Tech tool offers improved assurances for small business contracts
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 30-Jul-2025 16:11 ET (30-Jul-2025 20:11 GMT/UTC)
Researchers have demonstrated a new tool to improve the security of small-scale business transactions with the goal of helping ensure that businesses are paid and customers get what they pay for. The tool, which relies on blockchain-powered smart contracts, essentially serves the same function that letters of credit provide for large companies.
The school will integrate multiple forms of knowledge in order to advance towards the systemic changes required for the construction of more equitable and resilient societies. Applicants may submit until August 15.
Wastewater surveillance at treatment plants offers a low-cost, early warning method for detecting COVID-19. Researchers in Japan conducted an economic evaluation of a system for long-term care facilities that combines wastewater data with clinical testing thresholds to guide timely interventions. Their findings show that this approach could generate significant healthcare savings and improve outbreak response. The study supports wastewater surveillance as a scalable, cost-effective strategy for enhancing pandemic preparedness in vulnerable populations.
A researcher at Osaka Metropolitan University investigated the active travel effects of an mHealth app that incentivizes daily walking. The results revealed that the mHealth app’s incentives to exchange train tickets increased users’ daily walking steps by 626.2 steps/day for five months.
In the last two decades, childhood immunization coverage improved significantly across most African countries. However, at least 12 countries are unlikely to achieve global targets for full immunization by 2030, according to a new study publishing July 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Phuong The Nguyen of Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and colleagues.
When struggling to achieve our goals, it’s easy to give up if things don’t go as planned. However, the results of a new study involving researchers at the School of Management at Binghamton University, State University of New York show that thinking about the time you’ve invested, instead of the money you’ve spent, can more effectively boost your motivation.