Traditional Certificates Research Articles

Immutable COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate using Blockchain

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges around the world, including lockdowns, remote working and studying, and travel restrictions imposed by governments to curb the spread of the virus. As vaccines have become more widely available, restrictions have begun to ease for those vaccinated. Many countries use paper-based COVID-19 vaccination certificates to prove vaccination status. However, traditional certificates are vulnerable to forgery and counterfeiting. We developed a blockchain-based system where vaccination certificates are stored and accessed via smart contracts on an Ethereum blockchain. The certificates are stored in a tamper-proof, decentralized manner, ensuring secure verification of vaccination status. This research project successfully designed and implemented a system that securely stores and verifies vaccination certificates using blockchain, demonstrating the benefits of this approach. According to our knowledge, this is the first kind of research initiative in Brunei to develop a blockchain-based immutable COVID-19 Vaccination certificate. Despite its advantages, blockchain still has its flaws, particularly in scalability and adoption, which should be considered for further optimization of the proposed system.

Changes in customary land administration and “plausible” development outcomes: A comparative study of Chamuka and Shimukunami chiefdoms

Literature is now cognizant of the fact that customary land governance structures are changing in most of sub-Saharan Africa. The relevance of land governance is largely dependent on the local institution, even without direct State intervention. In other words, customary areas are no longer sites for unrestrained, selfish and uncivilized competitions resulting in high tenure insecurity. However, a number of issues still remain debatable over these changes: for instance, what is their exact form and what are the “plausible” development outcomes related to these changes? This paper assets that, answers to these questions are often location specific in literature, hence the rationale for this study within the Zambian context. This study compares two customary areas, with different customary rights and administration, i.e. Shimukunami were residents are issued with traditional certificates and Chamuka where they are not. Data was collected through household questionnaires, key informants and focus group discussions. The paper tested a number of parameters which included number of conflict (e.g. on ownership, boundaries, encroachments), agricultural production (labour, crops, etc.) and generally livelihood strategies. We conclude that change in customary land governance has been a reaction to pressures and influences such as rapid population, high demand for customary land and introduction of monetary transactions. Further, institutions are not static but have evolved to meet changing societal demands. Therefore, approaches recommended for effective traditional land governance must be mainstreamed in local structure so as to provide a sustainable solution to tenure security and rural development. However, the appropriate approaches should be chosen taking into account the need of the local communities, traditional institutions and dynamics of land governance of a particular area.

Application of New Technology in Education: Design and Implementation of Graduate Certificate Model Based on Intelligent Graph Element Technology

Modern information technology empowers education and infuses new vigor into educational innovation. However, current university diplomas are old-fashioned, not connected to information technology, and easy to copy. Two-dimensional code technology, widely popular in China because of its intuitive, simple, convenient, and other advantages, should be integrated into the field of education. Two-dimensional code technology is the advanced form of graphic code technology. However, through the analysis of the current situation of graphic code technology research and education applications including two-dimensional code, there are no actual cases of graphic code technology applied to graduation certificates, leaving a blank field of research. This is mainly due to the defects and limitations of the existing graphic code technology, so a new intelligent graph element technology (IGET) is proposed here. Intelligent graph element technology integrates the functional advantages of two-dimensional code and overcomes the issues of certificates being easy to forge and difficult to verify, by adding intuitive, discernible, and valuable new functions, suitable for the functional requirements of the graduation certificate. Based on intelligent graph element technology, a novel graduation certificate management system model is constructed here, and a graduation certificate is designed and implemented. Compared with the traditional graduation certificate, the graduation certificate based on intelligent graph elements has the advantages of being intuitive and readable, and having information security, a large amount of information, and intelligent anti-counterfeiting, verification, and traceability mechanisms. The application of intelligent graph element technology in the design and research of college graduation certificates opens a new window of digitization and informatization innovation for traditional college graduation certificates, and provides reference for other innovative applications of intelligent graph element technology in the field of education.

Dynamic integration of distributed, Cloud-based HPC and HTC resources using JSON Web Tokens and the INDIGO IAM Service

In the past couple of years, we have been actively developing the Dynamic On-Demand Analysis Service (DODAS) as an enabling technology to deploy container-based clusters over hybrid, private or public, Cloud infrastructures with almost zero effort. DODAS is particularly suitable for harvesting opportunistic computing resources; this is why several scientific communities already integrated their computing use cases into DODAS-instantiated clusters, automating the instantiation, management and federation of HTCondor batch systems. The increasing demand, availability and utilization of HPC resources by and for multidisciplinary user communities, often mandates the possibility to transparently integrate, manage and mix HTC and HPC resources. In this paper, we discuss our experience extending and using DODAS to connect HPC and HTC resources in the context of a distributed Italian regional infrastructure involving multiple sites and communities. In this use case, DODAS automatically generates HTCondor batch system on-demand. Moreover it dynamically and transparently federates sites that may also include HPC resources managed by SLURM; DODAS allows user workloads to make opportunistic and automated use of both HPC and HTC resources, thus effectively maximizing and optimizing resource utilization. We also report on our experience of using and federating HTCondor batch systems exploiting the JSON Web Token capabilities introduced in recent HTCondor versions, replacing the traditional X509 certificates in the whole chain of workload authorization. In this respect we also report on how we integrated HTCondor using OAuth with the INDIGO IAM service.

Permissive Certificates: Collectors of Art as Collectors of Permissions

Artists have been dramatically reshaping the fine art certificate of authenticity since the 1960s. Where traditional certificates merely certified extant objects as authentic works of a named artist, newer instruments purported both to authorize the creation of unbuilt artworks and instruct buyers how to manifest and install them. Such “Permissive Certificates” have fascinated contemporary art historians ever since. Prior scholarship has shown how such documents, essentially blueprints for art creation, force us to confront fundamental ontological questions on the nature of art, the relationship between artist, collector and viewer, and the influence of money and acquisitiveness on art generation. But rarely, if ever, have they been approached as legal instruments. This Article accordingly fills that gap by construing Permissive Certificates through the complex but potent array of legal rights that they define. It argues that Permissive Certificates are not unitary instruments, but in fact an amalgamation of two distinct legal structures. They couple narrow retrospective warranties on the one hand with prospective copyright licenses and rights of source association on the other. Critically, as with all copyright and source-based permissions, they are conditioned on the owner/licensee complying with use guidelines. Material variations from such terms place the owner/licensee outside the scope of the license, or otherwise in breach, and at risk of claims of infringement by the artist. This approach to Permissive Certificates yields two important insights. First, they harbor an unappreciated power as a tool for artist control, particularly in jurisdictions such as the U.S. where moral rights remain relatively weak. Second, and more broadly, as art becomes increasingly more dematerialized, digitized, and duplicable, and ever more legalized in turn, Permissive Certificates will grow more and more into the locus of value for such works. Over the long run, museums and other collectors of fine art will become collectors, not of objects, but of permissions. The aura of the artist’s hand will be that of a signature and not of a brushstroke.

Multi-dimensional credentialing using veiled certificates: Protecting privacy in the face of regulatory reporting requirements

Traditional certificates are designed to establish and document characteristics belonging to a specific individual, be it an identification number (i.e., social security number, driver's license number), a level of achievement (i.e., college degree, license to practice a profession), or membership status (i.e., company ID, trade union card). The digital certificate extends this concept into the electronic world, identifying and linking the certificate holder to a public encryption key that is subsequently used as a means of identification. Current identity certificates provide unique identification and tracking, however it is exactly these characteristics that have led to concerns over identity theft and privacy of personal information. The veiled certificate introduced in this paper addresses these issues by providing means of linking certificates from multiple certifying authorities while masking the user's identity from non-authorized individuals and satisfying the regulatory need of unique, explicit identification. With the ability to be implemented within existing X.509 standards, veiled certification extends traditional digital certificates with features useful in combating identity theft and invasion of privacy.

Alternative Credentialing: Lessons fromVocational Education

Alternative credentialing of teachers has been practiced for decades in vocational education even though research suggests that teachers receiving non- traditional certificates do not perform as well as traditionally prepared teachers. The authors argue that as policymakers consider alternative credentialing prac tices that will allow persons with backgrounds in other disciplines (e.g., math and science) to teach, they should carefully analyze the successes and failures of alternative credentialing procedures in vocational education.