In the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), blockchain technology emerges as an innovative solution to address the challenges of digital-based business networks, such as traceability, transparency, trust, and data authenticity. This transformative technology has shown promise across diverse domains, including finance, healthcare, and supply chain, by enabling secure data transmission and trust establishment between entities. However, blockchain technology experiences from an inherent trade-off issue between the core properties of security, decentralization and scalability in its type of network. While permissionless blockchain excel in security and decentralization, such network lack scalability and suitability for business transactions. Conversely, permissioned blockchains offer better performance but are vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to weaknesses in consensus mechanisms. Therefore, this paper provides an analysis of blockchain technology, emphasizing the pivotal role of consensus mechanisms in ensuring security and system performance. Additionally, it identifies practical threats, suggests countermeasures, and underscores the importance of resilient and secure consensus mechanisms. Furthermore, it compares and analyzes existing mechanisms for permissioned blockchains, discusses their limitations, and highlights the significance of ensuring system security and performance. Finally, it uncovers essential factors to consider when designing consensus mechanisms for specific blockchain-based applications, laying the foundation for future research in practical and secure permissioned blockchain applications.

An important feature of the wireless network scenario is that there are multi- radio access technologies in the same area, and the signal coverage of these networks overlaps each other, forming the heterogeneous wireless network area. Network selection algorithm is the key technology of heterogeneous wireless network. The common network selection algorithms are based on accurate network attribute values. However, due to the mobility of users, the interference of wireless signals and the fluctuation of network state, the network attributes obtained by the algorithms are often uncertain. To solve this problem, this paper designs a multi-attribute access selection approach based on the fuzzy network attributes. This approach calculates the network attribute values by interval hesitant fuzzy theory at first. Then, it calculates the subjective weights of network attribute values by the analytic hierarchy process and the objective weights of network attribute values by the entropy method. The integrated weights of subjective weights and objective weights are obtained by the method based on the longest geometric distance to the negative ideal solution. In the end, we calculate the scores of candidate networks by grey relational analysis based on the intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrix. The simulation shows that the algorithm proposed by this paper can select the most suitable network and reduce the number of handoffs under the environment of uncertain network attribute values.

In heterogeneous wireless networks (HWNs), various wireless networks have signal ranges that overlap and cover each other. Enabling mobile users to access the most suitable network is one of the research topics on HWNs. This paper designs a multiattribute access selection algorithm supporting service characteristics and user preferences in HWNs, which includes five calculation modules: network attribute utility value, network attribute weight, network attribute score, user preference value, and candidate network comprehensive score. In addition, the algorithm proposed in this paper integrates the utility theory, fuzzy analysis hierarchy process (FAHP), fuzzy logic, and multiattribute decision-making (MADM) methods for a complete access selection scheme that considers different network performances, service characteristics, and user preferences. The simulation results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper can allow users to select the most suitable network while obtaining higher gains and reducing user handover between different networks.

A heterogeneous wireless network (HWN) environment contains many kinds of wireless networks, such as UMTS, LTE, and WLAN, where users move around within their coverage area. How to ensure mobile users select the most suitable network is a hot research topic for HWNs. Owing to the mobility of users, the interference of wireless signals, and the fluctuation of network status, the network attribute values obtained by mobile users are often uncertain. However, the traditional access-selection algorithms assume that mobile users can obtain accurate network attribute values, which makes users unable to access the most appropriate network. To solve this problem, this paper designs an access-selection algorithm for HWNs in the context of inaccurate network attribute values. First, the algorithm calculates the network attribute values based on the hesitant fuzzy theory, then calculates the weights of network attributes using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), and finally sorts the candidate networks using the hesitant fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm enables users to select the most suitable network to access under the inaccurate network attribute environment and obtain higher gains.

The use of data and information is becoming increasingly important for the businesses sector to increase productivity, sustainability, and traceability. Businesses involved with the supply chain face challenges due to the lack of trust in data sharing. The integration of Blockchain technology in supply chain management will have a high potential to increase efficiency, transparency, and trust throughout the supply chain process. This paper aims to present the evolution of Blockchain technology towards optimizing trust in agribusiness supply chain management to address the trust inefficiency issues. We consider the environment of agribusiness supply chain networks and issues concerning constructing Blockchain-based trust networks among participants in the process of data sharing throughout the supply chain information flow. Accordingly, we also deliberate the research challenges that arise during the designing and the directions of the Blockchain solution to optimize the trust in agribusiness supply chain management.