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Purpose: Blockchain has the potential to bring numerous benefits to life cycle assessment (LCA), such as traceability, transparency, and accurate inventory data and assessment results. Consequently, there has been a gradual emergence of research focusing on the integration of blockchain and LCA in recent years. The aim of this study is to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive state of research on blockchain-LCA integration. Methods: This study undertook a systematic review of published articles on blockchain-LCA integration, analyzing the papers indexed so far in the Web of Science and SCOPUS. Thirty-one articles were identified, on which a bibliometric analysis was carried out. Furthermore, this study extracted and synthesized the data for the themes of benefits, barriers, frameworks and models, and case studies, and conducted detailed analysis for each theme. Results and discussion: The results indicated that the current state of research in this field is still in its early stages. Most articles proposed various potential benefits across different stages of the integration. However, the integration faced various technical, organizational, and system-related barriers. Only a limited number of articles presented frameworks, models, and case studies. Currently, there is a significant lack of case studies rooted in real-world data. Based on the results of the review, this study offered relevant suggestions for future development of the blockchain-LCA integration. Additionally, this study proposed a novel and practical generic framework to provide guidance for the continued advancement in this field. Conclusion: This work reveals that the number of studies of blockchain-LCA integration is increasing, but this field is still in the early stages. Many potential benefits and barriers to the integration were proposed, but most of them lack validation within the existing research. In particular, there is a great need for real-world case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are considered one of the foremost emerging technologies which can contribute to transform cities to smarter cities. DLT play important role in municipalities to accelerate the digitalization process toward changing the roles and services of enterprises in sustainable smart cities. Standardization of DLTs aids to reduce data and digital assets silos while decreasing vendor lock-in across distributed applications enabling a digital urban ecosystem that supports migration capabilities making it possible for cities to seamlessly achieve interoperability among DLTs and centralized digital platforms, although a few standards such as IEEE 2418, IEEE P2418.5, and ISO/TC 307 have been developed. The alignment and integration mechanisms required to support standardization of DLT for interoperable services in smart cities is lacking. Therefore, this study presents an understanding on current and open issues on standardization of DLTs in sustainable smart cities with a specific focus on data integration and alignment efforts related to interoperable DLTs. A framework is developed to promote standardization of DLTs to support integration and alignment for interoperability in smart cities. Design science research methodology was adopted based on three use case scenarios which illustrates how IOTA tangle is employs as a DLT for secured standardized communication between physical sensors, devices, and digital platforms in smart city environment. Findings from this article provide exploratory evidence demonstrating the potential uses of IOTA tangle through the developed framework applied for decentralized and centralized digital services. Based on this evidence, this study provides interface integration and alignment strategies to better exploit distributed applications full potential by improving DLT standardization in urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decarbonization of energy systems has been a recent trend during the last two decades where large-scale renewable energy sources (RES) are integrated into the modern power systems. Various countries have developed new energy policy instruments, such as Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), to promote the growth of RES. RECs are tradable, non-tangible assets, which have a monetary value. Tracking and certification of the origin of an energy resource regardless of its type (e.g., a conventional power plant or RES) are a critical operation. In addition to the certification of origin, trading transactions must be performed using a secure method. Energy industry participants need to secure the data and applications related to RECs. Digitalization technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) are among the most popular and promising options. DLT is a perfect framework that can support such REC functionalities. This paper addresses the cybersecurity aspects in REC trading using blockchain and distributed ledger technology, considering detailed cybersecurity perspectives and aspects of adopting technology from an organizational perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Block size in a permissioned blockchain system plays a huge role in scalability and performance of system. A large number of blocks are continuously disseminated into the network and hence it becomes important to study the effect of block size in a decentralized peer-to-peer network. The scalability of the system is the biggest concern. Scalability is a metric that refers to the ability of the system to increase or balance its performance depending upon the load and the processing demands on the system. The success of any blockchain-based application is dependent on the size of block used. Block size governs the time required to transmit a block (block transmission time) and the rate at which the unconfirmed transactions are verified (transaction pool clearance time). Block size also acts as a factor in ordering the blocks in the chain and dictates the performance and security of the system. This paper presents simulation analysis of the influence of block size on blockchain and the role of network bandwidth-aware optimal block size on the performance of the blockchain system. Nature-inspired algorithms have been used to determine the link between block size and scalability and are used for finding the optimal block size for a Blockchain-based application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is highly applicable in various fields, especially the supply chain in many sectors. Against limited empirical evidence, this paper analyzes the relations between the Kensho Distributed Ledger Technology Index and stock indices of 12 sectors, including communication services, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, health care, financials, industrials, information technology, materials, utilities, and real estate, and ESG by employing the quantile coherency and dynamic connectedness techniques. Our results reveal that the quantile coherency between the DLT stock index and the sectoral stock indices in almost all cases is significant and positive. The positive co-movement tends to be stronger in the longer terms and as we move from the lower to the higher quantiles, implying that they are more strongly connected in the long term and during the bearish market condition. Moreover, the dynamic connectedness indicates that the DLT stocks and the sectoral stocks are highly connected, with the former being a net transmitter of spillover shocks. The spillovers are also time-varying, and the results significantly corroborate those of the quantiles coherency methods. Among other relevant implications, DLT can be an important factor in the development and enhancement of these sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly global, connected, and digital world, the management, protection, enforcement and monetization of intellectual property has never been so challenging and critical at the same time. Challenging because intellectual property, especially in a digital form, can be easily copied, deployed, stolen or misappropriated. Critical because nowadays intellectual property is everywhere, it is present in all areas of economic activities, it enables companies to create competitive moat and its attached monetary value is material. Knowledge should also be openly available; therefore, intellectual property law is basically about finding the right balance between authors´ interests (protection, enforcement, monetization) and users' interests (usage, access). Blockchain and its underlying technology of distributed ledgers has the potential to disrupt the way intellectual properties are managed, protected and monetized. Where the access and distribution of content has been revolutionized by the internet, distributed ledger technology might offer an alternative path helping intellectual property law enter the digital age and address its original intent which is at its core to protect and reward creators, enable open access to knowledge in order to foster innovation. In this paper we conduct a PRISMA guided systematic literature review of 176 scientific publications in the field of blockchain-based management of intellectual property. We use a PESTEL framework to investigate the benefits as well as the limitations of using distributed ledger technology to manage intellectual property. Additionally, we provide recommendations on how the identified challenges can be addressed, as well as future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industries are now deploying smart initiatives and innovative business models towards digital transformation. One of such initiatives is the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) which promises to support smart industrial revolution. DLT facilitates non trusted entities to communicate and achieve a consensus in a fully distributed method through an immutable and cryptographically secure ledger. DLT ensures traceability and secure exchange of information while ensuring confidentiality and portability of data. However, only fewer studies have explored the extent to which DLT can support digitalization to achieve smart industrial process. Besides, the governance role of DLT in industrial sectors is still considered a nascent domain of research and DLT governance design and archetypes for smart industries are still in the early stage. Also, there are fewer studies in the literature that presents consensus mechanisms for integrating DLT for digitalization of smart industries. Grounded on the secondary data this study examines the practical benefits and challenges faced in achieving a smart industrial operation. Findings from this study identifies governance and security issues that influences DLT deployment in industrial sectors. More importantly, several factors that impacts the deployment of DLT for smart industries are presented. Implications from this study will be useful for industrial regulators, practitioners and researchers interested in gaining innovative insights about how smart industries can leverage DLT to create value for competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze the research impact of the researcher, different bibliographic databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, etc. are accessed for evaluating the trend of publications and citations from time to time. However, the choice of the bibliographic database is always debatable. Hence, to provide an optimal solution for a given problem, this study proposes a distributed ledger-based consensus mechanism for the presentation of authors' informetrics. The proposed consensus mechanism named "proof of bibliometric indicators" is a consent-based system that is introduced as a base to form trustworthiness among authors and various stakeholders, thus exhibiting a development of the decentralized application. In the end, the proposed system is also implemented with the capabilities of an Ethereum-based decentralized application designed by Truffle and Ganache. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synergy between Distributed Ledger Technologies, like blockchain technology and circular economy, can lead to economic, environmental, and social sustainability through protecting natural resources, optimizing processes, fostering system effectiveness, designing out waste, and also providing job opportunities. Nevertheless, industries and their supply chain need to consider several requirements for blockchain implementation to realize a circular economy. To achieve this goal, requirements for implementing blockchain technology in construction supply chain were prioritized based on circular economy attributes. For multiple-criteria decision analysis and making our preference decision, we employed the new-founded multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) method, the "Fuzzy Ordinal Priority Approach (Fuzzy OPA)." Under uncertainty conditions, this method can determine fuzzy weights of circular economy attributes and fuzzy scores of blockchain requirements using linguistic variables. The results obtained from the case study show that three high-ranked requirements for implementing blockchain are (1) developing circular economy attributes on platforms, (2) intra-organizational considerations, and (3) technological requirements and collaboration infrastructure. To discuss the circular economy, we used the ReSOLVE framework, consisting of six attributes "Regenerate, Share, Optimize, Loop, Virtualize, and Exchange." According to research findings, blockchain implementation can move the construction industry toward a circular economy through (1) regenerating environment, (2) optimizing systems performance, and (3) looping and circulating products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study discusses the European Union's proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets, now subject to formal approval by the European Parliament. The objective is to explore whether it will positively impact the adoption of crypto-assets in the financial sector. The use of crypto-assets is growing. However, some stakeholders in the financial service sector remain skeptical and hesitant to adopt assets that are yet to be defined and have an unclear legal status. This regulatory uncertainty has been identified as the primary reason for the reluctant adoption. The proposed regulation (part of the EU's Digital Finance Strategy) aims to provide this legal certainty for currently unregulated crypto-assets. This study investigates whether or not the proposed regulation can be expected to have the intended effect by reviewing the proposed regulation itself, the opinions and reactions of the various stakeholders, and secondary literature. Findings reveal that such regulation will most likely not accelerate the adoption of crypto-assets in the EU financial services sector, at least not sufficiently or as intended. Some suggestions are made to improve the proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centralization of control over the processing of personal data threatens the privacy of individuals due to the lack of transparency and the obstruction of easy access to their data. Individuals need the tools to effectively exercise their rights, enshrined in regulations such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Having direct control over the flow of their personal data would not only favor their privacy but also a "data altruism", as supported by the new European proposal for a Data Governance Act. In this work, we propose a multi-layered architecture for the management of personal information based on the use of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). After an in-depth analysis of the tensions between the GDPR and DLTs, we propose the following components: (1) a personal data storage based on a (possibly decentralized) file storage (DFS) to guarantee data sovereignty to individuals, confidentiality and data portability; (2) a DLT-based authorization system to control access to data through two distributed mechanisms, i.e. secret sharing (SS) and threshold proxy re-encryption (TPRE); (3) an audit system based on a second DLT. Furthermore, we provide a prototype implementation built upon an Ethereum private blockchain, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Sia and we evaluate its performance in terms of response time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big data has reignited research interest in machine learning. Massive quantities of data are being generated regularly as a consequence of the development in the Internet, social networks, and online sensors. Particularly deep neural networks benefited greatly from this unprecedented data availability. Large models with millions of parameters are becoming common, and big data has been proved to be essential for their effective training. The scientific community has come up with a number of methods to create more accurate models, but most of these methods require high-performance infrastructure. There is also the issue of privacy, since anyone using leased processing power from a remote data center is putting their data in the hands of a third party. Studies on decentralized and non-binding methods among individuals with commodity hardware are scarce, though. Our work on LEARNAE seeks to respond to this challenge by creating a totally distributed and fault-tolerant framework of artificial neural network training. In our recent work, we demonstrated a method for incentivizing peers to participate to collaborative process, even if they are not interested in the neural network produced. For this, LEARNAE included a subsystem that rewards participants proportionately to their contribution using digital assets. In this article we add another important piece to the puzzle: A decentralized mechanism to mitigate the effect of bad actors, such as nodes that attempt to exploit LEARNAE's network power without following the established rewarding rules. This is achieved by a novel reward mechanism, which takes into account the overall contribution of each node to the entire swarm. The network collaboratively builds a contribution profile for every participant, and the final rewards are dictated by these profiles. Taking for granted that the majority of the peers are benevolent, the whole process is tamper-proof, since it is implemented on blockchain and thus is protected by distributed consensus. All codebase is structured as a decentralized autonomous organization, which allows LEARNAE to embed new features like digital asset locking, proposal submitting, and voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use unique individual bank-to-bank repo transaction data to empirically assess the efficiency of the existing Swiss financial market infrastructure (FMI) for executing delivery versus payment transactions. This approach enables us to identify its current benefits and drawbacks as well as where new technologies, such as distributed ledger technology, could provide a remedy. We find that the fastest settlement time for repo transactions is 12 s, but that settlements are often delayed by more than 10 min due to the lack of collateral availability. We conclude that the cross-border availability of securities needs to be addressed by either improving interoperability of existing infrastructures or using new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the energy transition, there is an urgent need for decreasing overall carbon emissions. Against this background, the purposeful and verifiable tracing of emissions in the energy system is a crucial key element for promoting the deep decarbonization towards a net zero emission economy with a market-based approach. Such an effective tracing system requires end-to-end information flows that link carbon sources and sinks while keeping end consumers' and businesses' sensitive data confidential. In this paper, we illustrate how non-fungible tokens with fractional ownership can help to enable such a system, and how zero-knowledge proofs can address the related privacy issues associated with the fine-granular recording of stakeholders' emission data. Thus, we contribute to designing a carbon emission tracing system that satisfies verifiability, distinguishability, fractional ownership, and privacy requirements. We implement a proof-of-concept for our approach and discuss its advantages compared to alternative centralized or decentralized architectures that have been proposed in the past. Based on a technical, data privacy, and economic analysis, we conclude that our approach is a more suitable technical backbone for end-to-end digital carbon emission tracing than previously suggested solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies particularly suitable to create trusted environments where participants do not trust each other, business process management represents a proper setting in which these technologies can be adopted. In this direction, current research work primarily focuses on blockchain-oriented business process design, or on execution engines able to enact processes through smart contracts. Conversely, less attention has been paid to study if and how blockchains can be beneficial to business process monitoring. This work aims to fill this gap by (1) providing a reference architecture for enabling the adoption of blockchain technologies in business process monitoring solutions, (2) defining a set of relevant research challenges derived from this adoption, and (3) discussing the current approaches to address the aforementioned challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. Blockchain is an especially promising and revolutionary technology because it helps reduce risk, stamps out fraud, and brings transparency in a scalable way for myriad uses. Blockchain offers decentralised credentials, making it a global system. It also promotes user-to-user data transmission. However, blockchain-based identity management is crucial for data security. The user owns the identification. Blockchain-based IDMs solve conventional IDM flaws. As technology advances, so does the need for user data protection. Advance payment to safeguard data is unacceptable. So, identity management solutions assist overcome the flaws. Blockchain consists of three important concepts: blocks, nodes, and miners. Blockchain makes life simpler by changing the way personal data is stored are made available. While the government and other third parties are addressing the problem, the users are still exposed to identity management. Personal identity management takes increasing security and productivity. Blockchain eliminates the third party by transferring data between two entities. This work develops a categorization model for Ethereum addresses based on a few criteria. Voting categorization outperforms the other models with an accuracy of 88.89% and an AUC Score of 97%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To successfully introduce blockchain-enabled booking platforms in the tourism and hospitality industry, providers need to understand their target audiences. We present the results of a survey of 505 US consumers who, in a simulated hotel booking scenario for a leisure trip, picked between traditional Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and a blockchain-enabled booking app with varying degrees of services, discounts, and brand recognition. We find that blockchain-enabled booking apps that meet the following three conditions could attract up to half of the market: (1) offer discounts over OTAs, (2) provide services which go beyond mere booking, and (3) have well-known brand names. In a series of three nested logistic regressions, we investigate the impact of demographic, psychographic, and service-related traveler characteristics. We find that early adopters of blockchain-enabled hotel booking platforms will be young and highly educated. Potential cost savings over OTAs will also attract travelers with lower incomes and from larger households. Other traveler characteristics that facilitate adoption include a high preparedness to take risks, high IT innovativeness, prior familiarity with blockchain technology, and, mediated through IT innovativeness, a high Generalized Sense of Power. Male travelers are more likely than female travelers to be early adopters due to their higher familiarity with blockchain technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as "Blockchain" is one of the trendiest digital innovations in our era. While firstly applied to crypto-currencies, the trustworthiness inherent to DLT paved the way to many new usages notably in sectors such as land registration or banking where confidence in transactions is crucial. In the telecommunications sector, DLTs have enabled the development of future network architectures, such as new decentralised and multi-actor access networks. Having identified this as a great opportunity, we designed BALAdIN, a novel Blockchain-powered decentralised application that improves network coverage thanks to partnerships. Indeed, it allows a crowd of local actors such as shop tenants to deploy mobile cells with the help of a consortium of telcos. The traffic conveyed by each actor is traced thanks to a decentralised and trustworthy network monitoring mechanism we have designed. This mechanism both solves the centralisation dilemma caused by Blockchain Oracles and allows each actor to be rewarded depending on usage. In this paper, we focus on the description of this network usage monitoring mechanism. We then study the feasibility of its implementation onto regular Blockchain by studying its performance regarding the throughput and the propagation of the resulting Blockchain transactions. Finally, we derive a scalable deployment scheme for our novel Blockchain-powered decentralised network metering application BALAdIN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence has regained research interest, primarily because of big data. Internet expansion, social networks and online sensors led to the generation of an enormous amount of information daily. This unprecedented data availability boosted Machine Learning. A research area that has greatly benefited from this fact is Deep Neural Networks. Nowadays many use cases require huge models with millions of parameters and big data are proven to be essential to their proper training. The scientific community has proposed several methods to generate more accurate models. Usually, these methods need high performance infrastructure, which limits their applicability to large organizations and institutions that have the required funds. Another source of concern is privacy; anyone using the leased processing power of a remote data center, must trust another entity with their data. Unfortunately, in many cases sensitive data were leaked, either for financial exploitation or due to security issues. However, there is a lack of research studies when it comes to open communities of individuals with commodity hardware, who wish to join forces in a way that is non-binding and without the need for a central authority. Our work on LEARNAE attempts to fill this gap, by creating a way of providing training in Artificial Neural Networks, featuring decentralization, data ownership and fault tolerance. This article adds some important pieces to the puzzle: It studies the resilience of LEARNAE when dealing with network disruptions and proposes a novel way of embedding low-energy sensors that reside in the Internet of Things domain, retaining at the same time the established distributed philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real estate markets currently hold and contribute a fair share of any country's gross domestic product. In real estate transactions, stamp duties produce income that adds to the government funds. However, the transactions in real estate may be subjected to forgery through fraudulent papers or activities. Many reforms have been proposed but distributed ledger technology offers solution to most of these issues. A traditional proof-of-work consensus causes an overhead of a large number of message exchanges, which takes a much longer time. This leads to an increased number of utilized blocks for storing transactions, and the required computational power is enormous. This article proposes a blockchain-based system for digitizing transactions in real estate that mitigates the possibility of falsifying documents and other fraudulent activities. The article also proposes a consensus algorithm, which reduces overhead transmissions by around 50% for multicasting nodes. The proposed consensus approach has been compared with five prominent approaches: proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, delegated-proof-of-stake, load-balanced, and a trust-based approach. The comparative assessment deduces that the proposed consensus process is faster than the compared approaches. The overhead of message exchange communication decreases by up to 50.30% compared to the traditional proof-of-work approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart contracts are seen as the major building blocks for future autonomous blockchain- and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)-based applications. Engineering such contracts for trustless, append-only, and decentralized digital ledgers allows mutually distrustful parties to transform legal requirements into immutable and formalized rules. Previous experience shows this to be a challenging task due to demanding socio-technical ecosystems and the specificities of decentralized ledger technology. In this paper, we therefore develop an integrated process model for engineering DLT-based smart contracts that accounts for the specificities of DLT. This model was iteratively refined with the support of industry experts. The model explicitly accounts for the immutability of the trustless, append-only, and decentralized DLT ecosystem, and thereby overcomes certain limitations of traditional software engineering process models. More specifically, it consists of five successive and closely intertwined phases: conceptualization, implementation, approval, execution, and finalization. For each phase, the respective activities, roles, and artifacts are identified and discussed in detail. Applying such a model when engineering smart contracts will help software engineers and developers to better understand and streamline the engineering process of DLTs in general and blockchain in particular. Furthermore, this model serves as a generic framework which will support application development in all fields in which DLT can be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most websites, the online rating system provides the ratings of products and services to users. Lack of trust in data integrity and its manipulation has hindered fulfilling user satisfaction. Since existing online rating systems deal with a central server, all rating data is stored on the central server. Therefore, all rating data can be removed, modified, and manipulated by the system manager to change the ratings in favor of the service or product provider. In this paper, an online rating system using distributed ledger technologies has been presented as the proposed system to solve all the weaknesses of current systems. Distributed ledger technologies are completely decentralized and there is no centralization on them by any institution. Distributed ledger technologies have different variants. Among distributed ledger technologies, blockchain technology has been used in the proposed rating system because of its support for smart contracts. In the proposed online rating system, the Ethereum platform has been chosen from different blockchain platforms that have a public permission network. In this system, the raters cannot rate unless they submit a request to the system and be authorized to take part in the online product rating process. The important feature of the Ethereum platform is its support for smart contracts, which can be used to write the rating contract in the Solidity language. Also, using Proof of Authority consensus mechanisms, all rating transactions are approved by the surveyors. Since in the real Ethereum system, each rating transaction is sent to the network by the raters, some gas must be paid for each rating transaction. However, since this method is expensive, TestNet blockchain can be used in the rating system. Finally, the proposed rating system was used for rating the restaurants of a website and its features were tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learnae is a system aiming to achieve a fully distributed way of neural network training. It follows a "Vires in Numeris" approach, combining the resources of commodity personal computers. It has a full peer-to-peer model of operation; all participating nodes share the exact same privileges and obligations. Another significant feature of Learnae is its high degree of fault tolerance. All training data and metadata are propagated through the network using resilient gossip protocols. This robust approach is essential in environments with unreliable connections and frequently changing set of nodes. It is based on a versatile working scheme and supports different roles, depending on processing power and training data availability of each peer. In this way, it allows an expanded application scope, ranging from powerful workstations to online sensors. To maintain a decentralized architecture, all underlying tech should be fully distributed too. Learnae's coordinating algorithm is platform agnostic, but for the purpose of this research two novel projects have been used: (1) IPFS, a decentralized filesystem, as a means to distribute data in a permissionless environment and (2) IOTA, a decentralized network targeting the world of low energy "Internet of Things" devices. In our previous work, a first approach was attempted on the feasibility of using distributed ledger technology to collaboratively train a neural network. Now, our research is extended by applying Learnae to a fully deployed computer network and drawing the first experimental results. This article focuses on use cases that require data privacy; thus, there is only exchanging of model weights and not training data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply a vector autoregression (VAR) model to investigate the market cycles of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) as well as their relationships with bitcoin and ether. Our sample covers 104 weekly observations between January 2017 and December 2018. Our results show that ICO market cycles exist and that shocks to the growth rates of ICO volumes are persistent. In addition, shocks in cryptocurrency returns have a substantial and positive effect on ICO volumes. In contrast, the volatility of cryptocurrency returns does not significantly affect ICO volumes. Our results are robust to using (i) the number of successfully completed ICO campaigns instead of ICO volumes and (ii) ICO data from a different data source. Our study has implications for financial practice, in particular for cryptocurrency investors and entrepreneurial firms conducting ICOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When talking about blockchain technology in academia, business, and society, frequently generalizations are still heared about its – supposedly inherent – enormous energy consumption. This perception inevitably raises concerns about the further adoption of blockchain technology, a fact that inhibits rapid uptake of what is widely considered to be a groundbreaking and disruptive innovation. However, blockchain technology is far from homogeneous, meaning that blanket statements about its energy consumption should be reviewed with care. The article is meant to bring clarity to the topic in a holistic fashion, looking beyond claims regarding the energy consumption of Bitcoin, which have, so far, dominated the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networking and digitization in manufacturing enable novel methods of data-driven analysis and optimization of processes through cross-process data availability. The creation of digital twins plays an important role in this. However, not all data relevant for a digital twin can be measured directly in the process. Therefore, methods are needed that enable the modelling of quantities that are difficult or impossible to measure directly in the process, such as the finite element method. In many companies, however, neither the know-how nor the necessary IT infrastructure for finite element simulations is available. External commissioning processes are also not suitable for achieving the goals of higher productivity and agility pursued with the digitization and networking of manufacturing processes. In this contribution, an architecture is presented that enables the fully automated use of finite element simulation as a service. The architecture is developed using the case study of fine blanking. First, the requirements of the architecture to be created are determined. Important characteristics of the architecture should be scalability as well as interfaces and means of payment suitable for machine communication. In addition, ensuring data integrity is an important requirement when creating the digital twin. Based on the identified requirements, an architecture is then presented that meets these requirements by using cloud computing and distributed ledger technologies and interfaces that can directly process measurement signals from the process and communicate with the architecture. Finally, the capability of the architecture is tested, possible applications and limitations are discussed, and future extensions are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposition that constitutional rules serve as permanent, fixed points of interaction is challenged by the existence of contestable rule amendment and the emergence of de facto authority. This observation not only applies to conventional political constitutions, but to the fundamental rules which govern interactions by numerous people using new forms of technology. Blockchain technology aims to coordinate action in a world of incomplete information and opportunism, but the governance arrangements in blockchain protocols remain far from settled. Drawing upon recent theoretical developments regarding constitutional change, we interpret changes to the fundamental working rules of blockchain protocols as central to the adaptive, emergent nature of activity within this technological space. We apply this concept of "constitutional catallaxy" to selected blockchain platform case studies, illustrating the dynamism inherent in establishing protocols within the blockchain. Blockchain coordination changes and adapts not only to the technological limitations of the available protocols, but to mutual expectations and influence of interacting stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the benefits and risks of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the clearing and settlement of exchange-traded and OTC securities, followed by a description of the technology's potential role for central counterparties and central securities depositories. Although the industry and scholars are attempting to solve the technological and operational issues that DLT systems still face, outstanding legal risks are such that the financial industry is asking for more regulatory guidance and intervention. This article wants to contribute to the public policy debate by presenting potential regulatory barriers that may have to be removed for DLT to be fully adopted. In addition, it identifies areas requiring an update of the legal framework in order to address certain prudential and conduct risks that this technology could introduce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A zero-knowledge proof or protocol is a cryptographic technique for verifying private data without revealing it in its clear form. In this paper, we evaluate the potential for zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology to alleviate asymmetry of information in the asset-backed securitization market. To frame this inquiry, we conducted market data analyses, a review of prior literature, stakeholder interviews with investors, originators and security issuers and collaboration with blockchain engineers and researchers. We introduce a new system which could enable all market participants in the securitization lifecycle (e.g. investors, rating agencies, regulators and security issuers) to interact on a unique decentralized platform while maintaining the privacy of loan-level data, therefore providing the industry with timely analytics and performance data. Our platform is powered by zkLedger (Narula et al. 2018), a zero-knowledge protocol developed by the MIT Media Lab and the first system that enables participants of a distributed ledger to run publicly verifiable analytics on masked data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain in healthcare applications requires robust security and privacy mechanism for high-level authentication, interoperability and medical records sharing to comply with the strict legal requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Blockchain technology in the healthcare industry has received considerable research attention in recent years. This study conducts a review to substantially analyse and map the research landscape of current technologies, mainly the use of blockchain in healthcare applications, into a coherent taxonomy. The present study systematically searches all relevant research articles on blockchain in healthcare applications in three accessible databases, namely, ScienceDirect, IEEE and Web of Science, by using the defined keywords 'blockchain', 'healthcare' and 'electronic health records' and their variations. The final set of collected articles related to the use of blockchain in healthcare application is divided into three categories. The first category includes articles (i.e. 43/58 scientific articles) that attempted to develop and design healthcare applications integrating blockchain, particularly those on new architecture, system designs, framework, scheme, model, platform, approach, protocol and algorithm. The second category includes studies (i.e., 6/58 scientific articles) that attempted to evaluate and analyse the adoption of blockchain in the healthcare system. Finally, the third category comprises review and survey articles (i.e., 6/58 scientific articles) related to the integration of blockchain into healthcare applications. The final articles for review are discussed on the basis of five aspects: (1) year of publication, (2) nationality of authors, (3) publishing house or journal, (4) purpose of using blockchain in health applications and the corresponding contributions and (5) problem types and proposed solutions. Additionally, this study provides identified motivations, open challenges and recommendations on the use of blockchain in healthcare applications. The current research contributes to the literature by providing a detailed review of feasible alternatives and identifying the research gaps. Accordingly, researchers and developers are provided with appealing opportunities to further develop decentralised healthcare applications through a comprehensive discussion of about the importance of blockchain and its integration into various healthcare applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current shareholder engagement systems face large classical inefficiencies. First, due to the large chains of intermediaries in the current securities models, transaction costs are high and shareholder votes and other information are not always correctly transmitted between shareholders and issuers. Recent cases including DNick Holding and T. Rowe Price show the 'absurdness' of the current systems. The Shareholder Rights Directive II addresses these problems and the Implementing Regulation already hints at modern technologies to increase the transparency and verifiability of shareholder engagement. Next, the current shareholder engagement system enables different opportunities for different types of shareholders, creating inequalities and hindering shareholder democracy. The solution to these substantial problems lies in a state-of-the-art technology: in this contribution we argue that blockchain technology can solve these current inefficiencies that shareholders and companies face. Using a permissioned blockchain, information can be stored in a verifiable and immutable way, with a consensus mechanism tailored to its purpose. The large amount of initiatives and prototypes of blockchain proxy voting and trading, including the legislative initiatives that were initiated in the past 2 years, show the merits of using this state-of-the-art technology. The Europe Union should incorporate this technology in its legislation, like the CSD regulation, for remaining technology-proof in this globalized market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The applicability of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in PLM systems at production enterprises is considered. Potential benefits of this approach include decentralization, openness, and interoperability of automation systems for production enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of HMD: Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While blockchain technology is commonly considered potentially disruptive in various regards, there is a lack of understanding where and how blockchain technology is effectively applicable and where it has mentionable practical effects. This issue has given rise to critical voices that judge the technology as over-hyped. Against this backdrop, this study adapts an established research framework to structure the insights of the current body of research on blockchain technology, outline the present research scope as well as disregarded topics, and sketch out multidisciplinary research approaches. The framework differentiates three groups of activities (design and features, measurement and value, management and organization) at four levels of analysis (users and society, intermediaries, platforms, firms and industry). The review shows that research has predominantly focused on technological questions of design and features, while neglecting application, value creation, and governance. In order to foster substantial blockchain research that addresses meaningful questions, this study identifies several avenues for future studies. Given the breadth of open questions, it shows where research can benefit from multidisciplinary collaborations and presents data sources as starting points for empirical investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]