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Trend comparison for Emerging Technologies

Trend comparison for Emerging Technologies

Smart contracts and blockchain technologies have a lot to offer.

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Transparency and privacy: Empowering people through blockchain

Blockchain technologies can empower people by allowing them more control over their user data. 

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Ajay Kumar Shrestha, University of Saskatchewan

Blockchain has already proven its huge influence on the financial world with its first application in the form of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. It might not be long before its impact is felt everywhere.
Blockchain is a secure chain of digital records that exist on multiple computers simultaneously so no record can be erased or falsified. The redundancy of the system ensures many backups, and the lack of a central storage place ensures there is no one target for hackers. Some suggest that blockchain could become a component of the next generation of the internet.
Many blockchain systems provide a technology called “smart contract:” these are the rules by which records can be accessed and modified by creating new versions. These rules define, for example, who gets access to the stored records, under what conditions, for what declared purpose and in exchange of what (payment or virtual credit). Smart contracts also record every access to the data in the blockchain.
In this way, users can permanently and securely store their data, set their own conditions and control who accesses the data and for what purpose. Because of these features, blockchain technology can be used to store user profile data.

Hoarding the data

Currently, social media giants hoard user data and use it to sell targeted advertisements (their main source of revenue). These social media networks don’t give users a real choice or awareness of what data about them are kept. They provide very few control options and no rewards for users in exchange of their data.
Recently, we have seen many cases when user data has been stolen by hackers, leading to breaches of privacy, the possibility for identity theft or exploitation of the data to manipulate people and influence public opinion towards voting. This can have serious consequences for the democratic process in a liberal society.

A graphic from the Cambridge Analytica website is displayed on a computer screen. Mark Lennihan/AP

The unauthorized use of personal data is difficult to track. But blockchain can change that. Instead of hoarding the data of millions of users for large companies, each user can hold the keys for access to their data.
Currently, there is no universal method to track who shared what, with whom, when and for what purposes in a verifiable fashion. My current research addresses these problems by incorporating the blockchain technology.

User-controlled privacy

One of the elements of user data sharing would be to control who can share the data and by what means, and how users can be incentivized to share data. Smart contracts allow storing these access-control policies securely on the blockchain. Blockchain provides an unalterable record of all transactions. Users can also be incentivized with monetary rewards for sharing their data to commercial enterprises.
I have been researching how a blockchain-based system can keep users data safe, provide access control and provenance of their ownership, and incentivize them to share their data. My recent paper, presented at the International Conference on Blockchain in Seattle in March 2018, is the first in the area of sharing research data and it generated a lot of interest.
University of Saskatchewan professor and computer scientist Julita Vassileva has worked on ways that allow users to control the sharing of their data, and also provide incentives that preserve a user’s control and provide incentives for sharing. Vassileva’s guidance and supervision led me to experiment with blockchain technology to implement such a framework. This led to an award-winning research paper, that I presented at the 2017 Future Technologies Conference. The paper proposed a blockchain-based system to share users’ personal data among tourism businesses.

Sharing can be caring

We need new data-sharing practices so that we can maximize what we learn from research. In medicine and health care, for example, both personalized patient care and medical research can benefit from sharing research data from clinical trials.
Similar to shifts in the business world, the personalization of services is trending. Various data associated with users’ profiles and behaviours are being shared among commercial enterprises. This information is used to better help businesses target their customers and improve the quality of their services. Much of the data are contributed voluntarily by the user; others are obtained from observation of user activities, or inferred through advanced analysis of volunteered or observed data.
Users need to become active participants who stand to benefit from the personal data economy. Blockchain and smart contracts can support users in the following ways:
(1) Give the users full transparency over who accesses their data, when and for what purpose;
(2) Allow the users to specify the purposes of data sharing, which kinds of data that can be shared, and which applications or companies can access the data;
(3) Provide an incentive to users for sharing their data (in terms of payment for the use of the data by applications, as specified by the contracts).
My research project develops guidelines and methods for embedding privacy, user transparency, control and incentives from the start in the design of a data sharing framework. This is an alternative to what currently exists, providing a platform that users can trust to protect their data, have control over it and share it in the ways they want.
Ajay Kumar Shrestha, PhD Candidate, University of Saskatchewan
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Helambu Circuit Trek

Several trekking routes visit Helambu, one of them being known as Helambu Trek. Helambu is famous for its sweet apples and artistic Buddhist monasteries and it is a Buddhist pilgrimage site.

We started our Trek on Apr 16, 2014 from Sundarijal which can be reached by local bus from Old Buspark in 50 minutes .
Sundarijal is basically a small dam and hydro electric station in the north east corner of Kathmandu Valley where the Himalayan Rescue Dog squad is headquartered. We began out trek from west of Sundarijal at the end of the of auto road where the large water pipe comes out of the hills.There is now daily jeep service from Sundarijal to Pati Bhanjyang. To walk begin at the bus park in Sundarijal and the large water pipe. Cross under the pipe and proceed along its west side much of the way is up stairs, continue. eventually turning left to cross over the dam of a water reservoir (1585m) in 40 minutes.
Across the dam we continued uphill crossing the water shed management road which winds around the hillside. This is a scattered Tamang village with lodges and view of Kathmandu Valley can be seen clearly from there. The trail continue up, first in open country and then in oak forest., often in small gully, and enters Shivpuri watershed and wild life Research area, after passing an army station. We reached  Chisapani (2194m) aka cold water after 4 hours of our walk.The trails continues to descend through open farm land to reach Pati Bhanjyang (1768m). There are lodges and police check post there. We passed Jiri Lama's Guest house, climbed up the hill and then downhill to reach Gul Bhanjhyang. We spent our night in one guest house there. Next day we headed towards Khutumsang. There are no permanent villages between Khutumsang and Melamchi Ghyang on this route but if  one leaves Khutumsang in the morning then he should reach Tharepati, where there are lodges. But we took a right turn and instead of going to Tharepati we headed down to Melamchi Khola Valley. More of the trek is described in my YouTube video.. Cheers..!..

Panch Pokhari Trek

Panch Pokhari is a group of five lakes in the Sindhupalchowk District of Nepal. It is 9th highest altitude wetland in the world.This holy lake is decorated with the unsurpassed natural beauty, biological diversity and the cultural heritage. We started our trek on Apr 17, 2014. The whole experience of the trek has been portrayed in the YouTube video. Enjoy it...cheers..

The Panch Pokhari lies in the arms of very beautiful Himalayan range and pristine nature. It is very popular for pilgrimage destination for Hindus and Buddhist. Many Hindus and Buddhist pilgtimages visit this sacred lake in Janai Purnima. It is one of the main feature of Langtang National Park, located in the Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Sindhulpalchok  districts of the central Himalayan region.

Main attraction of Panch Pokhari are are excellent Himalayan view and pristine nature with distinct culture including Himalayan sights of Jugal Himal and others nearby mountains. Government of Nepal Postal Services Department issue a postal ticket featuring this Pokhari in 2011 as well.

Gosaikunda Trek

Gosaikunda is a significant place of interest on the Dhunche-Helambu trekking route. This trek adjoins the famous Langtang Valley trek in the same district. Both treks can be combined. Basic accommodation is quite easily available. Tea houses offer a variety of food and snacks.

Jan 17, 2014, we left Kathmandu in the morning time on a local bus from Macha Pokhari, Balaju that goes to Dhunche. We arrived at around 1:30 p.m. in Dunche. On the same day we started to walk and passed Deurali (2625m) and then reached Dimsa (3000m) to spend our first night. There is only one hotel each at Deurali and Dimsa.

The next day, we started to walk at 8:00 a.m. and passed Singh Gompa aka Chandanbari (3300m). The place is famous for the best Yak Cheese in Nepal. There are so many guest houses in that region.
We started to walk further and passed Cholang Pati (3700m) when it started snowing. We then reached Laurebina Guesthouse at (3950m). We had just 3-4 hours of walk that day when snow stopped us to trek further. We spent the day and night in that guest house. It snowed so heavily but the night came up with clear blue sky and the finest beautiful day after.

Next day we started trek to Gosaikunda (4380m) earlier in the morning. We reached the lake Gosaikunda which was frozen. Only one guest house was open during that time. We treked little further above the lake and reached at the topmost point Laurebina Pass (4600m) near Surya Kunda, another frozen lake. Then We again returned back from there as it was getting so windy and there was no track ahead to get beyond the pass to reach Phedi. We returned back to the same guest house where we spent out last night. we spent our that night in the same guest house.

The next day we got down to the Dunche from where we took a local bus to Trishuli bazzar and from there to kathmandu.  on Jan 20, 2014. Total 4 days.!.

Gosaikunda: The view was so beautiful. The place was immaculate, awesome, breathtaking, There was snow everywhere, the lake was just like a frozen skate ground as if we could do ice-skating, More you can see on my YouTube video...Cheers.!.