Frontiers in Blockchain最新文献

{"title":"eHomeCaregiving: A Diabetes Patient-Centered Blockchain Ecosystem for COVID-19 Caregiving","authors":"Hessah A. Alsalamah, Ghada Alsuwailem, Fatima Bin Rajeh, S. Alharbi, S. Alqahtani, Razan AlArifi, Shaden AlShargi, Sara A. Alsalamah, Shada Alsalamah","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.477012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.477012","url":null,"abstract":"The pandemic has triggered an unprecedented global demand for home caregiving to manage asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 cases. Older people and others with pre-existing medical conditions (including diabetes) appear to be more vulnerable to severe illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Approximately 25% of Saudis suffer from diabetes; these 4 million patients require 5.5 million consultations and follow-up visits each year to manage their disease. Furthermore, with the increasing number of patients with diabetes and their need for professional care, it is difficult and time consuming to share patient-care information among caregivers in a traditional way; this increases the financial and psychological burden of home caregivers. Although the pandemic has also triggered a global demand for digital health technology adoption worldwide to achieve higher standards of health, recent developments in advanced technologies and mobile health (mHealth) applications have failed to equip the caregivers with the right ecosystem for patient-centered information sharing to allow for informed care decisions. Therefore, there is a gap in the literature as the current solutions fall short of facilitating an effective communication channel among caregivers and between them and their patients, supporting diverse caregiving groups with multiple languages, distributing tasks between caregivers to alleviate the burden on one caregiver, providing a treatment plan by a specialized care team to be viewed and followed by caregivers and patients, and alerting everyone in case of an emergency. Based on the need for empowering home caregivers to cope with the pressure, we propose eHomeCaregiving, an mHealth solution that can build a transparent blockchain-based patient-centered family caregiving ecosystem. eHomeCaregiving facilitates care continuity in patients with type 2 diabetes in Saudi Arabia by integrating care, saving time and efforts of all caregivers, and improving the patient’s quality of life and outcomes, particularly in terms of facing emerging challenges amid the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134148717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial: Special Issue: Theories and Applications of Emerging Technologies in Civic Engagement","authors":"Jasmine E. McNealy","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.699130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.699130","url":null,"abstract":"It would be an understatement to say that blockchain technology has garnered significant attention in the past few years. Though perhaps most popularly known in connection with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, blockchain has been proposed as a solution for data-related problems in several sectors including finance (Zheng et al., 2018), smart contracts (Yli-Huumo et al., 2016), and security (Biswas andMuthukkumarasamy, 2016). At the same time, blockchain has been criticized as being somewhat of a buzzword, set, like so many other technological innovations, to never live up to the hype (Yaga et al., 2018). Some have pegged blockchain as one of many technosolutionist tools that do not bring about the benefits that its proponents claim. Yet scholars, practitioners, and government officials are investigating the possibilities of blockchain to remedy some of the most pressing problems wanting a solution. Called simply, at times, a distributed ledger, blockchain is as its name specifies. It is a digital chain of blocks, each recording the transactions that have happened in the system. These blocks do not have to be centrally located, allowing multiple participants to create a federated system of recorded transactions. Interactions between parties are simplified through enhanced transparency. Blockchain systems can be either permissionless or permissioned. Permissionless systems allow anyone to join and add blocks. Permissioned systems require those wanting to participate to be allowed to join through either the consensus of the other participants, or permission from a centralized authority, such as organizational management. The kind of blockchain system created has implications for how the system is used. A question arises, however, as to whether blockchain technology should be used at all. Some scholars argue that blockchain should only be used, “when multiple mutually mistrusting entities want to interact and change the state of a system, and are not willing to agree on an online trusted third party” (Wüst and Gervais, 2018, p. 46) Otherwise, they suggest the use of a simple database or system already available. Other critics of blockchain argue that at most technology is nothing more than a hyped-up ledger system, claiming that the distributed systems are inefficient in comparison to traditional centralized systems (Yaga et al., 2018). A third criticism of implementing particularly permissionless blockchain is that privacy is limited because anyone can join (Lo et al., 2017). Critics also question the scalability of blockchain, as current systems do not have the same ability to process transactions as mainstream systems (Lo et al., 2017). Nevertheless, blockchains are being considered for various implementations in corporate, civil society, and government sectors. This special issue offers several investigations into the implications of blockchain in various civic contexts. Like industry, governments and civil society organizations have begun examinin","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"2006 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125619169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Formal, Financial and Fraught Route to Global Digital Identity Governance","authors":"M. Campbell-Verduyn, M. Hütten","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.627641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.627641","url":null,"abstract":"How can we understand the progressive, piecemeal emergence of global digital identity governance? Examining the activities of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) - an intergovernmental organization at the center of global anti-money laundering and counter-the-financing of terrorism governance-this paper advances a two-fold argument. First, the FATF shapes how, where and who is involved in developing key standards of acceptability underpinning digital identity governance in blockchain activities. While not itself directly involved in the actual coding of blockchain protocols, the FATF influences the location and type of centralized modes of control over digital identity governance. Drawing on the notion of protocological control from media studies, we illustrate how centralized control emerging in global digital identity governance emanates from the global governance of financial flows long considered by international organizations like the FATF. Second, we suggest that governance by blockchains persistently shapes the ability of the FATF to stem illicit international financial flows. In highlighting both the influence of FATF on blockchain governance and blockchain governance on the FATF, we draw together two strands of literature that have been considered separately in an analysis of the formal, financial and fraught route to global digital identity governance.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115976022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Monetary Dynamics With Proof of Stake","authors":"N. Dimitri","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.443966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.443966","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years blockchain consensus mechanisms based on Proof of Stake gained increasing attention as an alternative to Proof of Work, which requires high energy consumption. In its original version Proof of Stake hinges on the idea that, for a user, the likelihood to confirm the next block is positively related to the amount of currency units held in the wallet, and possibly also on the time length which the money has been unspent for. In a simple framework with risk neutral users we provide some early insights on the monetary equilibrium of Proof of Stake based platforms. In particular, we find that the aggregate demand and supply of currency may not coincide, which implies that users could hold suboptimal quantities of the currency. Furthermore, we also discuss how symmetric stationary states of the system could be implausible. As a consequence, a long run uniform distribution of money would seem unlikely unless appropriate measures are introduced.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132047082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Trust Assurance in Indy-Based Identity Networks Using Public Ledger Data","authors":"Will Abramson, Nicky Hickman, N. Spencer","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.622090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.622090","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129378823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decentralized, Self-Sovereign, Consortium: The Future of Digital Identity in Canada","authors":"Andrew Boysen","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.624258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.624258","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces how SecureKey Technologies Inc. (SecureKey) worked with various network participants and innovation partners alongside government, corporate, and consumer-focused collaborators, in a consortium approach to create a mutually beneficial network of self-sovereign identity (SSI) principles with blockchain in Canada. These principles are based on giving users ownership and control over all of their digital identity attributes as an alternative approach to the current status quo of centralized digital identity, which focuses on discrete identities are made within individual online properties. Blockchain is used as the foundation for its strong security protocols to prevent information from being identified, accessed, or misused and uphold SSI principles. This article will consider the current status quo of digital identity known as centralized digital identity and comparisons to the case study’s emphasis on the alternative thinking of SSI with principles with blockchain, which prioritizes a decentralized, self-sovereign, consortium approach as opposed to discrete identities within individual online properties. Each of these principles will be explained in detail before highlighting the practical implications, lessons learned for future applications, and how both the Canadian and global identity landscapes should proceed for wider acceptance of SSI with blockchain. The case study detailed – that of Verified.Me – will demonstrate how blockchain developers can actively work to help partners transition from current identity silos to instead collaborate across varied industries and create a cohesive, secure service and digital identity network that benefits users through SSI principles and the benefits of blockchain. We also offer recommendations for how both the Canadian and global identity landscapes should proceed for wider acceptance of SSI with blockchain, the benefits of doing so, and anticipated barriers affecting the adoption of future decentralized identity initiatives.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126293095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Blockchain Are We Talking About? An Analytical Framework for Understanding Blockchain Applications in Agriculture and Food","authors":"L. Wassenaer, C. Verdouw, S. Wolfert","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.653128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.653128","url":null,"abstract":"With the many promises it holds in addressing problems concerning information exchange and digital transactions in multi-actor processes, blockchain technology (BCT) has gained considerable traction in the agrifood sector. Governments, international organisations, private companies, consortia of public and private actors are launching various blockchain projects for improving transparency, traceability, and many other key issues in the agrifood sector. This has resulted in a large number of use cases. It is often unclear, however, what and how technical, social and economic aspects were considered in different usecases. Due to the novelty and elusiveness of the technology, there is no ready-to-use analytical framework or guideline yet for assessing its applicability and choosing the right technical and organisational setup. As a result, many stakeholders have to grope in the dark when designing and implementing their “blockchain application.” Based on studies of use cases worldwide and experiences in organizing different blockchain pilots in the Netherlands, this paper seeks to address this problem by providing an overview of the choices to be made at three layers of a blockchain application: the ledger, the governance structure and the ecosystem. This can serve as a reference framework for understanding different blockchain applications and choosing key parameters for new use cases in the agrifood sector. It is expected that such demystification of the blockchain will contribute to more realistic and effective application of the technology to pressing problems in agriculture and food.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134629102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis of the Potentials of Blockchain for the Governance of Global Digital Commons","authors":"David Rozas, Antonio Tenorio-Fornés, Samer Hassan","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.577680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.577680","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, the increasing need for global coordination has attracted interest in the governance of global-scale commons. In the current context, we observe how online applications are ubiquitous, and how emerging technologies enable new capabilities while reshaping sectors. Thus, it is pertinent to ask: could blockchain technologies facilitate the extension and scaling up of cooperative practices and commons management in this global context? In order to address this question, we propose a focus on the most paradigmatic and widely successful examples of global cooperation: global digital commons. Examples of these are the digital resources maintained by large peer production communities, such as free/libre open source software and Wikipedia. Thus, this article identifies and analyzes the potentialities of blockchain to support the sustainability and management of global digital commons. Our approach draws on Elinor Ostrom’s classic principles for commons governance, although revisiting and adapting these to the more challenging scope of global digital commons. Thus, in this work we identify the affordances which blockchain provides (e.g., tokenization, formalization of rules, transparency or codification of trust) to support the effective management of this type of global commons. As part of our analysis, we provide numerous examples of existing blockchain projects using affordances in line with each principle, as well as potential integrations of such affordances in existing practices of peer production communities. Our analysis shows that, when considering the challenges of managing global commons (e.g., heterogeneity or scale), the potential of blockchain is particularly valuable to explore solutions that: distribute power, facilitate coordination, scale up governance, visibilize traditionally invisible work, monitor and track compliance with rules, define collective agreements, and enable cooperation across communities. These affordances and the subsequent analysis contribute to the emergent debate on blockchain-based forms of governance, first by providing analytical categories for further research, but also by providing a guide for experimentation with the development of blockchain tools to facilitate global cooperation.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128760245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Blockchain That Was Not: The Case of Four Cooperative Agroecological Supermarkets","authors":"Marc Rocas-Royo","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.624810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.624810","url":null,"abstract":"Blockchain is a technology with many applications derived from its properties. This article analyzes the case of 4 cooperative agroecological supermarkets and in what circumstances blockchain is an exciting technology to adopt. The analysis of the gathered data reveals 10 factors to consider, 5 internal and 5 external. Those factors derive into 6 blockchain domains to develop. The article concludes that in 3 of them, the drawbacks of implementing the technology, although it is theoretically appropriate, are insuperable. The article contributes to demystifying blockchain technology and applying the same business logic we use with other technical options.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121533510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Which Event Happened First? Deferred Choice on Blockchain Using Oracles","authors":"Jan Ladleif, M. Weske","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.758169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.758169","url":null,"abstract":"First come, first served: Critical choices between alternative actions are often made based on events external to an organization, and reacting promptly to their occurrence can be a major advantage over the competition. In Business Process Management (BPM), such deferred choices can be expressed in process models, and they are an important aspect of process engines. Blockchain-based process execution approaches are no exception to this, but are severely limited by the inherent properties of the platform: The isolated environment prevents direct access to external entities and data, and the non-continual runtime based entirely on atomic transactions impedes the monitoring and detection of events. In this paper we provide an in-depth examination of the semantics of deferred choice, and transfer them to environments such as the blockchain. We introduce and compare several oracle architectures able to satisfy certain requirements, and show that they can be implemented using state-of-the-art blockchain technology.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129540273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}