Blockchain Architecture Research Articles

Blockchain for Secure and Interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHR): Challenges and Opportunities in Decentralized Healthcare Data Management

Electronic Health Records (HER) are one of the fundamental tools of present healthcare organization and management. Still, problems like data fragmentation, security issues, and compatibility issues have become the main challenges. The decentralized, immutable, and open architecture of blockchain provides a new perspective to addressing such issues. This work aims to discuss the implementation of the blockchain in EHR systems by capturing the benefits associated with the technology, such as security, compliance, and patients’ control over their records. To ground the study, this paper first discusses the shortcomings of conventional EHR systems and then describes blockchain’s core concepts. The next one looks into how blockchain can decentralize the handling of health data and share such data easily across the stakeholders, with particular emphasis on the legal requirements for data sharing, such as the HIPAA and GDPR. Use cases for patient-controlled health records, using Blockchain in clinical trials, and use of smart contracts in processing insurance claims are presented to explain different applications of this Inline technology. However, like with any novel technology, there are challenges, such as scalability, compliance with the current legislation, and compatibility with existing structures, which remain problems with the implementation of blockchain in healthcare. These challenges are discussed in this paper, and recommendations are made that would require the effort of technology developers, healthcare organizations/centers, and policymakers. Combining the existing research and practical application, this paper highlights how blockchain can become an enabler of change, bringing security, connectivity, and patient-centricity to the healthcare settings of the present day and the future. The discussion section provides recommendations on how developments in the subsequent research and policy can actually realize the value of blockchain in healthcare.

SymBChainSim: A Novel Simulation System for Info-Symbiotic Blockchain Management

Despite the recent increase in the popularity of blockchain, the technology suffers from the trilemma trade-off between security, decentralisation and scalability, prohibiting adoption and limiting the efficiency and effectiveness of the induced system. Addressing the trilemma trade-off calls for dynamic management and configuration of the blockchain system. In particular, choosing an effective and efficient consensus protocol for balancing the trilemma trade-off when inducing the blockchain-based system is acknowledged to be a challenging problem, given the dynamic and complex nature of the blockchain environment. DDDAS approaches are particularly suitable for tackling this challenge. In previous work, the authors presented a novel DDDAS-based blockchain architecture and demonstrated that it offers a promising approach for dynamically adjusting the parameters of a blockchain system to optimise for the trade-off. This paper presents a novel simulation tool that can support and satisfy the DDDAS requirements for a dynamically re-configurable blockchain system. The tool supports the simulation and the dynamic switching of consensus protocols, analysing their trilemma trade-off. The simulator design is modular and allows the implementation and analysis of a wide range of consensus protocols and their implementation scenarios. The paper also presents a quantitative evaluation of the tool.

A blockchain-assisted privacy-preserving signature scheme using quantum teleportation for metaverse environment in Web 3.0

At the forefront of next-generation internet technology, the concept of the metaverse is gaining traction. It unifies the virtual and physical worlds into a single virtual realm and has the potential to revolutionize social networks, gaming, healthcare and education. Quantum teleportation, renowned for its ability to ensure secure and reliable communications, is set to transform interactions within this immersive digital realm. Nevertheless, the conventional cryptosystems that typically rely on mathematical complexity will no longer be dependable and secure with the advancement of quantum computing. Applied to blockchain architecture, existing post-quantum cryptography technologies, which raise the time complexity of the algorithm, will result in relatively low efficiency and substantial resource overhead. In contrast, quantum cryptography has the ability to improve blockchain’s security and efficiency. Moreover, the reliance on centralized authorities in current metaverse platforms highlights the need for decentralization to improve interoperability and security. Web 3.0 technologies offer a solution by enabling a decentralized metaverse ecosystem. Therefore, the proposed approach leverages quantum teleportation to achieve secure communication and the integration of quantum cryptography and Web 3.0 enhances the efficiency, security and realism of metaverse environments. Through rigorous safety and efficiency analysis, we demonstrate the protocol’s robustness and performance, ensuring adherence to fundamental security properties such as unforgeability, undeniability, verifiability, and traceability.

Trustworthy V2G scheduling and energy trading: A blockchain-based framework

The rapid growth of electric vehicles (EVs) and the deployment of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology pose significant challenges for distributed power grids, particularly in fostering trust and ensuring effective coordination among stakeholders. Establishing a trustworthy V2G operation environment is crucial for enabling large-scale EV user participation and realizing V2G's potential in real-world applications. In this paper, an integrated scheduling and trading framework is developed to conduct transparent and efficacious coordination in V2G operations. In blockchain implementation, a cyber-physical blockchain architecture is proposed to enhance transaction efficiency and scalability by leveraging smart charging points (SCPs) for rapid transaction validation through a fast-path practical byzantine fault tolerance (fast-path PBFT) consensus mechanism. From the energy dispatching perspective, a game-theoretical pricing strategy is employed and smart contracts are utilized for autonomous decision-making between EVs and operators, aiming to optimize the trading process and maximize economic benefits. Numerical evaluation of blockchain consensus shows the effect of the fast-path PBFT consensus in improving systems scalability with a balanced trade-off in robustness. A case study, utilizing real-world data from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), demonstrates significant reductions in EV charging costs and the framework's potential to support auxiliary grid services.

Permissioned blockchain network for proactive access control to electronic health records

BackgroundAs digital healthcare services handle increasingly more sensitive health data, robust access control methods are required. Especially in emergency conditions, where the patient’s health situation is in peril, different healthcare providers associated with critical cases may need to be granted permission to acquire access to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of patients. The research objective of this work is to develop a proactive access control method that can grant emergency clinicians access to sensitive health data, guaranteeing the integrity and security of the data, and generating trust without the need for a trusted third party.MethodsA contextual and blockchain-based mechanism is proposed that allows access to sensitive EHRs by applying prognostic procedures where information based on context, is utilized to identify critical situations and grant access to medical data. Specifically, to enable proactivity, Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) Neural Networks (NNs) are applied that utilize patient’s recent health history to prognose the next two-hour health metrics values. Fuzzy logic is used to evaluate the severity of the patient’s health state. These techniques are incorporated in a private and permissioned Hyperledger-Fabric blockchain network, capable of securing patient’s sensitive information in the blockchain network.ResultsThe developed access control method provides secure access for emergency clinicians to sensitive information and simultaneously safeguards the patient’s well-being. Integrating this predictive mechanism within the blockchain network proved to be a robust tool to enhance the performance of the access control mechanism. Furthermore, the blockchain network of this work can record the history of who and when had access to a specific patient’s sensitive EHRs, guaranteeing the integrity and security of the data, as well as recording the latency of this mechanism, where three different access control cases are evaluated. This access control mechanism is to be enforced in a real-life scenario in hospitals.ConclusionsThe proposed mechanism informs proactively the emergency team of professional clinicians about patients’ critical situations by combining fuzzy and predictive machine learning techniques incorporated in the private and permissioned blockchain network, and it exploits the distributed data of the blockchain architecture, guaranteeing the integrity and security of the data, and thus, enhancing the users’ trust to the access control mechanism.

Retraction Note: Intelligent root cause detection in Industry 4.0: a secure cross-validation of blockchain architecture for product failure checker

Retraction Note: Intelligent root cause detection in Industry 4.0: a secure cross-validation of blockchain architecture for product failure checker

Trust in context: The impact of regulation on blockchain and DeFi

AbstractTrust is a key resource in financial transactions. Traditional financial institutions, and novel blockchain‐based decentralized financial (DeFi) services rely on fundamentally different sources of trust and confidence. The former relies on heavy regulation, trusted intermediaries, clear rules (and restrictions) on market competition, and long‐standing informal expectations on what banks and other financial intermediaries are supposed to do or not to do. The latter rely on blockchain technology to provide confidence in the outcome of rules encoded in protocols and smart contracts. Their main promise is to create confidence in the way the blockchain architecture enforces rules, rather than to trust banks, regulators, and markets. In this article, we compare the trust architectures surrounding these two financial systems. We provide a deeper analysis of how proposed regulation in the blockchain space affects the code‐ and confidence‐based architectures which so far have underwrote DeFi. We argue that despite the solid safeguards and guarantees which code can offer, the confidence in DeFi is still very much dependent on more traditional trust‐enhancing mechanisms, such as code governance, and antifraud regulation to address some of the issues which currently plague this domain, and which have no immediate, purely software‐based solutions. What is more, given the risks of bugs or scams in the DeFi space, regulation and trusted intermediaries may need to play a more active role, in order for DeFi to gain the trust of the next generation of users.

A secure transaction and smart contract architecture for internet of vehicles.

Recently, with the popularity of Internet of vehicles (IoV), there is an increasing market demand for integrating blockchain technology and smart contracts in electric vehicles. By utilizing distributed blockchain and smart contract technology, it provides data integrity preservation, traceability, and prevention of forgery. These features can be effectively used in the automated charging system. As a result, IoV can utilize blockchain and smart contract technologies to facilitate seamless payment for charging fees, tolls, parking fees, online shopping and other associated expenses without the need for intermediaries. However, since blockchain and smart contracts operate in an open internet environment, there is a risk of tampering with transaction records. Therefore, enhancing security becomes a crucial concern. The main aim of this study is to emphasize the growing significance of securing transactions and smart contracts in an open transmission environment to prevent potential damage or alteration.In order to achieve the implementation of secure smart contracts within a resource-constrained IoV, this study investigates various cryptographic mechanisms and realizes the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) is widely recognized for providing strong security with shorter key lengths compared to other public key cryptography methods. This makes it ideal for environments with limited resources. Furthermore, in order to enhance the performance of smart contracts, this study proposes a cloud server architecture for parallel storage of smart contracts to improve access speed. Additionally, we introduce an automated trading framework for smart contracts that operates without human intervention.Finally, this study uses ECC to ensure the secure transmission of transaction data among the vehicle, base station, and cloud server, as well as to provide mutual verification of identities across all entities involved in the operation. As a result, this study proposes a secure architecture for blockchain and smart contracts that can autonomously initiate transactions while ensuring secure transmission and protection in the IoV.

ECDSA-secured blockchain architecture for interoperable healthcare in the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT)

ABSTRACT The ever-growing Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) in healthcare settings introduces new challenges in securing sensitive patient data. Existing communication networks within IoRT environments are vulnerable to security breaches. This paper proposes an ECDSA-secured blockchain architecture specifically designed to address these challenges. A key innovation is the implementation of a private blockchain network on ZedBoard development boards for access control and data integrity verification. IoT devices collect patient health data, which is then securely transmitted to a Mobius server for storage, minimizing resource impact on ZedBoards. To further strengthen the security framework, the architecture integrates the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) with Radix- 2 w optimizations. These optimizations result in a 28% reduction in CPU usage and an 8.96% reduction in memory usage, significantly enhancing cryptographic performance. Practical implementation validates the effectiveness of the proposed approach, providing a robust solution for securing IoRT networks. This research offers valuable insights for industries reliant on the seamless integration of IoT and robotics and concludes with key findings and future research directions, including exploring energy-efficient cryptographic protocols, enhancing scalability through advanced consensus mechanisms, and developing user-friendly interfaces for managing IoRT networks.

BLOCKCHAIN BASED TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN INDIAN AIR FORCE AND ITS AEROSPACE DEFENCE COMPANY

The use of Blockchain technology in various fields like cryptocurrencies, supply chain, healthcare, finance, etc has found widespread acceptance in general and has proven to be pioneering when implemented in the Supply Chain industry. Various use cases where blockchain has brought various stakeholders in a large supply chain on a common platform and has ensured transparency and established a trustless environment among them have been studied and implemented by multiple organizations. This is facilitated by having a shared distributed, immutable ledger which facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking the assets as they move in a business network. In this project, we propose the application of Blockchain technology on the transactions between the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Various aircraft components move from IAF to HAL for repair and maintenance purposes and change hands as they move along the various departments involved in servicing and repairing those components. The proposed architecture of Blockchain based transactions between IAF and HAL would bring transparency, and better security and establish a trustless environment among all the stakeholders involved, and would also empower the stakeholders to optimize their working capabilities thereby saving the time for which an aircraft is on the ground owing to want of an unserviceable component.

Intelligent System for Secure Tamper Protocol Model with IoT BlockchainArchitecture for Data Mitigation

In an era characterized by the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the critical importance of data integrity, the need for robust security mechanisms has never been greater. This paper introduces a novel "Secure Tamper Protocol Model" (STPM) integrated with an IoT-based blockchain architecture, designed to address the growing challenges of data mitigation in IoT ecosystems. This research explores the application of Symmetric Homomorphic Hidden Markov Models (SHHMMs) in the context of anomaly detection, with a focus on %G - IoT environments. SHHMMs have shown remarkable promise in accurately identifying anomalies within diverse datasets. The study presents numerical findings indicating the model's high accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score, with an initial accuracy of 98.2% reaching 99.0% at Epoch 100. Comparative analysis against traditional methods like Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models consistently highlights SHHMM's superior performance, demonstrated through Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Packet Loss, End-to-End Delay, and Overhead metrics. The integration of blockchain technology further enhances the practicality of SHHMM in ensuring data integrity and security. This research contributes to the advancement of anomaly detection techniques in 5G- IoT applications, offering a blend of precision and robustness.

Computer Allied Intelligence in the Education Resource-Sharing Based inContract Deep Learning

A resource-sharing platform is an online space where individuals or organizations can exchange or access various resources, such as knowledge, skills, tools, or assets. These platforms facilitate collaboration and cooperation among users by providing a centralized hub for sharing resources efficiently. In university higher education, a resource-sharing platform serves as a vital tool for students, faculty, and staff to optimize access to a wide array of educational resources. These platforms enable the sharing of academic materials, such as textbooks, lecture notes, and research papers, fostering collaborative learning environments. This paper proposed the proposed method of Distributed Consensus Blockchain Deep Learning (dCBDL) for a resource-sharing deep learning platform in higher education aims to revolutionize collaborative learning and resource utilization. Initially, the dCBDL model uses a blockchain network that serves as the underlying infrastructure for the platform. This blockchain will store transaction records, verify the authenticity of shared resources, and ensure data integrity and immutability. The proposed model uses smart contracts and decentralized storage with a consensus mechanism for data processing in higher education. Finally, the proposed dCBDL model uses the deep learning model for the classification and assessment of student performance in higher education. The proposed model achieves a classification accuracy of 98% which is significantly higher than the conventional techniques such as blockchain architecture and SVM and LSTM classifiers.

Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and healthcare: the tripod of future—a narrative review

The fusion of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) marks a paradigm shift in healthcare, addressing critical challenges in securing electronic health records (EHRs), ensuring data privacy, and facilitating secure data transmission. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the adoption of blockchain and AI within healthcare, spotlighting their role in fortifying security and transparency leading the trajectory for a promising future in the realm of healthcare. Our study, employing the PRISMA model, scrutinized 402 relevant articles, employing a narrative analysis to explore the fusion of blockchain and AI in healthcare. The review includes the architecture of AI and blockchain, examines AI applications with and without blockchain integration, and elucidates the interdependency between AI and blockchain. The major findings include: (i) it protects data transfer, and digital records, and provides security; (ii) enhances EHR security and COVID-19 data transmission, thereby bolstering healthcare efficiency and reliability through precise assessment metrics; (iii) addresses challenges like data security, privacy, and decentralized computing, forming a robust tripod. The fusion of blockchain and AI revolutionize healthcare by securing EHRs, and enhancing privacy, and security. Private blockchain adoption reflects the sector’s commitment to data security, leading to improved efficiency and accessibility. This convergence promises enhanced disease identification, response, and overall healthcare efficacy, and addresses key sector challenges. Further exploration of advanced AI features integrated with blockchain promises to enhance outcomes, shaping the future of global healthcare delivery with guaranteed data security, privacy, and innovation.

Adaptive Merkle trees for enhanced blockchain scalability

The scalability of blockchain technology remains a critical challenge, hindering its widespread adoption across various sectors. This study introduces an innovative approach to address this challenge by proposing the adaptive restructuring of Merkle trees, fundamental components of blockchain architecture responsible for ensuring data integrity and facilitating efficient verification processes. Unlike traditional static tree structures, our adaptive model dynamically adjusts the configuration of these trees based on usage patterns, significantly reducing the average path length required for verification and, consequently, the computational overhead associated with these processes. Through a comprehensive conceptual framework, we delineate the methodology for adaptive restructuring, encompassing both binary and non-binary tree configurations. This framework is validated through a series of detailed examples, demonstrating the practical feasibility and the efficiency gains achievable with our approach. To empirically assess the effectiveness of our proposed method, we conducted rigorous experiments using real-world data from the Ethereum blockchain. The results provide compelling evidence for the superiority of adaptive Merkle trees, with efficiency gains of up to 30% and higher observed during the initial stages of tree restructuring. Moreover, we present a comparative analysis with existing scalability solutions, highlighting the unique advantages of adaptive restructuring in terms of simplicity, security, and efficiency enhancement without introducing additional complexities or dependencies. This study’s implications extend beyond theoretical advancements, offering a scalable, secure, and efficient method for blockchain data verification that could facilitate broader adoption of blockchain technology in finance, supply chain management, and beyond. As the blockchain ecosystem continues to evolve, the principles, methodologies, and empirical findings outlined herein are poised to contribute significantly to its growth and maturity. Statement The findings of this article were presented at ETHDenver 2024 (https://www.ethdenver.com/), a leading innovation festival that champions the Web3 community’s role in shaping the future of blockchain technology. A video of our presentation can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjYVCAQkNE. The original manuscript of this article is available on the preprint archive at https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00406.

Blockchain-Enhanced Hydrogen Fuel Production and Distribution for Sustainable Energy Management

Renewable energy projects, particularly wind and solar farms, have garnered significant attention as a potential solution to global energy challenges. Despite the energy production obstacles, the steady availability of fossil fuels continues to compete due to established distribution systems, as societies increasingly rely on electricity. Hydrogen fuel emerges as a promising avenue for energy production, storage, and distribution, involving converting surplus renewable electricity into hydrogen through electrolysis, storing it, and distributing it. Our novel approach leverages blockchain technology to enhance the efficiency and traceability of hydrogen fuel production, offering a unique synergy of transparency, security, and decentralized governance. We showcase its viability and effectiveness using the ERC-1155 token standard to tokenize renewable resources and convert them into hydrogen fuel. Within our tokenized fuel blockchain architecture, we simulate the forecasted growth in hydrogen production and vehicle demand, highlighting our approach's efficiency, traceability, and transparency. This integration showcases the potential for a sustainable hydrogen fuel ecosystem. The gas consumption data analysis indicates that the daily gas consumption remains below 194 million Gas for refilling 3245 vehicles (including the cost of one-time contract deployment), demonstrating the feasibility and efficiency of our approach.

Digital transformation for safer circular lithium-ion battery supply chains: a blockchain ecosystem-data perspective

Lithium-ion battery (LIB) circular supply chains (CSCs) present unique safety challenges among operation processes. Blockchain technology can be a promising solution for addressing these challenges, by enabling effective tracking and verification of safety-related information throughout the supply chain. However, how blockchain can mitigate safety issues from a supply chain perspective is poorly understood. This study proposes a theory-supported framework through intervention-based research (IBR) to provide guidance for LIB CSC safety management. The conceptual framework and theoretical propositions set the foundation for research on a comprehensive blockchain ecosystem specifically designed for CSC safety management. The framework includes the design of a blockchain architecture with capabilities tailored to address safety concerns, the involvement of multiple stakeholders, and the development of a safety measurement matrix. This study suggests research and practical directions which lay the groundwork for leveraging blockchain technology to improve safety management in LIB CSC. This research contributes to sustainable supply chains by proposing a conceptual framework for mitigating safety concerns in LIB CSC, paving the way for effective blockchain implementation. In addition, this study contributes to advancing the theoretical design understanding and application of blockchain technology in CSC safety management.

On Identity, Transaction, and Smart Contract Privacy on Permissioned and Permissionless Blockchain: A Comprehensive Survey

Blockchain is a decentralized distributed ledger that combines multiple technologies, including chain data structures, P2P networks, consensus algorithms, cryptography, and smart contracts. This gives the blockchain the characteristics of decentralization, immutability, and traceability. However, blockchain stores smart contracts and transactions in blocks publicly, which poses the risk of data leakage and misuse. For example, by mining and analyzing blockchain transaction information, attackers can correlate transactions with user information, resulting in the disclosure of user privacy. Many current reviews focus on the privacy of permissionless blockchains or cryptocurrencies, requiring more in-depth investigations and detailed categorical analysis. To fill this gap, this work comprehensively reviews the latest and traditional methods related to identity, transaction, and smart contract privacy within permissioned and permissionless blockchains. Additionally, we summarize the existing problems, threats, and challenges of data management in different blockchain architectures. Last, we discuss future research directions for blockchain privacy protection technology, which can offer feasible ideas for researchers to explore further.

A blockchain architecture with smart contracts for an additive symbiotic network - a case study

AbstractAdopting innovative technologies such as blockchain and additive manufacturing can help organisations promote the development of additive symbiotic networks, thus pursuing higher sustainable goals and implementing circular economy strategies. These symbiotic networks correspond to industrial symbiosis networks in which wastes and by-products from other industries are incorporated into additive manufacturing processes. The adoption of blockchain technology in such a context is still in a nascent stage. Using the case study method, this research demonstrates the adoption of blockchain technology in an additive symbiotic network of a real-life context. The requirements to use a blockchain network are identified, and an architecture based on smart contracts is proposed as an enabler of the additive symbiotic network under study. The proposed solution uses the Hyperledger Fabric Attribute-Based Access Control as the distributed ledger technology. Even though this solution is still in the proof-of-concept stage, the results show that adopting it would allow the elimination of intermediary entities, keep available tracking records of the resources exchanged, and improve trust among the symbiotic stakeholders (that do not have any trust or cooperation mechanisms established before the symbiotic relationship). This study highlights that the complexity associated with introducing a novel technology and the technology’s immaturity compared to other data storage technologies are some of the main challenges related to using blockchain technology in additive symbiotic networks.

A Secure Data E-Governance for Healthcare Application in Cyber Physical Systems

The bio-medical devices gather patient information and communicate it to data consumers via wireless networks to take the appropriate action and decision by informing the doctors. However, IoMT is adopted by healthcare departments with a greater speed, yet the majority of devices are limited to resource constraints and security perspectives. The classical e-healthcare systems that are centric have the inherent problem of single-point failure with low transparency and low control over records. Many proposals have been validated in IoT for addressing the inadequate computing and storage of records through sensors. The main focus of this paper is to propose a novel hybrid architecture called Zero Trust Blockchain Architecture for decentralized E-health-CPS systems to support low latency along with storage and processing of records while monitoring the patients. In addition, a probability distribution function may further draft an accurate and real-time monitoring of patients. The proposed mechanism is analyzed against adequate decision, storage, accuracy and transmission of records.

ТЕХНОЛОГИЯ РАЗРАБОТКИ БЛОКЧЕЙН В ЭЛЕКТРОЭНЕРГЕТИКЕ

The article discusses blockchain technology in the electric power industry, software development technology based on blockchain architecture and protocols, and blockchain application development technology