No Arabic abstract
The utilisation of blockchain has moved beyond digital currency to other fields such as health, the Internet of Things, and education. In this paper, we present a systematic mapping study to collect and analyse relevant research on blockchain technology related to the higher education field. The paper concentrates on two main themes. First, it examines state of the art in blockchain-based applications that have been developed for educational purposes. Second, it summarises the challenges and research gaps that need to be addressed in future studies.
Lets HPC (www.letshpc.org) is an open-access online platform to supplement conventional classroom oriented High Performance Computing (HPC) and Parallel & Distributed Computing (PDC) education. The web based platform provides online plotting and analysis tools which allow users to learn, evaluate, teach and see the performance of parallel algorithms from a systems viewpoint. The user can quantitatively compare and understand the importance of numerous deterministic as well as non-deterministic factors of both the software and the hardware that impact the performance of parallel programs. At the heart of this platform is a database archiving the performance and execution environment related data of standard parallel algorithms executed on different computing architectures using different programming environments, this data is contributed by various stakeholders in the HPC community. The plotting and analysis tools of our platform can be combined seamlessly with the database to aid self-learning, teaching, evaluation and discussion of different HPC related topics. Instructors of HPC/PDC related courses can use the platforms tools to illustrate the importance of proper analysis in understanding factors impacting performance, to encourage peer learning among students, as well as to allow students to prepare a standard lab/project report aiding the instructor in uniform evaluation. The platforms modular design enables easy inclusion of performance related data from contributors as well as addition of new features in the future.
The rise of blockchain technology within a few years has attracted researchers across the world. The prime reason for worldwide attention is undoubtedly due to its feature of immutability along with the decentralized approach of data protection. As this technology is progressing, lots of developments in terms of identifying new applications, blockchain-based platforms, consensus mechanisms, etc are taking place. Hence, in this article, an attempt has been made to review the recent advancements in blockchain technology. Furthermore, we have also explored the available blockchain platforms, highlighted and explored future research directions and challenges.
The emergence of new technologies in software testing has increased the automation and flexibility of the testing process. In this context, the adoption of agents in software testing remains an active research area in which various agent methodologies, architectures, and tools are employed to improve different test problems. Even though research that investigates agents in software testing has been growing, these agent-based techniques should be considered in a broader perspective. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of this research area, which we define as agent-based software testing (ABST), a systematic mapping study has been conducted. This mapping study aims to identify the topics studied within ABST, as well as examine the adopted research methodologies, identify the gaps in the current research and point to directions for future ABST research. Our results suggest that there is an interest in ABST after 1999 that resulted in the development of solutions using reactive, BDI, deliberative and cooperate agent architectures for software testing. In addition, most of the ABST approaches are designed using the JADE framework, have targeted the Java programming language, and are used at system-level testing for functional, non-functional and white-box testing. In regards to regression testing, our results indicate a research gap that could be addressed in future studies.
We argue that there is a hierarchy of levels describing to that particular level relevant features of reality behind the content and behavior of blockchain and smart contracts in their realistic deployment. Choice, design, audit and legal control of these systems could be more informed, easier and raised to a higher level, if research on foundations of these descriptions develops and sets the formalisms, tools and standards for such descriptions.
Attacks targeting several millions of non-internet based application users are on the rise. These applications such as SMS and USSD typically do not benefit from existing multi-factor authentication methods due to the nature of their interaction interfaces and mode of operations. To address this problem, we propose an approach that augments blockchain with multi-factor authentication based on evidence from blockchain transactions combined with risk analysis. A profile of how a user performs transactions is built overtime and is used to analyse the risk level of each new transaction. If a transaction is flagged as high risk, we generate n-factor layers of authentication using past endorsed blockchain transactions. A demonstration of how we used the proposed approach to authenticate critical financial transactions in a blockchain-based asset financing platform is also discussed.