Beyond Bitcoin: Recent Trends and Perspectives in Distributed Ledger Technology

In the last four years, the evolution and adoption of blockchain and, more generally, distributed ledger systems have shown the affirmation of many concepts and models with significant differences in system governance and suitable applications. This work aims to analyze distributed ledger technology (DLT) critically. Starting from the topical idea of decentralization, we introduce concepts and building blocks currently adopted in the available systems centering on their functional aspects and impact on possible applications. We present some conceptual framing tools helpful in the application context: a DLT reference architecture, off-chain and on-chain governance models, and classification of consensus protocols. Finally, we introduce the concept of process authenticity, reviewing tools and strategies for integrating DLT with the physical world and proposing a constructive scheme for the authentication of a physical resource through alphanumeric data.

Livelihood Assets of Small-Scale Fisherman in Tanah Merah District, Indragiri Hilir Regency, Riau Province, Indonesia

People in Tanah Merah Village, Tanah Merah Subdistrict, Indragiri Hilir Regency generally have a livelihood as fishermen. Fishermen can be said to be prosperous if they have good control over their livelihood assets. Livelihood assets consist of human, natural, social, financial and physical resource assets. This study aims to: (1) find out the meaning of the sustainable livelihood approach, (2) find out the livelihood assets of small-scale fishermen and (3) determine the condition of the livelihood assets of small-scale fishermen. The research was conducted in Tanah Merah District, Indragiri Hilir Regency, Riau Province. Respondents from this study were 45 people. The method used in this research was survey method. The data analysis used was descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis was used to generate an overview of the data that has been collected based on the respondents’ answers through the distribution of items from each variable. The presentation of the data was done by cross tabulating according to the parameters of several aspects of the assets that support fishermen’s livelihoods. The result showed that the livelihood assets of small-scale fishermen namely natural assets, human resources, social, financial and physical are in the medium category. The acquisition of this value can indicate that the control of the livelihood assets of small-scale fishermen in Tanah Merah Village is not sustainable.

Privacy Preserving Data Mining as Proof of Useful Work

Blockchains rely on a consensus among participants to achieve decentralization and security. However, reaching consensus in an online, digital world where identities are not tied to physical users is a challenging problem. Proof-of-work provides a solution by linking representation to a valuable, physical resource. While this has worked well, it uses a tremendous amount of specialized hardware and energy, with no utility beyond blockchain security. Here, the authors propose an alternative consensus scheme that directs the computational resources to the optimization of machine learning (ML) models – a task with more general utility. This is achieved by a hybrid consensus scheme relying on three parties: data providers, miners, and a committee. The data provider makes data available and provides payment in return for the best model, miners compete about the payment and access to the committee by producing ML optimized models, and the committee controls the ML competition.

Pengaruh Enabling environment, Knowledge infrastructure, Human and physical resource terhadap Kemampuan Mengajar Semester Akhir dengan Variabel antara School Management and Governance pada Program studi Pendidikan Agama Islam Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Tarbiyah

The success of teaching learning depends on; (1) Enabling environment; (2) Knowledge infrastructure; (3) Human and physical resources, and (4) school management and governance. Finally, the above is determined by an education policy. The objectives of this study are: 1) To find out and analyze the influence of Enabling environment on school management and governance. 2) To find out and analyze the influence of Knowledge Infrastructure on school management and governance. 3) To find out and analyze the influence of Human and physical resources on school management and governance. 4) To find out and analyze the effect of the Enabling environment on the ability to teach in the final semester. 5) To find out and analyze the influence of Knowledge infrastructure on the ability to teach in the final semester. 6) To find out and analyze the influence of Human and physical resources on the ability to teach in the final semester. 7) To find out and analyze the influence of school management and governance on the ability to teach in the final semester. 8) To find out and analyze the direct influence of Enabling environment, Knowledge infrastructure and Human and physical resources on the ability of final semester teaching through variables between school management and governance. Based on the consideration of time, energy, and funds, as well as the scope of the problem and the large number of subjects in a population of 53 people, this study uses census research. Where all members of the population are sampled. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: 1) Enabling environment does not have a significant effect on school management and governance. 2) Knowledge infrastructure has a significant effect on school management and governance. 3) Human and physical resources have a significant effect on school management and governance. 4) Enabling environment has a significant effect on the ability to teach in the final semester. 5) Knowledge infrastructure has a significant effect on the ability to teach in the final semester. 6) Human and physical resources have no significant effect on the ability to teach in the final semester. 7) School management and governance have no significant effect on the ability to teach in the final semester. 8) Enabling environments, Knowledge infrastructure and Human and physical resources each directly influence the ability of final semester teaching through variables between school management and governance

Design of a cell selection mechanism to mitigate interference for cell-edge macro users in femto-macro heterogeneous network

The Femto-Macro heterogeneous network is a promising solution to improve the network capacity and coverage in mobile network. However interference may rise due to femtocell deployment nearby to macro user equipment (MUE) within macrocell network coverage. Femtocell offers main priority in resource allocation to its subscribed femto user equipment (FUE) rather than unsubscribed MUE. MUEs will suffer severe interference when they are placed near or within the femtocell area range especially at the cell edge. This phenomenon occurs due to the distance is far from its serving macro base station (MBS) to receive good signal strength. This paper presents a design of cell selection scheme for cell-edge MUE to select an optimal femto base station (FBS) as its primary serving cell in physical resource block allocation. In this study, the proposed cell selection consists of four main elements: measuring the closest FBS distance, Signal to Interference-plus- Noise-Ratio (SINR), physical resource block (PRB) availability and node density level for the selected base station. The main goal is to ensure celledge MUE has priority fairly with FUE in physical resource block allocation per user bandwidth demand to mitigate interference. Hence, the cell-edge MUE has good experienced on receiving an adequate user data rate to improve higher network throughput.