Multidimensional Development and π-Type Trend of the Blockchain Research: A Collaborative Network Analysis

Abstract

With the rapid growth of Internet technology, the blockchain has been developed fast in recent years with the wide expansions in finance, medicine, public welfare, and other fields. At the same time, the blockchain technology has also attracted researchers’ increasing attention, leading to a large number of scientific outputs that made significant contributions to blockchain research. However, few attempts can be found to investigate the development of blockchain based on the literature in this area. Therefore, this paper focuses on blockchain research by introducing bibliometric methods and comprehensively analyzes its status quo, emerging trends, and development path. Based on the above research, this paper draws two main conclusions. First, we made a comprehensive investigation of blockchain research in the past five years and then found that the main research directions in this area are Bitcoin, digital currency, and Fintech. Second, the development of blockchain research generally presents a trend of π-transformation based on the main path analysis. The above studies provide a brief view for beginners who want to learn blockchain research in a direct way and contribute to extend the theoretical foundation of blockchain research by giving a comprehensive bibliometric analysis.

Analysis of the Effect of Applying Ultrasound-Guided Nerve Block Anesthesia to Fracture Patients in the Context of Internet-Based Blockchain

“…As a decentralized, detrusted database technology solution with complete and transparent information and privacy protection, blockchain can build an efficient and reliable value transmission system and promote the Internet as a network infrastructure for building social trust [ 14 ]. Blockchain has significant advantages in optimizing business processes, reducing operating costs, and improving collaboration efficiency in the financial industry, and its application in other industries is also rapidly developing.…”

“…Due to the uneven progress of hospital informatization construction, some hospitals cannot integrate their internal information systems, poor interaction of information systems between hospitals, nonuniform data structure of medical records, and nonstandardized data standards of electronic medical records, which makes medical data sharing very difficult. There are many problems with the storage, transmission, and utilization of medical data, among which the problem of sensitive data leakage is very prominent [ 14 ]. In 2017, a medical enterprise in the United States caused about 47.5 GB of data leakage due to system mismanagement, involving sensitive private information such as names, addresses, and case records of about 150,000 patients.…”

“…At present, the concept of blockchain technology is recognized as explained in the White Paper on the Development of Blockchain Technology and Applications in China, which defines it as a new Internet application model with distributed data storage, peer-to-peer transmission, consensus mechanism, cryptographic algorithms, and other computer technologies. The unique features of blockchain include decentralization, being autonomous, security and trustworthiness, and openness and transparency [ 14 ].…”

“…According to statistics, half of the current experimental studies have unreported experimental results, and blockchain technology can address the selective reporting and untrue results in clinical experiments, thus reducing the occurrence of academic misconduct. Blockchain-based research data would be time-stamped and publicly transparent, and all plans, consents, protocols, and possible outcomes could be stored on the blockchain even before clinical trials begin [ 14 ]. The blockchain could also link the several phases of a clinical trial together, and the trial would only move to the next phase if all steps were followed and the methods used were properly validated, thus ensuring transparency and credibility of the clinical trial.…”

“…With the widespread use of ultrasound devices and the great development of ultrasound guidance technology, ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve blocks have been gradually applied to various clinical procedures. Relevant studies have confirmed that the application of ultrasound guidance technology can effectively improve the success rate of anesthesia, reduce complications, and decrease the amount of anesthesia [ 14 ].…”