Review History


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Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on November 10th, 2020 and was peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on December 8th, 2020.
  • The first revision was submitted on December 18th, 2020 and was reviewed by 1 reviewer and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on February 2nd, 2021.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Feb 2, 2021 · Academic Editor

Accept

Thanks for addressing the concerns.

·

Basic reporting

I note that the latest revision has changed "Ethereum" to "ethereum" which I don't think is correct - as a name, Ethereum should have capital "E", as in the original submission.

Experimental design

No further comments.

Validity of the findings

No further comments.

Additional comments

Thank you for making the suggested changes, the paper is looking very good now.

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Dec 8, 2020 · Academic Editor

Minor Revisions

The reviews are all positive, please revise the manuscript by addressing the comments from two reviewers that suggested minor suggestions and resubmit, Thanks.

·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

no comment

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

This is an excellent use case and road map on how to enable Ubiquitous computing in agriculture workloads now by integrating IoT devices and the data they can acquire and report upon. Placing this data on a blockchain creates immutability and adds value to workflow by creating trust in transactions and adding a layer of truth to the workflow. Great job!

·

Basic reporting

1) Most of the article is written in clear, professional English. Some minor grammatical corrections are needed as suggested in the annotated PDF attached to the review.

2) References are provided to prove that blockchain based smart contracts can be helpful in streamlining distribution and supply in agricultural sector

3) Professional article structure is followed. Figure 4 can be more understandable if order of steps is added.

4) Advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system are included in the paper which will be useful for future extensions or improvements of the proposed system.

Experimental design

1) Research question is well defined by setting the context where a solution is required. Relevant previous work in similar context and evidence for the advantage of using blockchain and smart contracts are also included

2) Good overview of blockchain and smart contracts and their usecases is included in the paper. Application of blockchain based smart contracts in agricultural sector is provided with reference to previous work in the area.

It will be good to answer the following questions:

3) Why MQTT was chosen for the design?

4) What is the source of cryptocurrency to the different type of actors in the system so that they can pay for the gas cost while submitting transactions to blockchain network?

Validity of the findings

1) It will be good to comment/document the code provided so that it is easy for reader to understand and use

2) How each batch is tracked in the supply and distribution chain can be useful to add in the design section? For example: barcodes or QR codes attached to the package? It will be good to answer the question.

3) It is mentioned that future goal is to deploy the system on their own blockchain. It will be good to mention the type of blockchain that will be used (Permissioned, public or hybrid). The type of blockchain can suggest how centralized or decentralized the whole system is.

Additional comments

Inclusion of IoT devices in the blockchain based agricultural food chain is a very interesting concept. It will be good to think about how these IoT devices can be authenticated , authorized and tracked in the system.

·

Basic reporting

Some small comments relating to a few references, and some of the language used, which could be improved in places...

“Contrarily, the farmers are the lowest paid seller in the whole chain. The price in retail shops is much higher, sometimes twice or thrice, than that the price sold by the farmers.”
Line 40, any reference here that can be cited?

Line 62 - missing word after mass

Eg line 80/81, Blockchain doesn’t need to be capitalised, it should be written “blockchain”

86 - should be “tamperproof”

(Nakamoto  2019) - is that the right reference?

140 - absurd not really the right word here - infeasible?

178 - By far, blockchain is the most secure way to deal with any kind of data. <⏤ I'm not sure about this claim

200 - usually would refer to author by last name, so Szabo not Nick here

211 - I don’t think Nakamoto 2008 is the correct reference here, for Ethereum

Various - check capitalisation of Remix and Solidity

495 - demonstration not demo (also other places)

Figure 10 - text is a bit small -

Experimental design

Seems good, meets criteria.

Validity of the findings

Seems good, well explained.

Additional comments

Thank you for your paper, which I enjoyed reading. It provides a good explanation of the situation being addressed, and the proposed solution. One thing that could be considered in the future is security/authenticity of the data from the IOT devices into the network. I particularly liked the very clear diagrams.

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