An Extension of Contract Net Protocol With Real Time Constraints

The contract net protocol has developed to specify problem solving communication for nodes in a distributed problem solving. Task distribution is affected by a negotiation process,a discussion carried on between nodes with tasks to he executed and nodes that may be able to execute those tasks. In contract net protocol,once negotiation successes,tbe task execution is assumed to success. However,in real world,even though a task is awarded to successfully bidding nodes,it may be delayed. Such delay may badly propagate in whole system. Here,we introduce real-time constraints into contract net protocol to manage task execution for avoiding the, task's delay,or even though being delayed,the railure cannot propagate to whole system. In this paper,we first present a real-time contract net protocol which is an extension of contract net protocol with real-time constraints for distributed computing. Our proposition extends the basic negotiation protocol to negotiation and controlling execution or task. The controlling process is based on task deadline time,we also present an extension of the internode language of contract net protocol specification with real-time constraints.

Mitigating Blackhole and Greyhole Routing Attacks in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks Using Blockchain Based Smart Contracts

The rapid increase in vehicle traffic volume in modern societies has raised the need to develop innovative solutions to reduce traffic congestion and enhance traffic management efficiency.Revolutionary advanced technology,such as Intelligent Transportation Systems(ITS),enables improved traffic management,helps eliminate congestion,and supports a safer environment.ITS provides real-time information on vehicle traffic and transportation systems that can improve decision-making for road users.However,ITS suffers from routing issues at the network layer when utilising Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks(VANETs).This is because each vehicle plays the role of a router in this network,which leads to a complex vehicle communication network,causing issues such as repeated link breakages between vehicles resulting from the mobility of the network and rapid topological variation.This may lead to loss or delay in packet transmissions;this weakness can be exploited in routing attacks,such as black-hole and gray-hole attacks,that threaten the availability of ITS services.In this paper,a Blockchain-based smart contracts model is proposed to offer convenient and comprehensive security mechanisms,enhancing the trustworthiness between vehicles.Self-Classification Blockchain-Based Contracts(SCBC)and Voting-Classification Blockchain-Based Contracts(VCBC)are utilised in the proposed protocol.The results show that VCBC succeeds in attaining better results in PDR and TP performance even in the presence of Blackhole and Grayhole attacks.

A Review of Deep Learning-Based Vulnerability Detection Tools for Ethernet Smart Contracts

In recent years,the number of smart contracts deployed on blockchain has exploded.However,the issue of vulnerability has caused incalculable losses.Due to the irreversible and immutability of smart contracts,vulnerability detection has become particularly important.With the popular use of neural network model,there has been a growing utilization of deep learning-based methods and tools for the identification of vulnerabilities within smart contracts.This paper commences by providing a succinct overview of prevalent categories of vulnerabilities found in smart contracts.Subsequently,it categorizes and presents an overview of contemporary deep learning-based tools developed for smart contract detection.These tools are categorized based on their open-source status,the data format and the type of feature extraction they employ.Then we conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of these tools,selecting representative tools for experimental validation and comparing them with traditional tools in terms of detection coverage and accuracy.Finally,Based on the insights gained from the experimental results and the current state of research in the field of smart contract vulnerability detection tools,we suppose to provide a reference standard for developers of contract vulnerability detection tools.Meanwhile,forward-looking research directions are also proposed for deep learning-based smart contract vulnerability detection.

A Trusted Multi-Task Distribution Mechanism for Internet of Vehicles Based on Smart Contract

In this paper,a trusted multi-task distribution mechanism for Internet of Vehicles based on smart contract is proposed to improve the security and efficiency for the task distribution in Internet of Vehicles.Firstly,a three-tier trusted multi-task distribution framework is presented based on smart contract.The smart contract will be triggered by the task request.As the important part of the smart contract,the task distribution algorithm is stored on the blockchain and run automatically.In the process of the task distribution,the cost of the task distribution and the system stability play a critical role.Therefore,the task distribution problem is formulated to minimize the cost of the task distribution whilst maintaining the stability of the system based on Lyapunov theorem.Unfortunately,this problem is a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem with NP-hard characteristics.To tackle this,the optimization problem is decomposed into two sub problems of computing resource allocation and task distribution decision,and an effective task distribution algorithm is proposed.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improves system performance.

Smart contract token-based privacy-preserving access control system for industrial Internet of Things

Due to mobile Internet technology's rapid popularization,the Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)can be seen everywhere in our daily lives.While IIoT brings us much convenience,a series of security and scalability issues related to permission operations rise to the surface during device communications.Hence,at present,a reliable and dynamic access control management system for IIoT is in urgent need.Up till now,numerous access control architectures have been proposed for IIoT.However,owing to centralized models and heterogeneous devices,security and scalability requirements still cannot be met.In this paper,we offer a smart contract token-based solution for decentralized access control in IIoT systems.Specifically,there are three smart contracts in our system,including the Token Issue Contract(TIC),User Register Contract(URC),and Manage Contract(MC).These three contracts collaboratively supervise and manage various events in IIoT environments.We also utilize the lightweight and post-quantum encryption algorithm-Nth-degree Truncated Polynomial Ring Units(NTRU)to preserve user privacy during the registration process.Subsequently,to evaluate our proposed architecture's performance,we build a prototype platform that connects to the local blockchain.Finally,experiment results show that our scheme has achieved secure and dynamic access control for the IIoT system compared with related research.

The Detection of Fraudulent Smart Contracts Based on ECA-EfficientNet and Data Enhancement

With the increasing popularity of Ethereum,smart contracts have become a prime target for fraudulent activities such as Ponzi,honeypot,gambling,and phishing schemes.While some researchers have studied intelligent fraud detection,most research has focused on identifying Ponzi contracts,with little attention given to detecting and preventing gambling or phishing contracts.There are three main issues with current research.Firstly,there exists a severe data imbalance between fraudulent and non-fraudulent contracts.Secondly,the existing detection methods rely on diverse raw features that may not generalize well in identifying various classes of fraudulent contracts.Lastly,most prior studies have used contract source code as raw features,but many smart contracts only exist in bytecode.To address these issues,we propose a fraud detection method that utilizes Efficient Channel Attention EfficientNet(ECA-EfficientNet)and data enhancement.Our method begins by converting bytecode into Red Green Blue(RGB)three-channel images and then applying channel exchange data enhancement.We then use the enhanced ECA-EfficientNet approach to classify fraudulent smart contract RGB images.Our proposed method achieves high F1-score and Recall on both publicly available Ponzi datasets and self-built multi-classification datasets that include Ponzi,honeypot,gambling,and phishing smart contracts.The results of the experiments demonstrate that our model outperforms current methods and their variants in Ponzi contract detection.Our research addresses a significant problem in smart contract security and offers an effective and efficient solution for detecting fraudulent contracts.

Bipartite consensus problems of Lurie multi-agent systems over signed graphs: A contraction approach

This paper examines the bipartite consensus problems for the nonlinear multi-agent systems in Lurie dynamics form with cooperative and competitive communication between different agents. Based on the contraction theory, some new conditions for the nonlinear Lurie multi-agent systems reaching bipartite leaderless consensus and bipartite tracking consensus are presented. Compared with the traditional methods, this approach degrades the dimensions of the conditions, eliminates some restrictions of the system matrix, and extends the range of the nonlinear function. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the efficiency of our results.

Preserving Data Secrecy and Integrity for Cloud Storage Using Smart Contracts and Cryptographic Primitives

Cloud computing has emerged as a viable alternative to traditional computing infrastructures,offering various benefits.However,the adoption of cloud storage poses significant risks to data secrecy and integrity.This article presents an effective mechanism to preserve the secrecy and integrity of data stored on the public cloud by leveraging blockchain technology,smart contracts,and cryptographic primitives.The proposed approach utilizes a Solidity-based smart contract as an auditor for maintaining and verifying the integrity of outsourced data.To preserve data secrecy,symmetric encryption systems are employed to encrypt user data before outsourcing it.An extensive performance analysis is conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed mechanism.Additionally,a rigorous assessment is conducted to ensure that the developed smart contract is free from vulnerabilities and to measure its associated running costs.The security analysis of the proposed system confirms that our approach can securely maintain the confidentiality and integrity of cloud storage,even in the presence of malicious entities.The proposed mechanism contributes to enhancing data security in cloud computing environments and can be used as a foundation for developing more secure cloud storage systems.

Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection Method Based on Feature Graph and Multiple Attention Mechanisms

The fast-paced development of blockchain technology is evident.Yet,the security concerns of smart contracts represent a significant challenge to the stability and dependability of the entire blockchain ecosystem.Conventional smart contract vulnerability detection primarily relies on static analysis tools,which are less efficient and accurate.Although deep learning methods have improved detection efficiency,they are unable to fully utilize the static relationships within contracts.Therefore,we have adopted the advantages of the above two methods,combining feature extraction mode of tools with deep learning techniques.Firstly,we have constructed corresponding feature extraction mode for different vulnerabilities,which are used to extract feature graphs from the source code of smart contracts.Then,the node features in feature graphs are fed into a graph convolutional neural network for training,and the edge features are processed using a method that combines attentionmechanismwith gated units.Ultimately,the revised node features and edge features are concatenated through amulti-head attentionmechanism.The result of the splicing is a global representation of the entire feature graph.Our method was tested on three types of data:Timestamp vulnerabilities,reentrancy vulnerabilities,and access control vulnerabilities,where the F1 score of our method reaches 84.63%,92.55%,and 61.36%.The results indicate that our method surpasses most others in detecting smart contract vulnerabilities.

Strategic Contracting for Software Upgrade Outsourcing in Industry 4.0

The advent of Industry 4.0 has compelled businesses to adopt digital approaches that combine software toenhance production efficiency. In this rapidly evolving market, software development is an ongoing process thatmust be tailored to meet the dynamic needs of enterprises. However, internal research and development can beprohibitively expensive, driving many enterprises to outsource software development and upgrades to externalservice providers. This paper presents a software upgrade outsourcing model for enterprises and service providersthat accounts for the impact of market fluctuations on software adaptability. To mitigate the risk of adverseselection due to asymmetric information about the service provider’s cost and asymmetric information aboutthe enterprise’s revenues, we propose pay-per-time and revenue-sharing contracts in two distinct informationasymmetry scenarios. These two contracts specify the time and transfer payments for software upgrades. Througha comparative analysis of the optimal solutions under the two contracts and centralized decision-making withfull-information, we examine the characteristics of the solutions under two information asymmetry scenarios andanalyze the incentive effects of the two contracts on the various stakeholders. Overall, our study offers valuableinsights for firms seeking to optimize their outsourcing strategies and maximize their returns on investment insoftware upgrades.

Design and pricing of maintenance service contract based on Nash non-cooperative game approach

Nowadays manufacturers are facing fierce challenge.Apart from the products,providing customers with multiple maintenance options in the service contract becomes more popular,since it can help to improve customer satisfaction,and ultimately promote sales and maximize profit for the manufacturer.By considering the combinations of corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance,totally three types of maintenance service contracts are designed.Moreover,attractive incentive and penalty mechanisms are adopted in the contracts.On this basis,Nash non-cooperative game is applied to analyze the revenue for both the manufacturer and customers,and so as to optimize the pricing mechanism of maintenance service contract and achieve a win-win situation.Numerical experiments are conducted.The results show that by taking into account the incentive and penalty mechanisms,the revenue can be improved for both the customers and manufacturer.Moreover,with the increase of repair rate and improvement factor in the preventive maintenance,the revenue will increase gradually for both the parties.

Contract Mechanism of Water Environment Regulation for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Based on Optimal Control Theory

The small and scattered enterprise pattern in the county economy has formed numerous sporadic pollution sources, hindering the centralized treatment of the water environment, increasing the cost and difficulty of treatment. How enterprises can make reasonable decisions on their water environment behavior based on the external environment and their own factors is of great significance for scientifically and effectively designing water environment regulation mechanisms. Based on optimal control theory, this study investigates the design of contractual mechanisms for water environmental regulation for small and medium-sized enterprises. The enterprise is regarded as an independent economic entity that can adopt optimal control strategies to maximize its own interests. Based on the participation of multiple subjects including the government, enterprises, and the public, an optimal control strategy model for enterprises under contractual water environmental regulation is constructed using optimal control theory, and a method for calculating the amount of unit pollutant penalties is derived. The water pollutant treatment cost data of a paper company is selected to conduct empirical numerical analysis on the model. The results show that the increase in the probability of government regulation and public participation, as well as the decrease in local government protection for enterprises, can achieve the same regulatory effect while reducing the number of administrative penalties per unit. Finally, the implementation process of contractual water environmental regulation for small and medium-sized enterprises is designed.

Supply Chain Network Equilibrium with Revenue Sharing Contract under Demand Disruptions

Contract is a common and effective mechanism for supply chain coordination,which has been studied extensively in recent years.For a supply chain network model,contracts can be used to coordinate it because it is too ideal to obtain the network equilibrium state in practical market competition.In order to achieve equilibrium,we introduce revenue sharing contract into a supply chain network equilibrium model with random demand in this paper.Then,we investigate the influence on this network equilibrium state from demand disruptions caused by unexpected emergencies.When demand disruptions happen,the supply chain network equilibrium state will be broken and change to a new one,so the decision makers need to adjust the contract parameters to achieve the new coordinated state through bargaining.Finally,a numerical example with a sudden demand increase as a result of emergent event is provided for illustrative purposes.

CONTRACTED EFFECT OF BELL-SHADE SHAPE WELDING ARC AND ACCOMPANIED MAGNETIC FIELD WITH SPIRAL PIPE SHAPE

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Smart Contract Fuzzing Based on Taint Analysis and Genetic Algorithms

Smart contract has greatly improved the services and capabilities of blockchain,but it has become the weakest link of blockchain security because of its code nature.Therefore,efficient vulnerability detection of smart contract is the key to ensure the security of blockchain system.Oriented to Ethereum smart contract,the study solves the problems of redundant input and low coverage in the smart contract fuzz.In this paper,a taint analysis method based on EVM is proposed to reduce the invalid input,a dangerous operation database is designed to identify the dangerous input,and genetic algorithm is used to optimize the code coverage of the input,which construct the fuzzing framework for smart contract together.Finally,by comparing Oyente and ContractFuzzer,the performance and efficiency of the framework are proved.

Electronic Auction Scheme Based on Smart Contract and IPFS

Sealed-bid auctions are a vital transaction tool in the e-commerce field.Traditional centralized auction schemes typically result in severe threats to data integrity,information transparency,and traceability owing to their excessive reliance on third parties,and blockchain-based auction schemes generally suffer from high storage costs and are deficient in functional and architectural design.To solve these problems,this study presents a sealed-bid auction scheme that removes the third-party based on an Ethereum smart contract,ensuring data integrity,openness,and transparency in the execution process.The commitment mechanism and distributed storage system help to significantly reduce the user’s storage cost and protect the privacy of user bids.For the functional design,this study introduces a fulltext-retrieval and dispute-processing module for commodities,which reduces the defects existing in the functional module design of existing auction systems.Furthermore,a prototype auction system on the Ethereum test chain is built to validate the proposed scheme.Experiments show that compared with traditional storage methods,indirect storage based on a distributed storage system of texts and images can reduce the storage cost by at least 50%while ensuring data integrity.Finally,the gas cost at each stage of the auction scheme and the time required for the full-text retrieval of products are recorded to evaluate the scheme performance and analyze the test results.

Contract theory based incentive mechanism design for buffer resource in wireless caching networks

Evidences indicate that,due to the limited caching capacity or inaccurate estimation on users’preferences,the requested files may not be fully cached in the network edge.The transmissions of the un-cached files will also lead to duplicated transmissions on backhaul channels.Buffer-aided relay has been proposed to improve the transmission performance of the un-cached files.Because of the limited buffer capacity and the information asymmetric environment,how to allocate the limited buffer capacity and how to incentivize users in participating buffer-aided relay have become critical issues.In this work,an incentive scheme based on the contract theory is proposed.Specifically,the backlog violation probability,i.e.,the buffer overflow probability,is provided based on the martingale theory.Next,based on the backlog violation probability,the utility functions of the relay node and users are constructed.With the purpose to maximize the utility of the relay node,the optimal contract problem is formulated.Then,the feasibility of the contract is also demonstrated,and the optimal solution can be obtained by the interior point method.Finally,numerical results are presented to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed contract theory scheme.

Kinetics and Mechanism of Oxidation Induced Contraction of MgAl2O4 Spinel Carbon Composites Reinforced by Al4C3 in situ Reaction

Kinetics and mechanism of oxidation induced contraction of MgAl2O4 spinel carbon composites reinforced by Al4C3 in situ reaction were researched in air using vertical high temperature thermal dilatometer from 25℃to 1400℃.It is shown that oxidation induced contraction of MgAl2O4 spinel carbon composites reinforced Al4C3 in situ reaction is the common logarithm of oxidation time t and the oxygen partial pressure P inside MgAl2O4 spinel carbon composites reinforced by Al4C3 in situ reaction in air at 1400℃is as follows:P=F(-2.75×10^-4A+2.13×10^-3)lnt.The nonsteady diffusion kinetic equation of O2 at 1400℃inside the composites is as follows:J=De lnt.Acceleration of the total diffusional?flux of oxygen inside the composites at 1400℃is in inverse proportion to the oxidation time.The nonsteady state effective diffusion coefficient De of O2(g)inside the composites decreases in direct proportional to the increase of the amount of metallic aluminium.The method of preventing the oxidation induced contraction of MgAl2O4 spinel carbon composites reinforced by Al4C3 in situ reaction is to increase the amount of Al.The slag erosion index of MgO-Al2O3 spinel carbon composite reinforced by Al4C3 in situ reaction is 0.47 times that of MgO-CaO brick used in the lining above slag line area of a VOD stainless steel-making vessel.HMOR of MgO-Al2O3 spinel carbon composite reinforced by Al4C3 in situ reaction is 26.7 MPa,HMOR of the composite is 3.6 times the same as that of MgO-CaO brick used in the lining above slag line area of a VOD vessel.Its service life is two times as many as that of MgO-CaO brick.

Perturbation solution to unsteady flow in a porous channel with expanding or contracting walls in the presence of a transverse magnetic field

An incompressible flow in a porous channel with expanding or contacting walls in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is considered. Using similarity transformations, the governing equations are reduced to the nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The exact similar solutions for the different cases of the expansion ratio and the Hartmann number are obtained with a singular perturbation method, and the associated behavior is discussed in detail.

Biomagnetic techniques for evaluating gastric emptying,peristaltic contraction and transit time

Biomagnetic techniques were used to measure motility in various parts of the gastrointestinal(GI) tract,particularly a new technique for detecting magnetic markers and tracers.A coil was used to enhance the signal from a magnetic tracer in the GI tract and the signal was detected using a fluxgate magnetometer or a magnetoresistor in an unshielded room.Estimates of esophageal transit time were affected by the position of the subject.The reproducibility of estimates derived using the new biomagnetic technique was greater than 85% and it yielded estimates similar to those obtained using scintigraphy.This technique is suitable for studying the effect of emotional state on GI physiology and for measuring GI transit time.The biomagnetic technique can be used to evaluate digesta transit time in the esophagus,stomach and colon,peristaltic frequency and gastric emptying and is easy to use in the hospital setting.