The world population is anticipated to increase by 2 billion by 2050, causing a rapid escalation of food demand. A recent projection shows that the world is lagging in accomplishing the “Zero Hunger” goal despite some advancements. Socioeconomic factors can affect food security, leading to malnutrition among vulnerable populations. The agricultural industry must be upgraded, smartened, and automated to serve the growing population. Adopting existing technologies can make traditional agriculture efficient, sustainable, and eco-friendly. In this survey, we present Agriculture 4.0 and its applications, technology trends, available datasets, networking, and implementation challenges. We concentrate on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies that support automation, as well as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), which provides data integrity and security. Following an in-depth investigation of several architectures, we also provide a framework for smart agriculture that relies on data processing locations. We have discussed open research problems in smart agriculture from two perspectives: technology and communications. AI, ML, DLT, and Physical Unclonable Function (PUF)-based hardware security fall under the technology group, whereas Internet-based attacks, fake data injection, and similar threats fall under the network research problem group. The survey aims to provide researchers with an in-depth study of recent works, challenges, and open research problems in smart agriculture.

Globalization has revolutionized how different entities are distributed across locations interconnect and collaborated to enhance the availability of different services even at remote areas. Supply chains have played an important role in expanding business operations globally and at the same time increasing operational efficiency and reducing costs. Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC) is one of the important aspects of healthcare which is vital for resource acquisition, manufacturing, and distribution of prescription drugs from the manufacturer site to patients. "Five rights of medication” is the main motto of the PSC which ensures the delivery of the right medicine to the right patient, at the right time, in the right doses, and through the appropriate route. Following this principle achieves patient safety in the healthcare system. However, as the number of entities participating in the PSC is large, which are geographically distributed and interact in complex ways makes the PSC more abstract and causes adversaries to introduce counterfeit medicines into the system. Developing a transparent PSC with no information fragmentation is very much needed for efficient track and trace along with easy identification and avoidance of counterfeit drugs. The current paper proposes one such architecture that is integrated with Blockchain, Distributed File Storage System, and Barcode technologies to provide a secure Barcode mechanism for addressing such tracking and tracing issues in the pharmaceutical supply chain. The novel product serialization mechanism proposed in PharmaChain 3.0 also ensures accurate identification, capture, and sharing of information about the drugs manufactured between these participating entities without the use of centralized entities and removing blind parties. The current system is designed to efficiently capture both Pedigree and T3 information of drugs in order to comply with regulations like Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA). Further, we have developed a proof-of-concept for the proposed system, and evaluation is performed focusing on the different aspects including system functionality, security, cost of execution, and adaptability.

A paper-based prescription signed by the prescriber to authorize dispensing of medication is typically used in traditional healthcare. Such systems are prone to many issues like medication errors, latency, and lack of integration with other healthcare systems. Hence, Electronic prescription (E-prescription) systems are being used as alternatives to overcome these issues. Even though E-prescription systems provide the advantage of recording and maintaining patient medication history but still face issues such as system crashes, latency due to their centralized architectures, prone to many security threats like identity theft and unauthorized patient record access and modifications. Lack of standardization can also make such E-prescription systems not interoperable, which may lead to information fragmentation or delays in the processing of prescriptions. Hence, there is still a need for making these E-prescription systems more secure, reliable, and cost-effective for wide-range adaptation. Blockchain is one such technology that can add additional layers of security to the existing E-prescription systems by providing tamper-proof records of all transactions which will help in ensuring the authenticity and integrity of prescriptions. Blockchain can also help in better management of patients' privacy while patients still have full control over their health data. Blockchain usage can also enhance interoperability and reduce prescription abuse. The proposed application FortiRx makes use of the Ethereum blockchain platform and leverages smart contracts for implementing business logic. Cyphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) is used in the proposed application to create and manage access-control mechanisms and ensure Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) compliance. The proposed system has been implemented and analyzed for security, reliability, and adaptability in a real-time environment.

Access to essential medication is a primary right of every individual in all developed, developing and underdeveloped countries. This can be fulfilled by pharmaceutical supply chains (PSC) in place which will eliminate the boundaries between different organizations and will equip them to work collectively to make medicines reach even the remote corners of the globe. Due to multiple entities, which are geographically widespread, being involved and very complex goods and economic flows, PSC is very difficult to audit and resolve any issues involved. This has given rise to many issues, including increased threats of counterfeiting, inaccurate information propagation throughout the network because of data fragmentation, lack of customer confidence and delays in distribution of medication to the place in need. Hence, there is a strong need for robust PSC which is transparent to all parties involved and in which the whole journey of medicine from manufacturer to consumer can be tracked and traced easily. This will not only build safety for the consumers, but will also help manufacturers to build confidence among consumers and increase sales. In this article, a novel Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based transparent supply chain architecture is proposed and a proof-of-concept is implemented. Efficiency and scalability of the proposed architecture is evaluated and compared with existing solutions.

The Internet of Everything (IoE) is a bigger picture that tries to fit the Internet of Things (IoT) that is widely deployed in smart applications. IoE brings people, data, processes, and things to form a network that is more connected and increases overall system intelligence. A further investigation of the IoE can really mean creating a distributed network focusing on edge computing instead of relying on the cloud. Blockchain is one of the recently distributed network technologies which by structure and operations provide data integrity and security in trust-less P2P networks such as IoE. Blockchain can also remove the need for central entities which is the main hurdle for the wide adoption of IoT in large networks. IoT "things" are resource-constrained both in power and computation to adopt the conventional blockchain consensus algorithms that are power and compute-hungry. To solve that problem, this paper proposes EasyChain, a blockchain that is robust along with running on a lightweight authentication-based consensus protocol that is known as Proof-of-Authentication (PoAh). This blockchain based on the lightweight consensus protocol replaces the power-hungry transaction, blocks validation steps, and provides ease of usage in resource-constrained environments such as IoE. The proposed blockchain is designed using the Python language for an easy understanding of the functions and increased ease of integration into IoE applications. The designed blockchain system is also deployed on a single-board computer to analyze its feasibility and scalability. The latency observed in the simulated and experimental evaluations is 148.89 ms which is very fast compared to the existing algorithms.

Farmer uses traditional crop insurance to protect their farms against crop loss and natural risks. However, farmers are concerned about crop insurance claims due to delays in processing claims that cost significantly. Insurance fraud is another problem in crop insurance which costs significantly for insurance companies. The proposed FarmIns framework uses blockchain technology, allowing farmers to create and manage insurance agreements with insurance providers through smart contracts and creating a verifiable log of farm monitoring parameters to help insurance providers verify and approve claims promptly. FarmIns uses the Internet of Agro-Things (IoAT), and video surveillance technologies like Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) to monitor and provide reliable farm data to process claims. FarmIns also acts as Decision Support Tool (DST) for both the insurer and the insured.

Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSCs) are a combination of processes and networks involved in the production, distribution, and delivery of pharmaceutical products from the stage of raw materials till they reach the end-user which is typically patients. PSC is a complex and critical part of the Healthcare Cyber-Physical System (H-CPS) that ensures the availability, quality, and timely delivery of pharmaceutical products to meet the needs of the patients. One of the main characteristics of efficient PSC is accurate production planning and resource allocation which not only reduces the costs but also significantly enhances customer satisfaction. Accurate production planning for manufacturers needs accurate demand prediction models in place, otherwise can lead to overstocking or under-stocking, wastage, and other costs. Demand prediction of pharmaceutical products is very complicated due to unexpected fluctuations due to seasonality, pandemics, and several other reasons. This causes supply chain disruptions which may in turn cause both life and financial losses. Many statistical methods and machine learning models including time series analysis for forecasting the demand based on historical, but the significant setback is the availability of real-time data and privacy concerns on prescription data being shared. The current proposed FortiRx 2.0 architecture leverages a blockchain-based prescription system and federated learning approach to solve these issues and provide accurate demand forecasting. Federated XGBoost is used for demand prediction and different evaluation metrics are computed for performance evaluation of implemented model. These metrics are compared with baseline models Naive and Seasonal Naive as a reference and the results from the comparison are discussed.

Student feedback data is typically stored on centralized servers and can potentially be linked to individual identities, leading to concerns about repercussions or bias in evaluations. This lack of anonymity can inhibit students from providing honest and candid feedback. Because of this reason, a secure anonymous platform is needed as it provides the students with an uninhibited channel to offer their feedback. To overcome this, an architecture incorporating Blockchain into a Student Feedback System is proposed to address traditional systems’ anonymity and transparency issues. This paper proposes an implementation of a robust student feedback system that fosters a dynamic exchange of feedback and enhances interpersonal relationships and collaboration between students and teachers. This constructive feedback loop facilitates the improvement of faculty performance and facilitates a greater understanding of students’ educational requirements, ultimately leading to enhanced academic outcomes.

Agriculture is one of the significant industries that encompasses various activities including crop cultivation and livestock farming to provide necessary resources to societies. Along with providing necessary resources for global stability and sustenance it also serves as the backbone for several countries economies. Agriculture is highly dependent on unpredictable weather and climatic events, making mitigation techniques futile. Due to these uncertainties, many farmers face various hardships when attempting to meet the expected yield and finances. Another major factor influencing livestock farming, especially livestock, is the spread of viral diseases like Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) and Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD). Livestock insurance is a specific type of insurance within broader agriculture insurance that serves several critical purposes for farmers such as risk mitigation, financial stability, Investment confidence, etc. Currently employed cattle insurance systems are centralized and involve multiple parties exchanging information and payments. These entities include farmers, insurers, veterinarians, and regulatory agencies which are geographically apart and cause significant delays and administrative costs. Hence, a Blockchain and Convolution Neural Network (CNN) leveraged solution SmartInsure is proposed to increase transparency, data integrity, and efficiency, along with a fool-proof way of identifying the insured cattle. The identification of cattle is a major problem in cattle insurance and the lack of a robust identification system can lead to insurance fraud. Hence CNN-based cattle identification using muzzle images can be an effective solution for avoiding such conflicts while processing insurance claims. Considering the cost-effectiveness of the proposed SmartInsure, off-chain distributed data storage is employed for storing muzzle images of insured cattle. Proposed SmartInsure Proof-of-Concept (POC) is designed, and functional analysis is performed to check the business logic implemented. Along with the functional analysis, the efficiency of the CNN model is evaluated for validation accuracy and loss metrics. Results from the analysis show that the cattle are identified with 94.11% validation accuracy and 0.38 validation loss.

Because of globalization, many different entities distributed across the locations were able to work together and achieve the availability of services even at remote locations. Supply Chains helped in leveraging such businesses globally with reduced costs and increased efficiency. Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC) is one in which the prescription drugs are moved from the manufacturer to the patient. Providing the right medicine at the right time to the right patient in the right doses coming from the right route is called the five rights of medication. Due to the increased number of participating entities, and interactions between entities and adversaries trying to profit by introducing counterfeit drugs into the supply chain, efficient tracking and tracing mechanism is very much needed in PSC. The current paper proposes an architecture that is integrated with Blockchain, Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) along with QR code technologies to provide a secure QR code mechanism for addressing such tracking and tracing issues in PSC. The proposed model is evaluated for security and efficiency using different metrics.

Crop monitoring systems are one of the important aspects of Smart Agriculture. Due to explosive growth of population there is an increase in demand for food products while urbanization is causing shortage in manual labor. As the yield of a crop is greatly affected by many climatic and environmental parameters, there is an urgent need for efficient crop monitoring. Rapidly advancing IoT (Internet of Things) technologies have shown very promising results and have automated most of the traditional processes in farming. An efficient Crop Monitoring System (CMS) is proposed which automates the monitoring by using the IoT and real-time data is shared securely using private IOTA Tangle Distributed Ledger Technology. The proposed application equips farmers with required information which will help them make decisions promptly based on the real-time environmental parameters of the crop and reduces human labor. Data privacy and security are other important aspects addressed in the proposed system by setting up a private IOTA Tangle. Unlike public distributed ledgers, private distributed ledgers provide data privacy and security by allowing only known participants to join the network, thereby limiting the adversaries trying to tamper with the data. Practical implementation of the proposed system is done and analyzed for scalability and reliability.

Cold chain logistics play an important aspect in storing, preserving and transporting of cargo which is highly sensitive to environmental parameters surrounding it. Not han-dling these medicinal products in the recommended environment either during transportation or storage can cause adverse effects such as degradation of potency of the drug, the stability of drugs and in some cases may even lead to serious consequences on the health and well being of the consumer. Once a product leaves the supplier and enters the cold supply chain, monitoring and controlling the surroundings of the shipment will be a difficult task which can be resolved by using latest technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), However, due to the resource constraints of such IoT devices, it is very easy to manipulate the data and provide falsified information by any adversary in order to disrupt the system. Hence, a robust architecture called PharmaChain 2.0, which is capable of efficiently and securely monitor and control the ambient parameters of shipments in cold chain using IoT, and a cloud architecture and IoT friendly Proof-of-Authentication consensus based blockchain technologies to increase confidence of safe consumption for end consumers.

Statistics indicate that 40% of road accidents are due to driving while intoxicated or due to driving under influence. With the improvements in science and technology, secure solutions with improvised, practicable, feasible mechanisms should be proposed to eliminate the occurrences of accidents. Keeping this in mind, BACTmobile a fully automated, smart and secured blood alcohol concentration (BAC) Tracking System for vehicles is proposed. BACTmobile collects physiological data, psychological behavior data and physical behavior data to analyze the BAC levels of a person. BAC levels are classified into five categories. With the vehicle’s infotainment along with smart connectivity, the driver is allowed to communicate with the vehicle. The collected and analyzed data are sent to cloud servers for storage purposes whilst maintaining security and privacy. A robust, high efficient BAC detection and prediction model is demonstrated with an accuracy of 99%.

The world population is anticipated to increase by close to 2 billion by 2050 causing a rapid escalation of food demand. A recent projection shows that the world is lagging behind accomplishing the "Zero Hunger" goal, in spite of some advancements. Socio-economic and well being fallout will affect the food security. Vulnerable groups of people will suffer malnutrition. To cater to the needs of the increasing population, the agricultural industry needs to be modernized, become smart, and automated. Traditional agriculture can be remade to efficient, sustainable, eco-friendly smart agriculture by adopting existing technologies. In this survey paper the authors present the applications, technological trends, available datasets, networking options, and challenges in smart agriculture. How Agro Cyber Physical Systems are built upon the Internet-of-Agro-Things is discussed through various application fields. Agriculture 4.0 is also discussed as a whole. We focus on the technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) which support the automation, along with the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) which provides data integrity and security. After an in-depth study of different architectures, we also present a smart agriculture framework which relies on the location of data processing. We have divided open research problems of smart agriculture as future research work in two groups - from a technological perspective and from a networking perspective. AI, ML, the blockchain as a DLT, and Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) based hardware security fall under the technology group, whereas any network related attacks, fake data injection and similar threats fall under the network research problem group.

Considering today's lifestyle, people just sleep forgetting the benefits sleep provides to the human body. Smart-Yoga Pillow (SaYoPillow) is proposed to help in understanding the relationship between stress and sleep and to fully materialize the idea of "Smart-Sleeping" by proposing an edge device. An edge processor with a model analyzing the physiological changes that occur during sleep along with the sleeping habits is proposed. Based on these changes during sleep, stress prediction for the following day is proposed. The secure transfer of the analyzed stress data along with the average physiological changes to the IoT cloud for storage is implemented. A secure transfer of any data from the cloud to any third party applications is also proposed. A user interface is provided allowing the user to control the data accessibility and visibility. SaYoPillow is novel, with security features as well as consideration of sleeping habits for stress reduction, with an accuracy of up to 96%.