Blockchain technologies to address smart city and society challenges

Smarter eco-cities and their leading-edge artificial intelligence of things solutions for environmental sustainability: A comprehensive systematic review

The recent advancements made in the realms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) have unveiled transformative prospects and opportunities to enhance and optimize the environmental performance and efficiency of smart cities. These strides have, in turn, impacted smart eco-cities, catalyzing ongoing improvements and driving solutions to address complex environmental challenges. This aligns with the visionary concept of smarter eco-cities, an emerging paradigm of urbanism characterized by the seamless integration of advanced technologies and environmental strategies. However, there remains a significant gap in thoroughly understanding this new paradigm and the intricate spectrum of its multifaceted underlying dimensions. To bridge this gap, this study provides a comprehensive systematic review of the burgeoning landscape of smarter eco-cities and their leading-edge AI and AIoT solutions for environmental sustainability. To ensure thoroughness, the study employs a unified evidence synthesis framework integrating aggregative, configurative, and narrative synthesis approaches. At the core of this study lie these subsequent research inquiries: What are the foundational underpinnings of emerging smarter eco-cities, and how do they intricately interrelate, particularly urbanism paradigms, environmental solutions, and data-driven technologies? What are the key drivers and enablers propelling the materialization of smarter eco-cities? What are the primary AI and AIoT solutions that can be harnessed in the development of smarter eco-cities? In what ways do AI and AIoT technologies contribute to fostering environmental sustainability practices, and what potential benefits and opportunities do they offer for smarter eco-cities? What challenges and barriers arise in the implementation of AI and AIoT solutions for the development of smarter eco-cities? The findings significantly deepen and broaden our understanding of both the significant potential of AI and AIoT technologies to enhance sustainable urban development practices, as well as the formidable nature of the challenges they pose. Beyond theoretical enrichment, these findings offer invaluable insights and new perspectives poised to empower policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to advance the integration of eco-urbanism and AI- and AIoT-driven urbanism. Through an insightful exploration of the contemporary urban landscape and the identification of successfully applied AI and AIoT solutions, stakeholders gain the necessary groundwork for making well-informed decisions, implementing effective strategies, and designing policies that prioritize environmental well-being.

Role of Incentives in the Use of Blockchain-Based Platforms for Sharing Sensitive Health Data: Experimental Study

BACKGROUND

Blockchain is an emerging technology that enables secure and decentralized approaches to reduce technical risks and governance challenges associated with sharing data. Although blockchain-based solutions have been suggested for sharing health information, it is still unclear whether a suitable incentive mechanism (intrinsic or extrinsic) can be identified to encourage individuals to share their sensitive data for research purposes.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate how important extrinsic incentives are and what type of incentive is the best option in blockchain-based platforms designed for sharing sensitive health information.

METHODS

In this study, we conducted 3 experiments with 493 individuals to investigate the role of extrinsic incentives (ie, cryptocurrency, money, and recognition) in data sharing with research organizations.

RESULTS

The findings highlight that offering different incentives is insufficient to encourage individuals to use blockchain technology or to change their perceptions about the technology's premise for sharing sensitive health data. The results demonstrate that individuals still attribute serious risks to blockchain-based platforms. Privacy and security concerns, trust issues, lack of knowledge about the technology, lack of public acceptance, and lack of regulations are reported as top risks. In terms of attracting people to use blockchain-based platforms for data sharing in health care, we show that the effects of extrinsic motivations (cryptoincentives, money, and status) are significantly overshadowed by inhibitors to technology use.

CONCLUSIONS

We suggest that before emphasizing the use of various types of extrinsic incentives, the users must be educated about the capabilities and benefits offered by this technology. Thus, an essential first step for shifting from an institution-based data exchange to a patient-centric data exchange (using blockchain) is addressing technology inhibitors to promote patient-driven data access control. This study shows that extrinsic incentives alone are inadequate to change users' perceptions, increase their trust, or encourage them to use technology for sharing health data.

Environmentally sustainable smart cities and their converging AI, IoT, and big data technologies and solutions: an integrated approach to an extensive literature review

There have recently been intensive efforts aimed at addressing the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change through the applied innovative solutions of AI, IoT, and Big Data. Given the synergistic potential of these advanced technologies, their convergence is being embraced and leveraged by smart cities in an attempt to make progress toward reaching the environmental targets of sustainable development goals under what has been termed "environmentally sustainable smart cities." This new paradigm of urbanism represents a significant research gap in and of itself. To fill this gap, this study explores the key research trends and driving factors of environmentally sustainable smart cities and maps their thematic evolution. Further, it examines the fragmentation, amalgamation, and transition of their underlying models of urbanism as well as their converging AI, IoT, and Big Data technologies and solutions. It employs and combines bibliometric analysis and evidence synthesis methods. A total of 2,574 documents were collected from the Web of Science database and compartmentalized into three sub-periods: 1991-2015, 2016-2019, and 2020-2021. The results show that environmentally sustainable smart cities are a rapidly growing trend that markedly escalated during the second and third periods-due to the acceleration of the digitalization and decarbonization agendas-thanks to COVID-19 and the rapid advancement of data-driven technologies. The analysis also reveals that, while the overall priority research topics have been dynamic over time-some AI models and techniques and environmental sustainability areas have received more attention than others. The evidence synthesized indicates that the increasing criticism of the fragmentation of smart cities and sustainable cities, the widespread diffusion of the SDGs agenda, and the dominance of advanced ICT have significantly impacted the materialization of environmentally sustainable smart cities, thereby influencing the landscape and dynamics of smart cities. It also suggests that the convergence of AI, IoT, and Big Data technologies provides new approaches to tackling the challenges of environmental sustainability. However, these technologies involve environmental costs and pose ethical risks and regulatory conundrums. The findings can inform scholars and practitioners of the emerging data-driven technology solutions of smart cities, as well as assist policymakers in designing and implementing responsive environmental policies.

Smart Cities after COVID-19: Building a conceptual framework through a multidisciplinary perspective

This study provides theoretical grounds for planning smart cities using multidisciplinary approaches, offering insightful suggestions to researchers and policy- and decision-makers. Its main purpose is to contribute to the debate on the new connotations of the smart city paradigm in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will emphasize how the Internet of Things and related technologies will collaborate to develop an antivirus-built environment against future pandemics. In this context, the study proposes a conceptual framework that provides a futuristic vision of prevention control, contingency planning, and measures against future risks. Although a smart city ecosystem improves citizens’ lives, building it may involve design, implementation, and operational challenges that must be addressed.

Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts in Decentralized Governance Systems

The aim of our systematic review was to inspect the recently published literature on decentralized governance systems and integrate the insights it articulates on blockchain technology and smart contracts by employing Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Throughout January and May 2022, a quantitative literature review of ProQuest, Scopus, and the Web of Science databases was carried out, with search terms including “city” + “blockchain technology”, “smart contracts”, and “decentralized governance systems”. As the analyzed research studies were published between 2016 and 2022, only 371 sources satisfied the eligibility criteria. A Shiny app was harnessed for the PRISMA flow diagram to include evidence-based acquired and handled data. Analyzing the most recent and relevant sources and leveraging screening and quality assessment tools such as AMSTAR, Dedoose, Distiller SR, ROBIS, and SRDR, we integrated the core outcomes and robust correlations related to smart urban governance. As data visualization tools, for initial bibliometric mapping dimensions were harnessed, together with layout algorithms provided by VOSviewer. Future research should investigate smart contract governance of blockchain applications and infrastructure using decision-making tools and spatial cognition algorithms.

Blockchain-Enabled Smart Grid Applications: Architecture, Challenges, and Solutions

The conventional electrical grid is undergoing substantial growth for reliable grid operation and for more efficient and sustainable energy use. The traditional grid is now metamorphosing into a smart grid (SG) that incorporates a diverse, heterogeneous blend of operating measures such as smart appliances, meters, and renewable energy resources. With better efficient results and dependability, the SG can be described as a modern electric power grid architecture. The SG is one of the greatest potential advances as a promising solution for the energy crisis. However, it is complex and its decentralization could be of tremendous benefit. Moreover, digitalization and integration of a large number of growing connections make it a target of cyber-attacks. In this sense, blockchain is a promising SG paradigm solution that offers several excellent features. There has been considerable effort put into using blockchains in the smart grid for its decentralization and enhanced cybersecurity; however, it has not been thoroughly studied in both application and architectural perspectives. An in-depth study was conducted on blockchain-enabled SG applications. Blockchain architectures for various applications, such as the synchrophasor applications, electric vehicles, energy management systems, etc., were proposed. The purpose of this article is to provide directions for future research efforts aimed at secure and decentralized SG applications using blockchain.

Research on Public Administration and Resource Allocation Based on Blockchain and Structured Occupational Therapy

In order to explore the public administration and resource allocation based on blockchain and structured occupational therapy, this paper takes the public affairs in the prevention and control of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic as an example to conduct research. On the basis of summarizing and analyzing the previous published literatures, this study expounded the research status and significance of public administration and resource allocations; elaborated the development background, current status and future challenges of blockchain, and structured occupational therapy; introduced the methods and principles of data quality collaboration model and multiparty collaboration standard management; analyzed the case background of public administration and resource allocation in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic; discussed the public administration mechanism based on blockchain and structured occupational therapy; established a resource allocation method based on blockchain and structured occupational therapy; fathomed the role of the distributed ledger established by blockchain to increase the information symmetry of public administration activities; proposed a blockchain-established special machine trust for resource allocation; and finally, anatomized the data security sharing and access control mechanism based on blockchain and structured occupational therapy. The research results show that the public administration and resource allocation in this paper can effectively realize the data integration of the whole process and all departments and show the whole data and realize the traceability of the whole process. The blockchain revolutionizes the hierarchical leadership method of traditional resource allocation, shortens the distance between superiors and subordinates, makes information dissemination more fluent, and handles things more efficiently, making resource allocation ultimately form a flatter organization structure. In the original trust system of resource allocation, the blockchain and structured occupational therapy realizes the reconstruction of the trust system by preventing information tampering, using information encryption technology, and using information traceability technology. The results of this paper provide a reference for further research on the public administration and resource allocation based on blockchain and structured occupational therapy.

Smart City Projects Boost Urban Energy Efficiency in China

Policy makers around the world are turning to smart city projects in an effort to address the challenges of population growth, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Previous studies have evaluated the effect of smart city projects on air quality. However, evidence on the impact of the projects on energy efficiency remains unclear. This study gathered prefecture-level city panel data in China, and used three strategies, namely a difference-in-differences estimator, a matching difference-in-differences estimator, and a counterfactual model using a machine learning algorithm, to assess the impact of smart city projects on energy efficiency. This study reported similar results across these strategies above. That is, after the introduction of a smart city project, energy efficiency had a remarkable and sizeable increase, ranging from 4 to 7 per cent. Moreover, this study shows that the effects of smart city projects increased over time. In addition, this study found that the effects varied according to the characteristics of the cities.

A survey of application research based on blockchain smart contract

Nowadays, blockchain technology and industry has developed rapidly all over the world, which is inseparable from continuous innovation and improvement on smart contract technology. Therefore, by summarizing the working principle and application research status of blockchain smart contract, this paper analyzes the development and challenges of smart contract. Firstly, we introduce the model and operation principle of blockchain smart contract for the overall architecture, analyze the deployment process of smart contract with Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and EOSIO, and make a comparative analysis from the technical level. And taking Byteball, InterValue and IOTA platforms as examples, we introduce the deployment process and application potential for DAG-based blockchain smart contract. Additionally, we also summarize the application research of smart contract for international and Blockchain Oracle, and discuss its innovative application and development trend in the future. Secondly, we introduce the application status of smart contract with Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric platforms from the aspects of financial transactions, Internet of things, medical applications, and supply chain, and further discuss EOS (enterprise operation system), Blockchain Oracle and other application fields. Furthermore, we introduce the application advantages and challenges to smart contract for industrial Internet from the fields of manufacturing, food industry, industrial Internet of things and industry 4.0. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by smart contract with technical issues, analyzes the impact on large-scale applications and mining system on the sustainable development of smart contract, and looks forward to the future research direction of blockchain smart contract.

Patient privacy in smart cities by blockchain technology and feature selection with Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) algorithm and machine learning

A medical center in the smart cities of the future needs data security and confidentiality to treat patients accurately. One mechanism for sending medical data is to send information to other medical centers without preserving confidentiality. This method is not impressive because in treating people, the privacy of medical information is a principle. In the proposed framework, the opinion of experts from other medical centers for the treatment of patients is received and consider the best therapy. The proposed method has two layers. In the first layer, data transmission uses blockchain. In the second layer, blocks related to patients' records analyze by machine learning methods. Patient records place in a block of the blockchain. Block of patient sends to other medical centers. Each treatment center can recommend the proposed type of treatment and blockchain attachment and send it to all nodes and treatment centers. Each medical center receiving data of the patients, then predicts the treatment using data mining methods. Sending medical data between medical centers with blockchain and maintaining confidentiality is one of the innovations of this article. The proposed method is a binary version of the HHO algorithm for feature selection. Another innovation of this research is the use of majority voting learning in diagnosing the type of disease in medical centers. Implementation of the proposed system shows that the blockchain preserves data confidentiality of about 100%. The reliability and reliability of the proposed framework are much higher than the centralized method. The result shows that the accuracy, sensitivity, and precision of the proposed method for diagnosing heart disease are 92.75%, 92.15%, and 95.69%, respectively. The proposed method has a lower error in diagnosing heart disease from ANN, SVM, DT, RF, AdaBoost, and BN.

Blockchain: Future of e-Governance in Smart Cities

In recent times, Blockchain has emerged as a transformational technology with the ability to disrupt and evolve multiple domains. As a decentralized, immutable distributed ledger, Blockchain technology is one of the most recent entrants to the comprehensive ideology of Smart Cities. The rise of urbanization and increased citizen participation have led to various technology integrations in our present-day cities. For cities to become smart, we need standard frameworks and procedures for integrating technology, citizens and governments. In this paper, we explore the potential of Blockchain technology as an enabler for e-governance in smart cities. We examine the daily challenges of citizens and compare them with the benefits being offered by Blockchain integration. On the basis of a comprehensive literature review, we identified four key areas of e-governance wherein Blockchain can provide monumental advantages. In the context of Blockchain integration for e-governance, the paper presents a survey of prominent published works discussing various urban applications.