From Data Transparency and Security to Interfirm Collaboration-A Blockchain Technology Perspective

In recent years, blockchain technology has gained significant attention and recognition in both academic and practical contexts, due to its remarkable attributes of scalability, security, and sustainability. However, despite the growing interest, there is still a lack of exploration regarding the potential of blockchain to improve data transparency, enhance information security, and facilitate knowledge sharing. To address this gap, this study conducts a focused review of recent studies to examine precisely these aspects of blockchain technology. Various paradigms that highlight how the utilization of blockchain can enhance data transparency, bolster information security, and enable seamless knowledge sharing among organizations, are identified and proposed. These advancements surpass the capabilities of traditional methods of storing and sharing information

Crime in Public Housing: Clarifying Research Issues

In recent years, crime and public housing have been closely linked in our political and popular cultures. Tragic episodes of violence have reinforced the notion that public housing is a milieu with rates of victimization and offending far greater than other locales. However, these recent developments belie the complex social and political evolution of public housing from its origins in the 1930s, through urban renewal, and into the present. Stereotypes abound about public housing, its management, residents, and crime rates. In reality, variation is the norm, and it is these variations that affect crime. The study of crime in public housing is in its earliest phase, and there is much to learn. A few studies suggest that crime rates are higher in public housing complexes than in their immediate surroundings; other studies suggest quite the opposite. Still others suggest a process of diffusion and exchange of violent crimes between public housing and the surrounding neighborhood contexts

A business process model for blockchain-based South African real estate transactions

The real estate transaction process has been described as inefficient and technologically outdated due to numerous stakeholders and predominantly paper-based operations. Despite the apparent bottlenecks in the current process, the implementation of new technology into the real estate sector has lagged. Several attempts have been made to modernise and digitise the business process but committed integration of assisting technology has lacked attention. This study examined the applicability and potential integration of blockchain technology into the business process of South African real estate transactions. Blockchain’s novelty means that research in this space, especially within South Africa, is limited. Of the research that has been conducted, no models of the business processes for South African or blockchain-based real estate transactions have been constructed. This study provides two business process models, illustrating the two different processes. The main contribution of this paper was an integrated business process model, illustrating how the various processes and stakeholder interactions for South African blockchain-based real estate transactions are conducted on one transaction platform, common to all participating stakeholders. This platform was named the South African Blockchain Land Exchange System (SABLES), which manages and facilitates these transactions in their entirety from start to finish. This model depicts an enhanced business process that provides increased security, transparency, and speed. These benefits will be realised by those who register, adopt, and transact on the platform. Through in-depth interviews, the integrated business process model was assessed. The findings produced a final and combined thematic map, representing the main themes of the analysed interview data, namely blockchain implementation strategies, business process applicability, information technology assimilation, current transaction context, and PropTech 3.0 success factors. The discussion revealed that the current transaction process lacks technological innovation, which increases pressure on the conveyancing role. It was also revealed that there is not only a need within the industry, but a desire, for newer technologies to assist the transaction process. In order to streamline and improve efficiency, business processes should leverage digital records and data, and strive for a solution beyond digitisation, achieving digitalisation. Digitalisation recognises digital documents as official and legal documents as opposed to simply being digital back-ups. This, coupled with the business process models, represent theoretical contributions

Advanced typing for asset-aware programming languages

openLa rilevazione di errori nei linguaggi di programmazione è sempre stata importante nel ridurre la presenza di bug e vulnerabilità del software e lo sviluppo di strumenti che aiutino i programmatori in tal senso sono cruciali per le aziende del settore. Nei programmi è possibile riscontrare diverse tipologie di errori che possono causare comportamenti inaspettati da parte del software o addirittura al crash. Fortunatamente, alcuni di questi errori possono essere individuati usando sistemi di tipi e compilatori. Tuttavia, i moderni compilatori potrebbero non essere più abbastanza: infatti, lo spettro di possibili errori introdotti dai programmatori si è molto ampliato insieme alla complessità dei sistemi informatici odierni, come ad esempio le blockchain. I linguaggi per questi ambienti dovrebbero considerare una nuova categoria di errori correlata agli asset: infatti, in questi casi la loro duplicazione, creazione o perdita arbitraria dovrebbe essere evitata. Queste tipologie di errori sono strettamente correlati al concetto di stato di un oggetto, il quale è un’istanza di uno smart contract. In questa tesi, vengono discussi due linguaggi di programmazione typestate-oriented progettati per lo sviluppo di smart contracts, Stipula e Obsidian, vengono messi a confronto in termini di espressività e proprietà. In questa analisi, si può notare che Stipula adotta un approccio più safe e flessibile di Obsidian nella scrittura di legal contracts, grazie alla disponibilità di determinate primitive di linguaggio. Queste funzionalità permettono una realizzazione più semplice e comprensibile dei contratti e costringe il programmatore a un approccio più safe nello sviluppo. D’altro canto, Stipula non possiede altre funzionalità, come tipi user-defined e strutture dati, tipiche dei linguaggi di programmazione a oggetti: in particolare, non supporta un sistema di tipi completo e che permetta di assicurare proprietà di safety per gli asset. Successivamente, viene fornita e discussa una realizzazione in Obsidian delle currencies e dei tokens usati in Stipula allo scopo di trovare un modo di aggiungere in questo nuovo linguaggio un sistema di ownership, il quale potrebbe aiutare nella rilevazione di errori per riferimenti ad asset. Vengono, dunque, fornite le dimostrazioni che gli statement presi in considerazione sono ben tipati: gli strumenti teorici usati nelle dimostrazioni forniscono effettivamente delle indicazioni su come l’ownership dovrebbe funzionare in Stipula. Questa tesi si concentra sulla ricerca di funzionalità e pratiche per migliorare l’espressività dei linguaggi typestate-oriented. Obsidian è un linguaggio staticamente tipato e typestate-oriented con una particolare attenzione alla safety, alla security e all’usabilità. Queste caratteristiche fanno parte anche dei principali obiettivi di Stipula, un nuovo linguagggio typestate-oriented per i legal contracts. L’inserimento di tali funzionalità in Stipula potrebbe essere un buon modo per migliorarne le proprietà di safety e l’esperienza d’uso del programmatore.Error detection in programming languages has always been important in reducing bugs and vulnerabilities in programs and tools that help programmers in this task are crucial for the industry. Several kinds of error may occur in programs that can cause unexpected behaviours and lead to crashes. Fortunately, some of them can be detected using type systems and compilers. However, modern compilers may not be enough anymore: in fact, the range of mistakes that programmers may introduce is widely spread with the increasing complexity of today’s systems, such as blockchains. Languages for these environments should consider new classes of errors related to assets: in fact, in this context arbitrary duplication, creation or loss of assets should be avoided. These new kinds of error are strictly related to the concept of the state of objects, which are in blockchains smart contract instances. In this thesis, we discuss two typestated-oriented programming languages designed for smart contracts development, Stipula and Obsidian, and compare their expressiveness and main properties. In this analysis, we notice that Stipula adopts a safer and more flexible approach than Obsidian in legal contract writing, due to the primitives available for programmers. These features enable a simpler and more readable implementation of contracts and enforce a safer approach to development. On the other hand, Stipula lacks typical functionalities, such as user-defined data and data structures, that other object-oriented programming languages have: in particular, it does not support a full-fledged type system that ensures safety properties on asset operation. Then, an Obsidian implementation for currencies and tokens used in Stipula is provided and discussed in order to find hints to add in this new language ownership, which would help in error detection for asset references. Proofs that they are well-typed are provided: the tools used in these demonstrations give us some hints, especially on how ownership should work in Stipula statements. This thesis focused on the search for features and practises to improve the expressiveness of typestate-oriented programming languages. Obsidian is a statically-typed and typestate-oriented with careful attention to safety, security and usability. These features fall within the main goals of Stipula, a newborn typestate-oriented language for legal contracts. The insertion of such features in Stipula may be a good way to improve its safety and users’ experience

Short Paper: Blockcheck the Typechain

Recent efforts have sought to design new smart contract programming languages that make writing blockchain programs safer. But programs on the blockchain are beholden only to the safety properties enforced by the blockchain itself: even the strictest language-only properties can be rendered moot on a language-oblivious blockchain due to inter-contract interactions. Consequently, while safer languages are a necessity, fully realizing their benefits necessitates a language-aware redesign of the blockchain itself. To this end, we propose that the blockchain be viewed as a typechain: a chain of typed programs-not arbitrary blocks-that are included iff they typecheck against the existing chain. Reaching consensus, or blockchecking, validates typechecking in a byzantine fault-tolerant manner. Safety properties traditionally enforced by a runtime are instead enforced by a type system with the aim of statically capturing smart contract correctness. To provide a robust level of safety, we contend that a typechain must minimally guarantee (1) asset linearity and liveness, (2) physical resource availability, including CPU and memory, (3) exceptionless execution, or no early termination, (4) protocol conformance, or adherence to some state machine, and (5) inter-contract safety, including reentrancy safety. Despite their exacting nature, typechains are extensible, allowing for rich libraries that extend the set of verified properties. We expand on typechain properties and present examples of real-world bugs they prevent