Expert oriented approach for analyzing the blockchain adoption barriers in humanitarian supply chain

In digital era, blockchain technology has been known as the operational innovation that is rapidly joining the context of humanitarian supply chain and relief logistic. Hence, it has the potential to change the humanitarian context fundamentally, but there is still relatively little-published research aimed at improving the understanding of the different barriers of the blockchain adoption in humanitarian supply chain. The goal of this research is to present a comprehensive review of blockchain adoption barriers in the context of humanitarian supply chain management. An integrated approach using Fuzzy Delphi and Best-Worst method (BWM) has been used for analyzing the barriers. Based on the literature, 14 barriers of the blockchain adoption in humanitarian supply chain were identified. According to the Fuzzy Delphi result, 9 barriers were accepted. After that, the BWM calculated the importance of each barrier. The findings showed that regulatory uncertainty, lack of knowledge/employee training and high sustainability costs are the important barriers. This research provides useful guidelines for policy makers so that they can benefit from the results to optimize their solutions.     

Preparing construction supply chains for blockchain technology: An investigation of its potential and future directions

Blockchain, a peer-to-peer, controlled, distributed database structure, has the potential to profoundly affect current business transactions in the construction industry through smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and reliable asset tracking. The construction industry is often criticized for being slow in embracing emerging techno-logies and not effectively diffusing them through its supply chains. Often, the extensive fragmentation, traditional procurement structures, destructive competition, lack of collaboration and transparency, low-profit margins, and human resources are shown as the main culprits for this. As blockchain technology makes its presence felt strongly in many other industries like finance and banking, this study investigates the preparation of construction supply chains for blockchain technology through an explorative analysis. Empirical data for the study were collected through semi-structured interviews with 17 subject experts. Alongside presenting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis (SWOT), the study exhibits the requirements for and steps toward a construction supply structure facilitated by blockchain technology.     

Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management

Globalisation of supply chains makes their management and control more difficult. Blockchain technology, as a distributed digital ledger technology which ensures transparency, traceability, and security, is showing promise for easing some global supply chain management problems. In this paper, blockchain technology and smart contracts are critically examined with potential application to supply chain management. Local and global government, community, and consumer pressures to meet sustainability goals prompt us to further investigate how blockchain can address and aid supply chain sustainability. Part of this critical examination is how blockchains, a potentially disruptive technology that is early in its evolution, can overcome many potential barriers. Four blockchain technology adoption barriers categories are introduced; inter-organisational, intra-organisational, technical, and external barriers. True blockchain-led transformation of business and supply chain is still in progress and in its early stages; we propose future research propositions and directions that can provide insights into overcoming barriers and adoption of blockchain technology for supply chain management.     

Real Estate Management via a Decentralized Blockchain Platform

Blockchain technology is one of the key technological breakthroughs of the last decade. It has the ability to revolutionize numerous aspects of society, including financial systems, healthcare, e-government and many others. One such area that is able to reap the benefits of blockchain technology is the real estate industry. Like many other industries, real estate faces major administrative problems such as high transaction fees, a lack of transparency, fraud and the effects of a middleman including undue influence and commissions. Blockchain enables supporting technologies to overcome the obstacles inherent within the real estate investment market. These technologies include smart contracts, immutable record management and time-stamped storage. We utilize these key properties of blockchain technology in our work by proposing a system that has the ability to record real estate transactions in a private blockchain, using smart contracts. The immutability of the blockchain ledger and transactions can provide a safe space for the real estate business. Blockchain technology can also assist the authentication process by hastening background checks. Personal digital keys are provided to parties that are involved in a contract, thus minimizing the risk of fraud. We also discuss the rationale behind the advantages of using a blockchain in this manner, and how we selected the consensus mechanism for our proposed system.     

A Covert Communication Method Using Special Bitcoin Addresses Generated by Vanitygen

As an extension of the traditional encryption technology, information hiding has been increasingly used in the fields of communication and network media, and the covert communication technology has gradually developed. The blockchain technology that has emerged in recent years has the characteristics of decentralization and tamper resistance, which can effectively alleviate the disadvantages and problems of traditional covert communication. However, its combination with covert communication thus far has been mostly at the theoretical level. The BLOCCE method, as an early result of the combination of blockchain and covert communication technology, has the problems of low information embedding efficiency, the use of too many Bitcoin addresses, low communication efficiency, and high costs. The present research improved on this method, designed the V-BLOCCE which uses base58 to encrypt the plaintext and reuses the addresses generated by Vanitygen multiple times to embed information. This greatly improves the efficiency of information embedding and decreases the number of Bitcoin addresses used. Under the premise of ensuring the order, the Bitcoin transaction OP_RETURN field is used to store the information required to restore the plaintext and the transactions are issued at the same time to improve the information transmission efficiency. Thus, a more efficient and feasible method for the application of covert communication on the blockchain is proposed. In addition, this paper also provides a more feasible scheme and theoretical support for covert communication in blockchain.     

A Review of Smart Contract Blockchain Based on Multi-Criteria Analysis: Challenges and Motivations

A smart contract is a digital program of transaction protocol (rules of contract) based on the consensus architecture of blockchain. Smart contracts with Blockchain are modern technologies that have gained enormous attention in scientific and practical applications. A smart contract is the central aspect of a blockchain that facilitates blockchain as a platform outside the cryptocurrency spectrum. The development of blockchain technology, with a focus on smart contracts, has advanced significantly in recent years. However, research on the smart contract idea has weaknesses in the implementation sectors based on a decentralized network that shares an identical state. This paper extensively reviews smart contracts based on multi-criteria analysis, challenges and motivations. Therefore, implementing blockchain in multi-criteria research is required to increase the efficiency of interaction between users via supporting information exchange with high trust. Implementing blockchain in the multi-criteria analysis is necessary to increase the efficiency of interaction between users via supporting information exchange and with high confidence, detecting malfunctioning, helping users with performance issues, reaching a consensus, deploying distributed solutions and allocating plans, tasks and joint missions. The smart contract with decision-making performance, planning and execution improves the implementation based on efficiency, sustainability and management. Furthermore, the uncertainty and supply chain performance lead to improved users’ confidence in offering new solutions in exchange for problems in smart contacts. Evaluation includes code analysis and performance, while development performance can be under development.     

Blockchain for trustworthy provenances: A case study in the Australian aquaculture industry

We explore the potential for a blockchain ledger to record supply chain provenances in an inherently trustworthy manner. The use of blockchain in this setting may allow for traceability of products through the supply chain without fear that an item’s provenance is fraudulent or has been tampered with. We compare the desirable properties of a blockchain ledger to those of a traditional database. We also consider challenges to the trustworthiness of a provenance idiosyncratic to the context of supply chains. We present a case study in which we conduct a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the prawn aquaculture industry in Australia. This industry was chosen as it stands to gain from robust provenances due to international competition. We find that blockchain based technology is unlikely to deliver substantial gains to the industry when compared to alternatives. Rather, most gains are likely to arise from the industry becoming digitalized, which would be a precondition for any blockchain technology to be operational.     

Data Security Storage Mechanism Based on Blockchain Network

With the rapid development of information technology, the development of blockchain technology has also been deeply impacted. When performing block verification in the blockchain network, if all transactions are verified on the chain, this will cause the accumulation of data on the chain, resulting in data storage problems. At the same time, the security of data is also challenged, which will put enormous pressure on the block, resulting in extremely low communication efficiency of the block. The traditional blockchain system uses the Merkle Tree method to store data. While verifying the integrity and correctness of the data, the amount of proof is large, and it is impossible to verify the data in batches. A large amount of data proof will greatly impact the verification efficiency, which will cause end-to-end communication delays and seriously affect the blockchain system’s stability, efficiency, and security. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes to replace the Merkle tree with polynomial commitments, which take advantage of the properties of polynomials to reduce the proof size and communication consumption. By realizing the ingenious use of aggregated proof and smart contracts, the verification efficiency of blocks is improved, and the pressure of node communication is reduced.     

A blockchain-based approach for a multi-echelon sustainable supply chain

Blockchain technology is destined to revolutionise supply chain processes. At the same time, governmental and regulatory policies are forcing firms to adjust their supply chains in response to environmental concerns. The objective of this study is therefore to develop a distributed ledger-based blockchain approach for monitoring supply chain performance and optimising both emission levels and operational costs in a synchronised fashion, producing a better outcome for the supply chain. We propose the blockchain approach for different production allocation problems within a multi-echelon supply chain (MESC) under a carbon taxation policy. As such, we couple recent advances in digitalisation of operations with increasingly stringent regulatory environmental policies. Specifically, with lead time considerations under emission rate constraints (imposed by a carbon taxation policy), we simultaneously consider the production, distribution and inventory control decisions in a production allocation-based MESC problem. The problem is then formulated as a Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) model. We show that the distributed ledger-based blockchain approach minimises both total cost and carbon emissions. We then validate the feasibility of the proposed approach by comparing the results with a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). The findings provide support for policymakers and supply chain executives alike.     

A supply chain transparency and sustainability technology appraisal model for blockchain technology

Blockchain technology is a technology that can effectively support supply chain transparency. An important initial managerial activity is for organisations in supply chains to evaluate and select the most suitable blockchain technology. However, uncertainty and emphasis on sustainable transparency has made this appraisal more complex. This paper: (1) introduces blockchain technology performance measures incorporating various sustainable supply chain transparency and technical attributes; and (2) introduces a new hybrid group decision method, integrated hesitant fuzzy set and regret theory, for blockchain technology evaluation and selection. This method emphasises decision maker psychological characteristics and variation in decision maker opinions. An illustrative application and sensitivity analysis is introduced to aid supply chain managers and researchers understand the blockchain technology selection decision. Methodological and managerial implications associated with the decision tool and application are introduced. This research sets the foundation for significant future research in blockchain technologies evaluation in a supply chain environment.     

Distributed ledger technology in supply chains: a transaction cost perspective

With the emergence of distributed ledger technology (DLT), numerous practitioners and researchers have proclaimed its beneficial impact on supply chain transactions in the future. However, the vast majority of DLT initiatives are discontinued after a short period. With the full potential of DLT laying far down the road, especially managers in supply chain management (SCM) seek for short-term cost-saving effects of DLT in order to achieve long-term benefits of DLT in the future. However, the extant research has bypassed grounding long-term as well as short-term effects of DLT on supply chain transaction with empirical data. We address this shortcoming, following an abductive research approach and combining empirical data from a multiple case study design with the corresponding literature. Our study reveals that the effects of DLT on supply chain transactions are two-sided. We found six effects of DLT solutions that have a cost-reducing or cost avoidance impact on supply chain transactions. In addition, we found two effects that change the power distribution between buyers and suppliers in transactions and a single effect that reduces the dependency of supply chain transactions on third parties. While cost-reducing and avoidance as well as dependency-reducing effects are positive effects, the change in power distribution might come with disadvantages. With these findings, the paper provides the first empirical evidence of the impact of DLT on supply chain transactions, which will enable managers to improve their assessment of DLT usage in supply chains.     

A Blockchain-Based Architecture for Securing Industrial IoTs Data in Electric Smart Grid

There are numerous internet-connected devices attached to the industrial process through recent communication technologies, which enable machine-to-machine communication and the sharing of sensitive data through a new technology called the industrial internet of things (IIoTs). Most of the suggested security mechanisms are vulnerable to several cybersecurity threats due to their reliance on cloud-based services, external trusted authorities, and centralized architectures; they have high computation and communication costs, low performance, and are exposed to a single authority of failure and bottleneck. Blockchain technology (BC) is widely adopted in the industrial sector for its valuable features in terms of decentralization, security, and scalability. In our work, we propose a decentralized, scalable, lightweight, trusted and secure private network based on blockchain technology/smart contracts for the overhead circuit breaker of the electrical power grid of the Al-Kufa/Iraq power plant as an industrial application. The proposed scheme offers a double layer of data encryption, device authentication, scalability, high performance, low power consumption, and improves the industry’s operations; provides efficient access control to the sensitive data generated by circuit breaker sensors and helps reduce power wastage. We also address data aggregation operations, which are considered challenging in electric power smart grids. We utilize a multi-chain proof of rapid authentication (McPoRA) as a consensus mechanism, which helps to enhance the computational performance and effectively improve the latency. The advanced reduced instruction set computer (RISC) machines ARM Cortex-M33 microcontroller adopted in our work, is characterized by ultra-low power consumption and high performance, as well as efficiency in terms of real-time cryptographic algorithms such as the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA). This improves the computational execution, increases the implementation speed of the asymmetric cryptographic algorithm and provides data integrity and device authenticity at the perceptual layer. Our experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves excellent performance, data security, real-time data processing, low power consumption (70.880 mW), and very low memory utilization (2.03% read-only memory (RAM) and 0.9% flash memory) and execution time (0.7424 s) for the cryptographic algorithm. This enables autonomous network reconfiguration on-demand and real-time data processing.     

Application of blockchain in the field of intelligent manufacturing: Theoretical basis,realistic plights,and development suggestions

Blockchain technology is considered one of the promising technologies of the information technology era. The core features of blockchain, such as decentralization, transparency, high security, and tamper-proof nature, bring great convenience for large-scale social cooperation and data sharing. Blockchain has a broad application prospect in the field of intelligent manufacturing. The key issues of this field, such as distributed collaborative production, industrial big data sharing and security, transparent logistics, and supply chain, are naturally consistent with the core characteristics of the blockchain technology. This study aims to analyze the application of blockchain in the field of intelligent manufacturing. First, we introduce the basic connotation and applications of blockchain. Then, we propose the theoretical basis for the application of blockchain in the field of intelligent manufacturing. Finally, we point out the realistic plights and provide some suggestions to promote the application of blockchain in the field of intelligent manufacturing.     

Blockchain applications in supply chains,transport and logistics: a systematic review of the literature

This paper presents current academic and industrial frontiers on blockchain application in supply chain, logistics and transport management. We conduct a systematic review of the literature and find four main clusters in the co-citation analysis, namely Technology, Trust, Trade, and Traceability/Transparency. For each cluster, and based on the pool of articles included in it, we apply an inductive method of reasoning and discuss the emerging themes and applications of blockchains for supply chains, logistics and transport. We conclude by discussing the main themes for future research on blockchain technology and its application in industry and services.     

Developmental trajectories of blockchain research and its major subfields

Unlike previous reviews, most of which focus on a field and use qualitative methods to analyze blockchain technology, herein main path analysis was used to determine the key route of citations and identify the developmental trajectories of blockchain technology and its major themes. A total of 3159 blockchain-related articles published through August 5, 2019, were gathered from the Web of Science. In all, 2478 articles formed the citation network, 27 of which were on the key route. These 27 key papers on blockchain represented the four developmental stages. Stage 1 focused on challenges to bitcoin. Stage 2 focused on smart contract issues. Stage 3 focused on opportunities, challenges, and development in blockchain. Finally, Stage 4 focused on smart contract applications, especially in e-healthcare, where blockchain technology is paving the way to a quicker, more secure, and more efficient means of storing and accessing medical data. The Girvan-Newman clustering technique was used to classify articles, and keyword analysis was used to analyze the top six major themes. These were bitcoin security, bitcoin financial applications, e-healthcare, Ethereum smart contracts, security and privacy in IoT, and energy. Main path analysis was also used to analyze their developmental trends. The results have significant value for both academics and practitioners.     

Blockchain-Based SQKD and IDS in Edge Enabled Smart Grid Network

Smart Grid is a power grid that improves flexibility, reliability, and efficiency through smart meters. Due to extensive data exchange over the Internet, the smart grid faces many security challenges that have led to data loss, data compromise, and high power consumption. Moreover, the lack of hardware protection and physical attacks reduce the overall performance of the smart grid network. We proposed the BLIDSE model (Blockchain-based secure quantum key distribution and Intrusion Detection System in Edge Enables Smart Grid Network) to address these issues. The proposed model includes five phases: The first phase is blockchain-based secure user authentication, where all smart meters are first registered in the blockchain, and then the blockchain generates a secret key. The blockchain verifies the user ID and the secret key during authentication matches the one authorized to access the network. The secret key is shared during transmission through secure quantum key distribution (SQKD). The second phase is the lightweight data encryption, for which we use a lightweight symmetric encryption algorithm, named Camellia. The third phase is the multi-constraint-based edge selection; the data are transmitted to the control center through the edge server, which is also authenticated by blockchain to enhance the security during the data transmission. We proposed a perfect matching algorithm for selecting the optimal edge. The fourth phase is a dual intrusion detection system which acts as a firewall used to drop irrelevant packets, and data packets are classified into normal, physical errors and attacks, which is done by Double Deep Q Network (DDQN). The last phase is optimal user privacy management. In this phase, smart meter updates and revocations are done, for which we proposed Forensic based Investigation Optimization (FBI), which improves the security of the smart grid network. The simulation is performed using network simulator NS3.26, which evaluates the performance in terms of computational complexity, accuracy, false detection, and false alarm rate. The proposed BLIDSE model effectively mitigates cyber-attacks, thereby contributing to improved security in the network.     

Advanced DAG-Based Ranking (ADR) Protocol for Blockchain Scalability

In the past decade, blockchain has evolved as a promising solution to develop secure distributed ledgers and has gained massive attention. However, current blockchain systems face the problems of limited throughput, poor scalability, and high latency. Due to the failure of consensus algorithms in managing nodes’identities, blockchain technology is considered inappropriate for many applications, e.g., in IoT environments, because of poor scalability. This paper proposes a blockchain consensus mechanism called the Advanced DAG-based Ranking (ADR) protocol to improve blockchain scalability and throughput. The ADR protocol uses the directed acyclic graph ledger, where nodes are placed according to their ranking positions in the graph. It allows honest nodes to use the Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) topology to write blocks and verify transactions instead of a chain of blocks. By using a three-step strategy, this protocol ensures that the system is secured against doublespending attacks and allows for higher throughput and scalability. The first step involves the safe entry of nodes into the system by verifying their private and public keys. The next step involves developing an advanced DAG ledger so nodes can start block production and verify transactions. In the third step, a ranking algorithm is developed to separate the nodes created by attackers. After eliminating attacker nodes, the nodes are ranked according to their performance in the system, and true nodes are arranged in blocks in topological order. As a result, the ADR protocol is suitable for applications in the Internet of Things (IoT). We evaluated ADR on EC2 clusters with more than 100 nodes and achieved better transaction throughput and liveness of the network while adding malicious nodes. Based on the simulation results, this research determined that the transaction’s performance was significantly improved over blockchains like Internet of Things Applications (IOTA) and ByteBall.     

Towards Privacy-Preserving Cloud Storage: A Blockchain Approach

With the rapid development of cloud computing technology, cloud services have now become a new business model for information services. The cloud server provides the IT resources required by customers in a self-service manner through the network, realizing business expansion and rapid innovation. However, due to the insufficient protection of data privacy, the problem of data privacy leakage in cloud storage is threatening cloud computing. To address the problem, we propose BC-PECK, a data protection scheme based on blockchain and public key searchable encryption. Firstly, all the data is protected by the encryption algorithm. The privacy data is encrypted and stored in a cloud server, while the ciphertext index is established by a public key searchable encryption scheme and stored on the blockchain. Secondly, based on the characteristics of trusted execution of smart contract technology, a control mechanism for data accessing and sharing is given. Data transaction is automatically recorded on the blockchain, which is fairer under the premise of ensuring the privacy and security of the data sharing process. Finally, we analyzed the security and fairness of the current scheme. Through the comparison with similar schemes, we have shown the advantages of the proposed scheme.     

Blockchain-oriented dynamic modelling of smart contract design and execution in the supply chain

Recently, the applications of Blockchain technology have begun to revolutionise different aspects of supply chain (SC) management. Among others, Blockchain is a platform to execute the smart contracts in the SC as transactions. We develop and test a new model for smart contract design in the SC with multiple logistics service providers and show that this problem can be presented as a multi-processor flexible flow shop scheduling. A distinctive feature of our approach is that the execution of physical operations is modelled inside the start and completion of cyber information services. We name this modelling concept ‘virtual operation’. The constructed model and the developed experimental environment constitute an event-driven dynamic approach to task and service composition when designing the smart contract. Our approach is also of value when considering the contract execution stage. The use of state control variables in our model allows for operations status updates in the Blockchain that in turn, feeds automated information feedbacks, disruption detection and control of contract execution. The latter launches the re-scheduling procedure, comprehensively combining planning and adaptation decisions within a unified methodological framework of dynamic control theory. The modelling complex developed can be used to design and control smart contracts in the SC.     

Systematic literature review on smart contracts in the construction industry: Potentials,benefits, and challenges

The development of digital transformation in the construction industry has led to the increasing adoption of smart contracts. As programmable applications to automatically write, verify, and enforce transaction conditions, smart contracts can be used in different areas mainly to improve automation level, information security, and built digital environment enhancement. However, the smart contract is commonly mentioned as a blockchain appendage, while its unique connotation and value in the construction industry have not been recognized. Therefore, this study carries out a systematic review based on 81 research articles published from 2014 to 2021 on smart contract applications in construction to explore and highlight their potentials under domain-specific requirements. Results are analyzed according to research type categorization and domain codification. Eight research domains are identified, where the three most highly explored domains are contract and payment, supply chain and logistics, and information management. The integration of smart contracts with other innovative concepts and advanced technologies is analyzed. The applicability, benefits, and challenges of smart contract applications regarding different research domains are discussed.