Recently, blockchain technology has gained considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. This is mainly due to its unique features including decentralization, security, reliability, and data integrity. Despite this growing interest, little is known about the current state of knowledge and practice regarding the use of blockchain technology in education. This article is a systematic review of research investigating blockchain-based educational applications. It focuses on three main themes: (1) educational applications that have been developed with blockchain technology, (2) benefits that blockchain technology could bring to education, and (3) challenges of adopting blockchain technology in education. A detailed results analysis of each theme was conducted as well as an intensive discussion based on the findings. This review also offers insight into other educational areas that could benefit from blockchain technology.

Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is an emerging technology used to solve spectrum shortage problems in wireless communications. In CRN, unlicensed secondary users (SUs) and licensed primary users (PUs) use spectrum resources at the same time by avoiding any interference from SUs. However, the spectrum sensing process in CRN is often disturbed by a security issue known as the Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). PUEA is one of the main security issues that disrupt the whole activity of CRN. The attacker transmits false information to interrupt the spectrum sensing process of CRN, which leads to poor usage of the spectrum. The proposed study uses a proficient Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) based localization method using the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm to identify the PUEA in CRNs. The DE algorithm is used to solve the objective function of TDOA values. The proposed methodology constructs a CRN and identifies PUEA. The proposed method aims to sense and localize PUEA efficiently. Mean Square Error (MSE) is the performance evaluation parameter that is used to measure the accuracy of the proposed technique. The results are compared with the previously proposed Firefly optimization algorithm (FA). It is clear from the results that DE converges faster than FA.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a huge part in arising innovations like smart applications, the Internet of Things, and numerous self-designed, independent applications. Energy exhaustion and efficient energy consumption are principal issues in wireless sensor networks. Energy is a significant and valuable asset of sensor nodes; early energy depletion ultimately leads to a shorter network lifetime and the replacement of sensor nodes. This research proposes a novel Power-Efficient Cluster-based Routing (PECR) algorithm. It takes in clustering using K-Means, the arrangement of Cluster Heads (CHs) and a Main Cluster Head (MCH), the optimal route choice, communication in light of the energy utilization model, cluster heads, and main cluster head alternation based on residual energy and relative location. PECR decreases traffic overburden, restricts energy usage, and at last, expands the network lifetime. Sensor nodes sense the information and transmit traffic to a Base Station (BS) through a legitimate channel. The results confirm it decreases the traffic overhead and effectively utilizes the energy assets. The simulation results show that PECR’s performance is 44% more improved than LEACH, EC, EECRP, and EECA algorithms. It is suitable for networks that require a stretched life.

No abstract

Quality education is one of the primary objectives of any nation-building strategy and is one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations. To provide quality education, delivering top-quality content is not enough. However, understanding the learners' emotions during the learning process is equally important. However, most of this research work uses general data accessed from Twitter or other publicly available databases. These databases are generally not an ideal representation of the actual learning process and the learners' sentiments about the learning process. This research has collected real data from the learners, mainly undergraduate university students of different regions and cultures. By analyzing the emotions of the students, appropriate steps can be suggested to improve the quality of education they receive. In order to understand the learning emotions, the XLNet technique is used. It investigated the transfer learning method to adopt an efficient model for learners' sentiment detection and classification based on real data. An experiment on the collected data shows that the proposed approach outperforms aspect enhanced sentiment analysis and topic sentiment analysis in the online learning community.