasingly affordable now, which makes the technology extremely attractive for the Global South. By collecting data from various IoT sources, combining them with data from other sources and using big data analytics, decisions can be made and actions can be taken that can have important economic, social, ecological and environmental implications in these countries. The most visible impacts of the IoT in these countries include improvements in agricultural and food systems, enhancement of environmental security and resource conservation, achievement of better healthcare, public health and medicine, and enhancement of the efficiency of key industries. This paper provides an overview of how the IoT is currently being used in the Global South. It also discusses the opportunities and challenges that IoT initiatives present there. The analysis indicates that the IoT may address some of the institutional bottlenecks, technological challenges and key sources of high transaction costs. On the other hand, various sources of underdevelopment may act as barriers to full utilisation of the IoT

Research on a monitoring and evaluation platform for mountain sickness of grid construction workers based on disease information entropy

The inaccuracy of acute altitude sickness screening has brought great challenges to power grid construction workers in high-altitude areas. Human vital signs monitoring technology is an effective technical means to prevent people from developing altitude sickness. This paper proposes a monitoring and evaluation platform for high altitude sickness in power grid operations based on information entropy of the causes of the illness. First, the vital characteristics data of workers are collected through sensors such as blood pressure and blood oxygen. Secondly, the collected data is transmitted back to the platform by using the Internet of Things technology. The information entropy establishes an analysis model of altitude sickness and generates personnel evaluation reports and treatment recommendations. Finally, the application results of the platform verified that the preventive effect of the platform is much higher than that of the pre-existing physical examination method

Spatial-Temporal Event Analysis as a Prospective Approach for Signalling Emerging Food Fraud-Related Anomalies in Supply Chains

One of the pillars on which food traceability systems are based is the unique identification and recording of products and batches along the supply chain. Patterns of these identification codes in time and place may provide useful information on emerging food frauds. The scanning of codes on food packaging by users results in interesting spatial-temporal datasets. The analysis of these data using artificial intelligence could advance current food fraud detection approaches. Spatial-temporal patterns of the scanned codes could reveal emerging anomalies in supply chains as a result of food fraud in the chain. These patterns have not been studied yet, but in other areas, such as biology, medicine, credit card fraud, etc., parallel approaches have been developed, and are discussed in this paper. This paper projects these approaches for transfer and implementation in food supply chains in view of future applications for early warning of emerging food frauds

Management of food cold chains traceability amid the COVID-19 pandemic

The present article considers the functioning of food supply chains and their major component — a continuous cold chain of perishable food products, including meat products, under the conditions of COVID‑19 pandemic. The issues of the impact of the pandemic on production, processing and commercial supply of meat and meat products in Russia and worldwide are being considered. The traceability of temperature fluctuations in meat processing plants is relevant; it becomes an increasingly important factor for efficient logistics to provide the best supply and to keep the food safe in the current conditions. Research data is presented here. The results of the research show that frozen foods serve as carriers and distributors of SARS-CoV‑2 infection without any contact between people. This conclusion highlights additional challenges in controlling the spread of COVID‑19 worldwide, and reveals the mechanism of the disease transmission, taking into account the peculiarities of temperature modes during storage and transportation of perishable meat products. The risks of food cold chains functioning under the conditions of pandemic, the adaptive strategies for their mitigation and logistical systems of tracking are considered, in particular, the application of various data technologies

From truth to trust: the impact of blockchain traceability on trust in product authenticity

In the global marketplace, customers are increasingly unaware of the source, provenance, and authenticity of products. Early research has shown that the introduction of blockchain technology into the supply chain area can make it more transparent and trustworthy. As a platform that supports distributed, cryptographically secure, auditable transactions, blockchain has expanded from the domain of digital cryptocurrency into the domain of physical asset provenance and ownership tracking and tracing. This research examines blockchain support of trust in product authenticity adopting a two-paper dissertation format. In the first conceptual paper, I develop a conceptual framework on blockchain technology\u27s unique features and characteristics and how it can boost trust in product authenticity. The second paper adopts the conceptual framework to test through a vignette experiment the effects of blockchain traceability, product identification, and the interaction between them on trust in product origin authenticity. Academics can use this research to develop new instruments to inform practice about how blockchain can boost trust in product authenticity. Results from this study can inform managers considering investments into blockchain solutions and unique product identification as a customer product authenticity, brand protection, or anti-counterfeiting strategy

How might technology rise to the challenge of data sharing in agri-food?

Acknowledgement This work was supported by an award made by the UKRI/EPSRC funded Internet of Food Things Network+ grant EP/R045127/1. We would also like to thank Mr Steve Brewer and Professor Simon Pearson for supporting the work presented in this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin