scholarly journals Sharing communities – Community currency in the sharing economy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Szemerédi ◽  
Tibor Tatay

AbstractFor the further development and more efficient operation of the sharing economy, a fast and inexpensive peer-to-peer payment system is an essential element. The aim of this study is to outline a prototype that ensures the automation and decentralization of processes through smart contracts without blockchain technology. The model has been built based on the narrative that a community currency created through smart contracts can promote genuine practices of sharing as opposed to the profit-oriented approach that most of the currently operating sharing economy platforms have. Features of the model, such as ease of use, high-speed transactions without transaction cost are benefits that can provide a more efficient alternative to the traditional or to the cryptocurrency-based centralized sharing economy platforms.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-173
Author(s):  
Sathya A. Renu ◽  
Barnali Gupta Banik

The idea of sharing economy gives rise to unique ideas and develops innovative businesses. This article aims to relate the smart city concept by introducing the smart transport system and explores the opportunities of adopting blockchain technology in ride-sharing services. Blockchain technology is a distributed, decentralized public ledger that allows peer-to-peer transactions in a secured way without any third party. This paper proposes a blockchain-based framework from the existing centralized framework for a ride-sharing service and implements the same as a decentralized application (DApp) based on smart contracts on Ethereum Blockchain. Using smart contracts facilitate the users with automated transactions, removes the intermediaries, and enables various activities to be carried out safely and securely. Implementation of smart contracts is done using the Solidity programming language. This DApp uses the min matching algorithm to match riders requesting rideshare to save total travel distance. With the overwhelming growth in the usage of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts usage in applications as proposed in this paper can transform the sharing economy.


Author(s):  
Svitlana Ilkovych ◽  
◽  
Maryna Korol ◽  

The article considers the essence of blockchain technology and the possibility of its application in the banking sector. The current state of development and application of blockchain technologies in various industries is analyzed. The pros and cons of using blockchain technologies for the banking sector are identified. Emphasis is placed on the role of blockchain technologies in the further development of the banking sector. The most promising directions of development of this technology are considered. Particular attention is paid to examples of the use of blockchain technology by global banking institutions.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5307
Author(s):  
Ricardo Borges dos Santos ◽  
Nunzio Marco Torrisi ◽  
Rodrigo Palucci Pantoni

Every consumer’s buying decision at the supermarket influences food brands to make first party claims of sustainability and socially responsible farming methods on their agro-product labels. Fine wines are often subject to counterfeit along the supply chain to the consumer. This paper presents a method for efficient unrestricted publicity to third party certification (TPC) of plant agricultural products, starting at harvest, using smart contracts and blockchain tokens. The method is capable of providing economic incentives to the actors along the supply chain. A proof-of-concept using a modified Ethereum IGR token set of smart contracts using the ERC-1155 standard NFTs was deployed on the Rinkeby test net and evaluated. The main findings include (a) allowing immediate access to TPC by the public for any desired authority by using token smart contracts. (b) Food safety can be enhanced through TPC visible to consumers through mobile application and blockchain technology, thus reducing counterfeiting and green washing. (c) The framework is structured and maintained because participants obtain economical incentives thus leveraging it´s practical usage. In summary, this implementation of TPC broadcasting through tokens can improve transparency and sustainable conscientious consumer behaviour, thus enabling a more trustworthy supply chain transparency.


Author(s):  
Michelle A. Pang ◽  
Carolyn C. Seepersad

The evaluation of design concepts is a time consuming and resource intensive process. Crowdsourcing evaluations has been examined in previous work as a means to reduce the need for expert raters, while achieving similar evaluation results. This paper examines the impact of empathically priming novice raters on their evaluation of alternative design concepts. The rating system is based on a pairwise comparison method that requires minimal training of novice raters. In a pilot study the pairwise method for crowdsourcing evaluations is compared with crowdsourced evaluations using non-pairwise rating scales and with the evaluations of expert raters. The primary study incorporates written and empathic priming strategies to determine their impact on novice raters’ evaluation of concepts. Raters are asked to consider several criteria, including novelty, feasibility, clarity (of the concept), usefulness, ease of use, and overall worthiness of further development. Results offer insight into the criteria that are most relevant to novice raters and whether empathic priming has a significant effect on those evaluations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1871-1893
Author(s):  
Vasilii A. DADALKO ◽  
Vladimir V. NIKOLAEVSKII ◽  
Andrei D. NEKRASOV ◽  
Dar’ya S. SHERSTNEVA

Subject. The article considers smart contracts as digital financial instruments, their financial and economic essence, which is defined as digital instruments for the settlement of financial relations. Objectives. The aim is to introduce into scientific use such a system concept as digital financial instruments and mechanisms based on the consideration of their economic, legal and financial essence. Methods. The study rests on systems approach that enables to present a smart contract from a technological, economic, legal and financial position as a set of elements with their specific functions defining its complex concept. Results. We reveal the nature of financial relations, arising at the time when bilateral or multilateral transactions are concluded and smart contracts are presented as ways to automatically settle them. Completion of a smart contract is a confirmation of the completion of the transaction and the moment of termination of financial relationship. The article shows the fundamental possibility of using smart contracts in the system of budget relations as a tool for the settlement of a multilateral transaction. Conclusions. Currently, smart contracts are an essential element of a new stage in the development of financial technologies. Specialists in the financial and banking sector recognize the emerging opportunities for their use in the system of financial relations. The paper shows an example of possible use of smart contracts in the settlement of budget relations and in improving the utilization efficiency of budget funds.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cigdem Turhan ◽  
Ibrahim Akman

PurposeBlockchain is a relatively new technology. Although it has a high potential to influence organizational strategies for adoption into respective operations, it has not been widely explored yet. This study aims to assess the sectoral diversity in the timing of organizational adoption of blockchain through selected organizational factors.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted based on a sample of 208 IT professionals. The data was collected using an instrument containing 17 questions. The existence of sector diversity was statistically analyzed using the Least Square Regression method.FindingsThe results indicate that, except for management support and perceived ease of use, all the other factors in the analysis significantly influence sector diversity in terms of blockchain adoption timing.Originality/valueAlthough blockchain has received attention from researchers, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no published work in the literature that explores the organizational factors influencing sectoral differences in the timing of blockchain technology adoption. Therefore, our work is unique in the related literature since we present analyses for the diversity between public and private sectors by modeling the factors affecting the intentions for the timing of blockchain adoption as part of the organizations' IT infrastructure.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Stöhr ◽  
Andreas Günther ◽  
Raphael W Majeed

BACKGROUND In the field of medicine and medical informatics, the importance of comprehensive metadata has long been recognized, and the composition of metadata has become its own field of profession and research. To ensure sustainable and meaningful metadata are maintained, standards and guidelines such as the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) principles have been published. The compilation and maintenance of metadata is performed by field experts supported by metadata management apps. The usability of these apps, for example, in terms of ease of use, efficiency, and error tolerance, crucially determines their benefit to those interested in the data. OBJECTIVE This study aims to provide a metadata management app with high usability that assists scientists in compiling and using rich metadata. We aim to evaluate our recently developed interactive web app for our collaborative metadata repository (CoMetaR). This study reflects how real users perceive the app by assessing usability scores and explicit usability issues. METHODS We evaluated the CoMetaR web app by measuring the usability of 3 modules: <i>core module</i>, <i>provenance module</i>, and <i>data integration module</i>. We defined 10 tasks in which users must acquire information specific to their user role. The participants were asked to complete the tasks in a live web meeting. We used the System Usability Scale questionnaire to measure the usability of the app. For qualitative analysis, we applied a modified think aloud method with the following thematic analysis and categorization into the ISO 9241-110 usability categories. RESULTS A total of 12 individuals participated in the study. We found that over 97% (85/88) of all the tasks were completed successfully. We measured usability scores of 81, 81, and 72 for the 3 evaluated modules. The qualitative analysis resulted in 24 issues with the app. CONCLUSIONS A usability score of 81 implies very good usability for the 2 modules, whereas a usability score of 72 still indicates acceptable usability for the third module. We identified 24 issues that serve as starting points for further development. Our method proved to be effective and efficient in terms of effort and outcome. It can be adapted to evaluate apps within the medical informatics field and potentially beyond.


2021 ◽  
Vol 283 ◽  
pp. 02021
Author(s):  
Zhengsheng Qi ◽  
Bohong Liu ◽  
Mengmeng Wang

Automatic train driving system is an important subsystem of train operation control system, which can provide passengers with punctual, accurate, efficient and fast transportation services. At the same time, the accurate stop, comfort and stability of the train is an important index to measure the control performance of the train automatic driving system, and the accurate stop plays a vital role in the efficient operation of the train. Based on the characteristics of high-speed train parking, an accurate parking algorithm based on fuzzy PID iterative control was proposed to solve the problem of low parking accuracy caused by frequent switching of control output. On the basis of solving the differential equation of the train braking model, the gradient of the system is obtained, and then the learning parameters of the convergence condition are obtained to overcome the repeated uncertainty in the stopping stage. The simulation results show that the fuzzy PID iterative control for asymptotic stability is an effective method to realize the precise parking of trains, and has strong robustness against the train parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.


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