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We are living in a world where technological development speed is far beyond our imaginations. We cannot deny the fact that we are surrounded by multiple advanced devices and gadgets. We are adapted to live with technology and therefore, the best choice for us is to gain more benefit from this evolution. Many hallucinations of our ancestors now have become routine procedures in our daily life. We perform telesurgery, Artificial Intelligence is assisting in many disciplines nowadays and ambitiously we plan to live on other planets now.
With the help of research and development of human biomarkers, we could imagine performing tasks like managing some daily tasks with our mind, like turning the lights on or off, perform website authentication with our brain signals, play video games without using our hands. Moreover, examining our heart rate and brain signals in daily intervals to prevent and eradicate diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s will not be a dream anymore. We could expect our emotional and mental health in many situations (like work environment, resting time, etc.) and delay our mental fatigue and improve our performance by managing stress and pressure imposed by the work environment. Also, playing favorite music based on our current mood and impulsive favorite movie ending would be the simplest target.
Imagine if the world had a population 25 times larger than it is today. Now place that population in a space of larger than a tenth of a square meter. This new world is your brain and the brain cells are the population. The human brain is the most complex living system in the universe, and much of what we do results from communication and information exchange between these cells. Part of this information is electrical. Thus, the human brain produces a significant amount of electrical current that can be recorded as brain signals. Besides brain activity, heart activity, muscle activity, skin perspiration and temperature can also be categorized as human biomarkers and could be recorded. These contain valuable information, which we call bio-signals. In fact, bio-signals are the language of our brain and body; If we understand this language, the dream of Zarela utopia will come true.
All of the above imaginations could be considered as businesses with specific goals which require a platform to operate. That platform is Zarela. Zarela’s metaverse facilitates the above-mentioned missions with the help of a virtual world. Users are enabled to interact with a variety of hardware and devices like headsets, gadgets and Zarela’s Pod. Metaverse users could build their own virtual entities equipped with a diversity of tools in which they can provide services to other users and metaverses by applying Artificial Intelligence concepts on the bio-signals. They can actualize and implement their future biosignal-based services through the Zarela’s metaverse. The Pod is another conceptualized toolset that provides users with a compact spherical environment that encompasses multiple mini-tools related to record and process the bio-signals. The Pod plays a facilitator role to make Zarela’s dream come true.
Furthermore, it is vital for us to monitor people with special needs and difficulties, like any people with disabilities. These grateful people can touch their dreams by involving themselves into metaverse and exchange their bio-signals through this platform and observe how other researchers and developers are endeavoring to make the life for disabled people easier.
Zarela is a P2P Data platform for trading biosignals on the blockchain network.
Nowadays, signal processing and especially bio-signal processing is among top research fields of study with significant growing applications, tools and services in this domain. It is a multidisciplinary field in such a way that researchers and practitioners from different areas of expertise, like engineering, medical and computer science, intensively collaborate on the models and techniques inspired by the biological system of the human. The aim of this cooperation is to improve the quality of living and enhance the individual’s health condition. Thus, bio-signals including Human brain signals, are classified as the unique and spontaneous characteristics of any person.
Zarela is a free, border-less and open-source platform built upon the blockchain technology for collection and delivering human bio-signals to the researchers and entities demanding for bio-signal data. The motivation is to enable any anonymous participant to share and trade their bio-signal data through the Zarela’s platform and deliver accurate data to the researchers and labs in a trusted and secure fashion regarding the data ownership for research institutions and privacy. There are two major features associated with the Zarela project that are summarized below and explained throughout this document.
First, an innovative approach has been chosen to introduce Proof-of-Contribution as a turnkey solution for the entire ecosystem to operate. Proof-of-Contribution has been implemented by Zarela’s smart contract and enables the volunteer (they are named as Angel throughout this document) participant and bio-signal requester (Mage) to exchange Zarela tokens anonymously with bio-signals data over the blockchain network that relies on the decentralized property of the blockchain technology.
The second feature is Zarela’s Bioverse, which is a visualized reflection of the Proof-of-Contribution. We have implemented a distinct virtual world (Bioverse) based on the contribute-to-earn concept, unlike other Bioverse that are play-to-earn. Zarela’s Bioverse encircles all the neuroscience and other technical claims made throughout this document in a visualized environment named Bioverse.
All good? Let's explore some of the main Zarela concepts, starting with Zarela Utopia.
For a project that requires some sort of data sets (bio-signal data sets, for instance) as the input, it is a cumbersome process to advertise, pursue and motivate human subjects to perform data collection. In many circumstances, freely available data sets are insufficient and the need to collect data from targeted subjects is undeniable. The participants might not care much about goals of the research project and it is time-consuming and expensive to motivate them for contribution.
A potential solution to this challenge would reimburse participants by digitized assets instead of vouchers or even money. The exchange will be performed through Zarela’s smart contract settled on the Ethereum blockchain. For this reason, Zarela’s token (BioBit) could be considered as a reward that can be considered as an investment for the future as well. By referring to the decentralized instinct of the Zarela’s platform, Mages are capable of data collection from all around the globe. To elaborate more, Angels from regions with slightly weaker economic could contribute and earn in exchange for contribution. This will help Mages accelerate the data collection as well.
In many research projects, participants do not have clear and concise information about the expected research objectives. This could be considered as a communication gap between researchers and potential participants. Particularly, research coordinators try to motivate participants by offering simple vouchers to the participants. Obviously, by providing structured research roadmap and expected outcomes to the participants, the chance of having more engagement from them will be increased.
In Zarela’s ecosystem, there are three distinct players with specific roles. They are Angels, Mages and Hubs. At Zarela, a Mage must provide a structured explanation about the underlying research project in order to be able to communicate with Angels through the Hubs. Z-paper is a simple but comprehensive document that should be submitted to Zarela’s platform by Mage. Thus, if a research project does not convey an obvious goal in its Z-paper, it is less likely to be able to collect data sets. So, a well described Z-paper would explicitly define participants’ roles in the research project as well as making sure the research project follows solid goals.
The exponential growth of blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency market has gone through many ups and downs and it is evolving rapidly to the extent that some experts believe that this technology will strongly impact the future of information, communication, financial, and payment technologies.
Zarela’s team launched this project in the conviction and firm belief that the fundamental advantages of blockchain technology and decentralized autonomous technologies are powerful tools for commercializing production and consumption of vital human information market.
Zarela invites everyone including any potential Angel, Mage or Hub to join our platform. Besides, we proudly invite any individual or firm who has sufficient financial capacity or has had any past economic activities in this field to accompany us. Also every motivated individual or firm willing to accept some investment risk and who believe in our team member capabilities is warmly appreciated to join Zarela’s platform.
The ownership of the transferred data between Mage and Angel belongs to the Mage. In every research, the participant gives the right to Mage to access their data that has been provided voluntarily. Also, participants are free to give access to their bio-signal data to over one researcher (Mage) and participate in more than one research project (Contradiction with the Mage’s data ownership). Because of the decentralized nature of the Zarela, no personal information such as telephone number or email or any private information will be revealed to any Mage or never stored elsewhere. Zarela does not build any database of its users’ choices and decisions. To facilitate and enhance the user experience when using the application, Zarela has a built-in feature that allows the users to store and retrieve information of their choice in their browser.
Generally, in research projects, the quality of gathered data plays an important and undeniable role. If the collected data does not follow some specific standards, especially in neuroscience studies, the project’s outcome will be determined as inaccurate and inconsistent. Therefore, researchers might spend a considerable amount of time and overhead cost to acquire data with higher quality for their projects.
In the Zarela platform, researchers (Mages) will submit their request for data along with a document called Z- paper. Inside the Z-paper, Mage is introduced and goals and features of their studies are described in a simple and understandable language in order to make responders (Angels) better realize the projects in a nutshell. More importantly, the Z-paper contains descriptions of standards and guidelines that Angle needs to follow or fulfill to submit a high quality of data. Thus, researcher (Mage) ensures that responder (Angel) is aware of the Mage’s expectation of data quality. Moreover, Mages are enabled to examine the quality of received data from Angels prior to execution of BioBit exchange for the provided data.
Most times, people stop participating in research projects and decide not to help researchers. One of the main reasons is that they have concerns about their privacy in data. Angels might think that their anonymity is compromised if they participate.
The underlying technology of Zarela’s ecosystem is Blockchain. One of the properties of the Blockchain network is that any participation will remain secured and anonymous, although Blockchain itself is unaware of the data exchange between peers because the data is encrypted using asymmetric public-key cryptography.
In public key cryptosystems (like Blockchain), each peer holds a pair of public and private keys. Private key is used for signing the messages and decrypting data while the public keys are used to validate signatures and data encryption. Furthermore, any action taken using the private key can be validated using the corresponding public key of any peer. Public-key encryption operates in such a way that every peer of the network has a copy of another’s peer public key, while the peer’s private key is only known to the peer itself. The data will be encrypted at the origin peer and by the target peer’s public key and could only be decrypted by the target peer’s private key and no one else.
Obviously, the data collection process is the initial stage of every intelligent system which intends to perform behavioral analysis and consequently expect the deterministic or non-deterministic outcome. Here, a major challenge will be the tediousness of the data collection process itself. As an example, if a system requires data to be collected from multiple subjects based on different parameters and in multiple trials, the time needed to be allocated for data collection will be considerably enormous. We will consider this as a challenge of time.
Data collection is one of the most expensive stages of any project or system. To elucidate more, a known type of cost will be transportation cost of the subject from her origin to the center of data collection during observational data collection. During experimental data collection, researchers need to be involved and perform measurements during the procedure. This also requires arrangement and involvement of the researcher that will not be free in most cases plus the cost of measurement equipment. During simulation, the cost of the simulator is applied, and it is variable depending on the context of the study or experiment. There will be a major cost of participation payable to the participant to motivate them to involve into the process of data collection. This is classified as a significant cost.
Zarela’s Smart Contract is written in Solidity programming language and it follows the ERC-20 standard of the Ethereum blockchain. Zarela’s Smart Contract source code is accessible on the Zarela’s and available under MIT license. Zarela’s Smart Contract has utilized with variety of functionalities and activities. Tree main activity of the Zarela’s Smart Contract is as following:
Providing the Mage with capability of request submission on Zarela’s app
Empowering the Angel/Hub with the ability to respond to the request/s
In Zarela, Hubs are playing a vital role regarding how qualified the collected data are. Hubs are facilitators, validators and sometimes verifiers in the process of data collection. Mostly, they are institutions and centers of neuroscience. They are equipped with various advanced hardware and many neuroscience experts are working inside Hubs. All aspects of the Z-paper submitted by a Mage are clear to Hubs and they are aware of the details of expectation of Mages about the data quality.
Therefore, neither Ethereum nor Zarela, which has been built on the Ethereum blockchain, will know the transmitted data between two peers. In this way, secure Peer-to-Peer interaction between Angels and Mages would be possible.
In practice, the data collection process, regardless of in which context the data being collected, involves interaction with subjects (either human subject or nonhuman). In the medical field, for instance, this interaction needs some sort of medical-related skill sets, expertise of clinicians and equipment while data is being collected. But a computer science researcher who is actively doing research in the medical domain and trying to create an intelligent system based on collected data does not necessarily need to hold that expertise or access to some special equipment like EEG devices, etc. Therefore, either cost of collaboration between clinician expert and researcher should be affordable or the project might have been affected by time delay due to lack of expertise and equipment. In fact, this is a matter of both time and cost.
Based on above mentioned time-related challenges, what would be the potential solution? Zarela has implemented a system to enable Angels (volunteer participants) and former researchers (or research institutions) to act as participant entities and contribute to supply bio-signal data sets. They can share their bio-signal data sets through Zarela’s platform (by Zarela’s smart contract) and significantly reduce the time of the bio-signals collection in projects with homogeneous data modality or similar context.
For example, Mages (a researcher or any research institute) could be connected to the Hubs and acquire the bio-signal data sets (center or labs that are equipped with facilities and devices to record bio-signals) regardless of any geographical limitation. This capability of the Zarela platform can help the Mages diminish the time of bio-signal data collection while ensuring secure exchange of the bio-signal data sets.
Another advantage would be cost reduction of the data collection process by providing capability to exchange data sets (bio-signals) by Zarela’s token (BioBit) on the blockchain. It could better motivate the Angles to participate in the data collection process and let them invest in BioBit digitized assets. In terms of cost, the borderless feature of Zarela’s platform for data collection would be an advantage to gather bio-signals from Angels (those will receive their contribution rewards by BioBit tokens) who will provide bio-signals at a cheaper price.
In addition, there are four major foundational functions (each of which performs a certain task) of the Zarela’s Smart Contract that has been demonstrated in the table below.
Table1. List of four major Zarela’s smart contract functions
submitNewRequest
Enables the Mage to create a request on the Zarela’s app and furthermore, facilitates the Wage token transfer to the Zarela’s Smart Contract by the Mage. Wage tokens will be distributed by Zarela’s Smart Contract to the contributors afterwards
Contribute
Executes the process of biosignal file transfer from the Angel/Hub to the Mage as well as provides address wallet registration functionality to the Angels/Hubs on the Zarela’s app and append the addresses to the payment queue in order to receive distributable daily reward and Wage token from the Mage
confirmContributor
This function confirms whether the biosignal file approved by Mage or not. If approved, wage tokens will be distributed to the Angels/Hubs addresses by Zarela’s Smart Contract
Reward
This function performs the actual calculation and distribution of the total daily rewards among contributors
It is vital to mention that data completeness and data accuracy is a preliminary requirement for an intelligent system that has been built upon the Artificial Intelligent concepts and using Machine learning and Deep learning techniques. Many intelligent systems are suffering from an absence of sufficient data sets while they could build AI and Machine learning models more easily and quickly.
As the volume of data sets grows, intelligent systems are able to produce more accurate and reliable outcomes. Considering the presence of Proof-of-Contribution that is performed by many Mages, Hubs and Angels within Zarela’s decentralized platform we could expect big bio-signal data being created and Mages could make the most benefit out of this big data and produce better results out of their systems.
At present, biomedical information and, more specifically, Biomedical signals (bio-signals), are classified as a dynamic branch of natural science. Foremost, application of bio-signal processing that could be thought by any individual is the medical and disabled assistance field. It is absolutely true but, nowadays, applications of bio-signals have been expanded to cover a wide range of domains including Sport and Rehabilitation exercise, Marketing, Management and leadership, Human Resource, Brain Computer Interface, Education, Human Computer Interaction, Autonomous Driving, Game, AR/VR technologies and many more. Considering the broad contribution of bio-signals in multiple areas of study, we could eventually outline the emerging role of bio-signal datasets in the future of above-mentioned technologies and research.
In-fact, In the medical and disabled assistance field, physicians and human service experts utilize the outcome of processed biosignals to perform diagnosis of medical diseases (like high blood pressure and disabled people’s circumstances) and issues. Biosignal types mostly drop into two categories: action potential (like Electromyogram, Electroneurogram, Electrocardiogram, Electroencephalogram and event-related potential Electroencephalogram, Phonocardiogram.
The number of studies in the field of bio-signal data analysis is sharply growing. In the diagrams below, we examined just two types of fields among many that are related to bio-signal processing [30]. As mentioned earlier, two types of systematic review research presented below are concentrated on improved detection of humans’ Hypertension and Human Machine Interface for assistance and rehabilitation. According to the statistics extracted from the literature and illustrated below, we could confirm that the level of importance of bio-signal datasets is growing exponentially. It could be summarized that by increasing attempts on research and development on various types of bio-signals which have been performed during the past decade, there will be a higher percentage of demand from research centers and industries for bio-signal datasets which results in generation of Big Data of bio-signals in the close future [30].
Ambitiously, we at Zarela recognized the trends of bio-signal usage, which is explained above. We developed a platform based upon the blockchain technology to enable people from any occupation to gain advantage either in requesting bio-signals or providing bio-signals. Blockchain has been selected as the underlying technology of Zarela’s platform to let requesters and providers of the bio-signals exchange the dataset in a secure and trusted manner. Moreover, requesters and providers of the bio-signals could obtain beneficial features spiritually and financially. From one hand and regarding the fact that the cost of accurate bio-signals datasets might be high for the requesters, it will be much more cost efficient for them to acquire the clean and accurate datasets through the Zarela’s ecosystem. On the other hand, providers of bio-signals also could receive a spiritual benefit of contribution involvement in the research as well as financial benefit by exchanging bio-signals with BioBit token.
As mentioned earlier, Zarela’s smart contract has been developed on the Ethereum blockchain platform and it is open-source and available to public. In Zarela, users are not required to complete registration and authentication. Technically speaking, any user’s interconnection to the Zarela would be through the written smart contract. Therefore, users will be known by their address of wallet that is generated by the Ethereum network. This is a feature of the blockchain that details of the user’s communication with the Ethereum blockchain (including details of any exchanged bio-signal file) would be encrypted and remain unknown to the Zarela’s platform and to the Ethereum network itself. The only prerequisite for Zarela’s users is to have an Ethereum wallet such as Metamask and a sufficient amount of Ethereum for their transaction fees.
All financial transactions in Zarela are done automatically through Zarela’s smart contract. This implies that one side of any transaction in Zarela’s app is always Zarela’s smart contract address. Token transfers on Zarela’s platform are performed in the following two ways:
If a request is submitted by a Mage, Zarela’s smart contract address will be the destination of the financial transaction. Scenario will be as following:
Zarela’s smart contract address is the destination of a financial transaction. In this case when a request initiated, the total number of Wage tokens will be deposited into Zarela’s smart contract address.
When Zarela is the origin of a financial transaction, rewards and wages tokens are withdrawn from Zarela’s smart contract and deposited into the account of Angels and Hubs for their participations. This situation occurs on daily cases for reward and wage token distributions.
These operations are discussed in the next section.
Zarela’s smart contract has been written in solidity under the compiler version 0.7.6 commit.7338295f with MIT license. Source code of the smart contract is accessible on the Zarela’s GitHub page:
Zarela’s users are able to add the Zarela’s smart contract address below to one of the wallets supported by Ethereum and start using decentralized proof of contribution service. There are plenty of useful tutorials available to users on the for this purpose.
Also, comprehensive guide available on the page for users to find and setup Zarela’s smart contract address with Ethereum supported wallets.
Zarela’s smart contract address: 0xf67192a8b9f269f23802d9ab94c7875a0abb7aea
When a new request has submitted by the Mage on the Zarela’s platform, Angel/s can engage by evaluating the submitted request and reviewing the Z-paper associated with the request. When an Angel has decided to contribute, she is required to follow the instruction described in the Z-paper and submit her biosignal file/s based on the Z-paper specifications. Angel/s might essentially required to set up an appointment with the specified Hub/s (mentioned in the Z-paper by the Mage) to send her biosignal and accomplish the contribution. With the rapid speed of technology advancement and proliferation of wearable gadgets in the near future, recording of the brain heart and other biosignal would be possible anytime and anywhere.
Technically speaking, The submitted biosignal file initially encrypted symmetrically with a secret key before uploading the biosignal. Then, the secret key is asymmetrically encrypted with the requester’s encryption public key. Finally, the encrypted biosignal file, and encrypted secret key are uploaded to the IPFS network and their CIDs (Content-Identifier) are stored on the blockchain.
A Content-Identifier, or CID, is a label used to point to material in IPFS file system. It doesn’t indicate where the content is stored, but it forms a kind of address based on the content itself. CIDs are short, regardless of the size of their underlying content.
Content-Identifiers are based on the content’s cryptographic hash. That means:
Any difference in the content will produce a different CID
The same content added to two different IPFS nodes using the same settings will produce the same CID
InterPlanetary File System uses the sha-256 hashing algorithm by default, but there is support for many other algorithms.
Contributors on the Zarela’s platform could be Angels or Hubs. Therefore, any Hub which cooperates as a partner in the process of bio-signal contribution is eligible to receive reward from the reward pool as well as wage tokens from the Mages. Here, the Hub’s public key will be represented to the Zarela’s Smart Contract later to receive distributable wage tokens. Likewise Angels, Also Hubs are required to compensate the Ethereum transaction fee before they become eligible for reward token and wage token distributions. The execution of reward function has been demonstrated in details in section .
In Zarela’s ecosystem there are three distinguished players (details of definition of each player and their role are available in ). With respect to the contribution and from the Angel’s view point, Angels are only acting as bio-signal supplier of the system. They perform the Proof-of-Contribution and transfer their bio-signals in exchange for the Biobit rewards. From the Mage’s perspective, mages are demanding for the contribution and compensate the bio-signal received from Angel with Wage tokens. But, Hubs in Zarela could be considered as a shadow-like entity in-between Angel and Mage. The reason is, Hubs are utilized with neuroscience- related hardware and equipment and they are mostly institutions of neuroscience which are interacting with the community of people with brain disorders and diseases. Thus, they sometimes might be cooperate in the bio-signal contribution along with Angels and receive the Wage tokens. And sometimes, they might involve in neuroscience research projects and demanding for bio-signal file. In this case, Hubs act similar to the Mages.
All Zarela users (including the Angles, the Hubs and the Mages as well as any other third party involved) agree and accept that using and benefiting of/from the Zarela website, application and services of this network requires a complete study of Zarela’s white paper and acceptance of all terms and conditions as stipulated in this Zarela’s present disclaimer.
Zarela is committed to adhere to all applicable laws and regulations of the relevant jurisdiction(s), to which Zarela is/will be subjected. However, no liability shall be on the burden of Zarela and its team members due to any unlawful act or omission (including, but not limited to, breach of any obligation, torts and criminal behaviors of the users of Zarela’s platform, including any sort of abuse of the smart contract by such parties or any other third party, upon which Zarela have not any control or surveillance.
Zarela is a platform based on blockchain technology, open-source and free. Users will never enter any business directly or indirectly with the team members and founders of Zarela’s network to use it and its protocol. They will not pay any fees to Zarela’s team.
The users are personally and exclusively liable for the legal, economic, administrative and financial consequences of registering and/or exchanging any inaccurate, unscientific, unethical or false data or any kind of inputs, which are contrary to the laws and regulations in force of any relevant jurisdiction(s).
All files and registered data sent to Zarela are solely under the user’s control and cannot be edited or deleted after registration. Each user is personally and exclusively responsible for sending and registering files and data. Users are notified that Zarela does not have any access to their files and registered data. Consequently, users acknowledge that Zarela is under no obligation, responsibility and/or liability, here under, for the security or retrieval of the said files and data.
This function of the ZSC is specifically executed by the Mage. The result of a submitted request that associated with at least one contributor will be a file that is placed on the inbox page of the Mage on . Then, Mage could download the file and examine the correctness of it. Technically, the Mage decrypts the secret key with her private key (using Metamask). afterwards, Mage decrypts the file has been sent by Angel with a decrypted secret key and gets access to the contents of the file. It is noticeable that this process is only available on the desktop version of Zarela app and the Mage must use the Metamask wallet to decrypt the files. The list of Hub and Angel’s public keys and the hash of their submitted files are displayed separately on the inbox page of the . After downloading and reviewing the files, the Mage can determine which contributions are eligible to receive the Wage tokens. Furthermore, The approved biosignal files that their contributors have received the Wage tokens are specified in the list and Mage can determine which of the biosignal files have been approved and which of them not.
AI : Artificial Intelligence.
BCI : Brain Computer Interface
CID : Content-Identifier.
ECG : Electrocardiogram.
EEG : Electroencephalogram.
EMG : Electromyogram.
ENG : Electroneurogram.
HMI : Human Machine Interface.
IPFS : InterPlanetary File System.
So far, we discussed some challenges and their solutions. Zarela’s objectives are not restricted to satisfying challenges but, at Zarela, we are concerned about Sustainable Development Goals as well. SDGs are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all human beings until the year 2030.
SDG3: Good health and well-being goal conforms to Zarela’s mission to detect mental disorders in early stages and protect people against severe diseases like Dementia and Parkinson in elderly ages. We aim at leveraging the mental’s quality of life for every human. We believe that by using Zarela’s Peer-to-Peer platform, researchers in the field of neuroscience can facilitate the data collection. As the result, new methods of brain disease mitigation will be developed to assure good health and well-being among adults.
SDG4: Quality of education determined to be another goal of Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Zarela is a Peer-to-Peer platform of data exchange between researchers and participants or businesses and customers. We elaborate on the fact that Zarela’s platform is ready to host business and startups in the field of neuro- education based on blockchain technology.
We alleviated the procedure of blockchain-based platform creation and Zarela’s blockchain-based Peer-to-Peer platform could be employed by businesses in the field of neuroscience and more specifically neuro-education. The integration process is quiet straight-forward since Zarela operates on the Ethereum blockchain (Smart contract code is written by solidity programming language) and our smart contract code is open-source and free to use. Therefore, we stimulate researchers and developers in the area of neuro-education to integrate their business use-cases into Zarela’s platform and provide service to their clients.
The information contained in the requests (such as the ones mentioned in the Z-paper) and the responses and/or reactions from the, Hubs, Angels and the like reflect the personal opinions of their submitter. Since the Zarela and its team members have no control over requests from one hand and the responses, reactions and/or contributions from the other, and there is no possibility of imposing censorship by Zarela on this network or other similar structured networks, the information contained and/or exchanged in/between the requests and responses have nothing to do with Zarela.
Zarela merely provides a sound online blockchain-based platform, via a pre-designed smart contract, for users (including the Mages, the Hubs and the Angels) for the purpose of development of neuroscience sector, facilitating the relevant academic researches and treatment of patients suffering from related diseases and abnormalities. Consequently, Zarela, as a contributory platform, does not and cannot interfere with the above-said parties’ contractual and legal relationships. As the Angles willfully consent to submit the requested data and/or biosignals to the Mages and they acknowledge that the latter will be the sole and exclusive owner of the sent data (upon being remunerated by Biobits), no claims or objection will be acceptable afterwards by such parties.
The Mages are deemed to ensure the accuracy and correctness of their statements stipulated in the Z-paper and no responsibility and/or liability shall be on the Zarela in this regard. Zarela, hereby, declares that it cannot ensure that all requests made by Mages are genuine and free of any fraud and this is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the said party to act according to the laws and regulations of any relevant jurisdiction to which they are subjected. The analytical reports provided by Zarela or its team members on its website or communicated or published anywhere else shall not be considered as recommendation for the purchase, sale, or holding of Biobit tokens, which is the utility token of Zarela’s network. The same goes with any other types of crypto assets. The users are solely responsible for using this information and, hence, they are not exempted from studying and doing in-depth research concerning the relevant concepts and ecosystems. As the pre-desigend smart contract’s functions are immutable and decentralized, no interference from Zarela to change the process and its consecutive and irreversible stages is imaginable. Therefore, all users acknowledge that such functionalities or potential failures or delays (such as the time intervals for releasing the Biobits) are out of Zarela’s control and authority.
The Zarela team makes every effort to ensure that the information contained on the website and app is accurate. However, this information is for informing users only and shall not be considered as directive instructions. All users shall undergo sufficient research and studies to ensure the rightness and legality of their own actions and/or statements.
Zarela does not undertake any responsibility with respect to the legal and regulatory consequences of any infringement of Zarela’s intellectual property rights by the users and the third parties, directly or indirectly.
PCG : Phonocardiogram.
PoC : Proof-of-Contribution.
SDG : Sustainable Development Goals.
ZSC : Zarela’s Smart Contract.
SDG10: Reduced Inequality is another very important goal. Zarela adheres to the statement that all human including disabled people should be treated equally. To clarify the Zarela’s role, we actively invite the Brain Computer Interface intuitions and neuroscience centers to connect to our Peer-to-Peer platform as Hubs and facilitate the data collection. By this, many Hubs all around the world could collaborate on the similar research projects related to disabled people. They could share research outcomes or challenges and collaboratively tackle problems.
Moreover, the Z-paper is a document submitted by Mages and facilitates the participation of disabled people who wish to voluntarily share their biosignals (it is generally linked to the above challenge 5,6).
Since all transactions in Zarela are done anonymously and to enhance the convenience of using the Zarela application, the Mage can choose a nickname for the address of a participant and save it locally. Hence, instead of displaying the address in lists and logs, she can see the nickname.
Confirmation of submitted files can be done individually or in batches. To do so, the “Confirm Contributor” function is triggered in the smart contract. The operation of this function is such that with the approval of Mage, the amount of Biobit specified as Wage tokens is sent to the selected addresses. Further details of this function are available in the GitHub codes.
The use of biosignals is increasing every day. Some of its applications are:
Biosignals can be used to diagnose various mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, memory disorders, autism, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)[11][13][15]. as well as physical conditions such as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems[19][26]. They made it possible for us to become aware of diseases such as Alzheimer’s years before they were diagnosed [28][25]. By interpreting biosignals predicting a heart attack or a stroke is possible, from a few days to a few hours before they happen [19][26].
More than 10% of people around the world have mental health problems. A patient may have to change the type and dose of their medication for a long time until the doctor finds out which medication is the most suitable and effective. Based on the information obtained from cardiac and brain biosignals, the best medication and dosage for the treatment of mental problems could be recognized in a shorter time [7][22] and the patient can benefit more from their medication process [6][32].
Many people have problems in their learning process (education or skills). They may get tired and bored quickly or may not be able to learn well. The combination of biosignal findings with educational techniques can be used to make changes in the teaching of mathematics, art, science and curriculum development to make the learning environment more attractive and efficient for individuals [14][16][20].
Neuromarketing is a method that examines biosignals to better identify and understand how decisions are made in the consumer’s brain. The primary assumption in neuromarketing is that the process of decision making is not logical, but this process is formed in the depths of the brain and is based on a combination of thoughts and feelings. The most important goal of neuromarketing is to examine the emotional and perceptual reactions of the brain while making different choices. The goal of neuromarketing is to better convey marketing messages to others and to increase the purchase possibility, which in turn reduces marketing and advertising budgets. Based on neuromarketing, which measures how we choose [2][3], other sciences such as neuropolitics, neurodesign, and neuroeconomics have emerged [4].
Neuroleadership is the application of neuroscience and biosignals in leadership development, management training, change management, training, and consulting [1][24]. Neuroleadership focuses on different aspects of an organization/industry and its employees and how the brain and fundamental neural processing affects the relationship between managers and employees. Its main purpose is to apply neuroscience to increase management ability, change management, creativity and increase work engagement [21]. The general framework of Neuroleadership includes 4 areas of decision making, problem solving, emotion regulation, cooperation and facilitation of change [24].
There are two general types of Brain Computer Interface. The Active Brain-Computer Interface (Active BCI) method helps people with mobility, vision, or hearing impairments use brain biosignals to control artificial limbs with a computer, as if they are controlled by their own brain. The ultimate goal is to connect the brain to the computer to optimize functionality[23]. In the Passive Brain Computer Interface (Passive BCI), various biosignals are recorded and analyzed in real time. The result of this analysis is an instant or real-time understanding of people’s emotional states that can be used in operational environments, team resource evaluation, training and evaluation of expertise, and video games to improve performance[12].
Biosignals are used to continuously monitor attention, concentration, fatigue, and the cognitive load in sensitive jobs such as drivers, watchtower officers, and employees in the control department of various industries. Based on the information achieved, it is possible to warn a person when he is tired, or based on the brain fatigue level, information can be presented in the form of visual, auditory or combined [5][9][10].
Biosignals can be used as part of the Internet of Things (IoT) management, i.e., communication with computers, digital and mechanical devices, humans and animals as distinct members of the network. For example, based on biosignal information, the ambient temperature, the room light or the way the ventilation system works could be adjusted [8][17].
By recording biosignals and providing feedback based on their changes, we can help improve memory, attention and learning, as well as reduce stress and increase mood. These methods are commonly known as Neurofeedback and Biofeedback, and in addition to optimizing the performance of ordinary people, it also has a great effect on improving the performance of athletes, managers and artists [18][31].
[1] Ghadiri A., A. Habermacher, and T. Peters. Neuroscience for Business, in Neuroleadership. Springer, 2012.
[2] Hakim A. and D.J. Levy. “A gateway to consumers’ minds: Achievements, caveats, and prospects of electroencephalography-based prediction in neuromarketing”. In: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 10 (2 2019), e14185.
[3] Alvino L. et al. “Picking your brains: Where and how neuroscience tools can enhance marketing research”. In: Frontiers in neuroscience 14 (2020), p. 1221.
[4] Cherubino P. et al. “Consumer behaviour through the eyes of neurophysiological measures: State-of-the-art and future trends”. In: Computational intelligence and neuroscience (2019).
[5] Giannakakis G. et al. “Review on psychological stress detection using biosignals”. In: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (2019).
[6] Jobert M. et al. “Guidelines for the recording and evaluation of pharmaco-EEG data in man: the International Pharmaco-EEG Society (IPEG)”. In: Neuropsychobiology 66 (4 2012), pp. 201–220.
[7] Lozupone M. et al. “The role of biomarkers in psychiatry”. In: Reviews on biomarker studies in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders (2019), pp. 135–162.
[8] Muhammad Sayem A.S. et al. “Review on smart electro-clothing systems (SeCSs)”. In: Sensors 20 (3 2020), p. 587.
[9] Shimizu T. et al. “Real-time evaluation of driver cognitive loads based on multivariate biosignal analysis”. In: IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) (2020).
[10] Varandas R. et al. “Automatic Cognitive Workload Classification Using Biosignals for Distance Learning Applications”. In: Doctoral Conference on Computing, Electrical and Industrial Systems-Springer (2021).
[11] Alcaniz and et al. M. “Autism spectrum disorder biomarkers based on biosignals, virtual reality and artificial intelligence”. In: Medicina 80 (2020), pp. 31–36.
[12] P. et al. Aric`o. “Passive BCI beyond the lab: current trends and future directions”. In: Physiological measurement 39 (8 2018), 08TR02.
[13] B. Bandelow and et al. “Biological markers for anxiety disorders, OCD and PTSD: A consensus statement. Part II: Neurochemistry, neurophysiology and neurocognition”. In: The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry 18 (3 2017), pp. 162–214.
[14] Merideth C. The Impact of Neuro-Education Intervention Methods upon the Learning and Development of an Individual with Developmental Disabilities. University of Portland, 2021.
[15] Maron E. and D. Nutt. “Biological markers of generalized anxiety disorder”. In: Dialogues in clinical neuroscience 19 (2 2017), p. 147.
[16] Espino-D´ıaz and L. et al. “Creating Interactive Learning Environments through the Use of Information and Communication Technologies Applied to Learning of Social Values: An Approach from Neuro-Education”. In: Social Sciences 9 (5 2020), p. 72.
[17] Qureshi F. and S. Krishnan. “Wearable hardware design for the internet of medical things (IoMT)”. In: Sensors 18 (11 2018), p. 3812.
[18] Viviani G. and A. Vallesi. “EEG-neurofeedback and executive function enhancement in healthy adults: A systematic review”. In: Psychophysiology 58 (9 2021), e13874.
[19] Babu G.C. and S. Shantharajah. “Remote health patient monitoring system for early detection of heart disease”. In: International Journal of Grid and High Performance Computing (IJGHPC) 13 (2 2021), pp. 118–130.
[20] Ocampo Alvarado J.C. “On the neuro in neuroeducation: from psychologization to the neurologization of school”. In: Sophia, Colecci´on de Filosof´ıa de la Educaci´on 29 (2019), pp. 141–169.
[21] Zwaan L.A., D. Aiken, and R. Viljoen. “The role of neuroleadership in work engagement”. In: SA Journal of Human Resource Management 17 (1 2019), pp. 1–9.
[22] Jobert M. and M. Arns. “Pharmaco-EEG, Pharmaco-Sleep and EEG-Based Personalized Medicine”. In: Neuropsychobiology 72 (3-4 2015), pp. 137–138.
[23] Lebedev M.A. and M.A. Nicolelis. “Brain-machine interfaces: From basic science to neuroprostheses and neurorehabilitation”. In: Physiological reviews 97 (2 2017), pp. 767–837.
[24] Kuhlmann N. and C.A. Kadgien. Neuroleadership: Themes and limitations of an emerging interdisciplinary field. SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 2018.
[25] Niculescu and A. et al. “Blood biomarkers for memory: toward early detection of risk for Alzheimer disease, pharmacogenomics, and repurposed drugs”. In: Molecular psychiatry 25 (8 2020), pp. 1651–1672.
[26] Kumar P.M. and U.D. Gandhi. “A novel three-tier Internet of Things architecture with machine learning algorithm for early detection of heart diseases”. In: Computers and Electrical Engineering 65 (2018), pp. 118–130.
[27] Howell Sabrina T., Niessner Marina, and Yermack David. In: Review of Financial Studies 33 (9 2020), pp. 3925–2974.
[28] Varatharajan, R., and et al. “Wearable sensor devices for early detection of Alzheimer disease using dynamic time warping algorithm”. In: Cluster Computing 21 (1 2018), pp. 681–690.
[29] Paul Wackerow. Ethereum ERC-20 TOKEN STANDARD. url: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/ docs/standards/tokens/erc-20/.
[30] Kaylie Welykholowa et al. “Multimodal photoplethysmography-based approaches for improved detection of hypertension”. In: Journal of Clinical Medicine 9 (1-20 2020), pp. 3016–3025.
[31] Xiang and M.-Q. et al. “The effect of neurofeedback training for sport performance in athletes: A metaanalysis ”. In: Psychology of Sport and Exercise 36 (2018), pp. 114–122.
[32] H¨oller Y., C. Helmstaedter, and K. Lehnertz. “Quantitative pharmaco-electroencephalography in antiepileptic drug research”. In: CNS drugs 32 (9 2018), pp. 839–848.
The Biobit is a utility token based on the Ethereum Network(ERC-20 standard) designed and implemented for financial exchanges on the Zarela ecosystem (including Zarela’s platform, Zarela’s Bioverse and ZSC). The ERC-20 introduces a standard for Fungible Tokens, in other words, they have a property that makes each Token be exactly the same (in type and value) of another Token. For example, an ERC-20 Token acts just like the ETH, meaning that 1 token is and will always be equal to all the other tokens [29]. Multiple features of Biobit token presented by the following figure.
Basically, The total number of issued Biobit tokens have been 20,000,000 Biobits. From the total issued tokens, 17,000,000 Biobit tokens which is 85% have been transferred to the reward pool. As explained earlier, distribution of the reward pool tokens would be through the Proof-of-Contribution (PoC) mechanism. 10% of total is reserved for the Zarela team and the remaining 5% dedicated for development purposes will be distributed through three phases that are explained separately below.
It has been mentioned earlier, The total number of issued BioBits are 20 million tokens. It can be verified by navigating to the Etherscan address below. Additionally, the description of how 20 millions of BioBits have distributed is available in the following section. All the information about the issued tokens could be viewed using the link below:
Zarela's Total number of issued Biobits
The total number of tokens dedicated for the advisory board members and the founders are 2,000,000 Biobits,equal to 10% of the total number of tokens. These tokens are the total remuneration of the founders and the advisory board members. In other words, the team members will not earn any other remuneration from the network. All of these tokens have deposited on the platform based on the opinion of the founders in the Vesting contract, and the contacts can be viewed at the following address:.
Biobit Token Lock Up Schedule
Nowadays, startup companies and especially Tech-startups apply entrepreneurial finance mechanism for raising capital (as an alternative to traditional VC fund raising) for early-stage ventures. Blockchain-based startups are not exempt from this process. A known method in blockchain world is Initial coin offerings (ICOs). In an ICO, a blockchain-based issuer sells cryptographically secured digital assets, usually called tokens[27]. We at Zarela, have not engaged in the process and procedures of ICO. Zarela had an initial private sale that is discussed below in details.
First phase : In the third quarter of 2021, 300,000 Biobits have been discharged. From that, 100,000 BioBits have been exchanged 1 USD per BioBits. Further, in a commerce with placing on UniSwap Decentralized Exchange platform 100,000 BioBits compensated. in this sale. The remaining 100,000 BioBits distributed among the developers, experts and coadjutors that had been cooperated with Zarela until September 2021.
Second Phase : In the fourth quarter of 2021, 300,000 Biobits have been discharged, and its price is resorting to development of the Zarela’s Bioverse, Zarela’s application and extension of the Zarela’s society.
Third phase : The remaining 400,000 Biobits is currently on the Zarela’s vesting contract on the UniCrypt Zarela’s Vesting Contract and will be released in the second quarter of 2022 and its value will be invested for further development.
As it has been discussed earlier in the previous section, The reward tokens are calculated on the daily (Zarela’s day) basis. Furthermore, in this section we describe a situation in which the reward tokens that must be distributed among contributors is higher than maximum to-be-released daily tokens as well as there is sufficient balance of Biobit tokens available in the bank. In this scenario following steps will be accomplished:
Zarela’s Smart Contract will invoke a function to identify the number of Biobits left over from day 0 to be used in the process of reward distribution of the current Zarela’s day.
Zarela’s Smart Contract will examine the tokens had remained on the next day to compensate the shortage of the Biobit tokens required for the current day. And this process will be iterated until the current day token shortage is satisfied by the remained tokens of previous days.
The index of the last day used by Zarela’s Smart Contract to recompense token shortage will be saved and will be used if this situation will be occurring.
Zarela’s Network rewards users who spend brain and physical energy to register their biosignals,with 85% of the network tokens (17,000,000 Biobits) as a Reward Pool on a daily basis. Assuming the followings:
: Number of tokens released on day i from Reward Pool
: Number of Biobits burned on the day i
: Number of successful transactions on day i
: Bank balance at the beginning of day i
: Number of tokens rewarded for each successful transaction on day i
The lifespan of each token released from the Zarela reward pool is 45 days, and after that, any left-over tokens from day one which have not been yet distributed will be automatically burned and will be no longer accessible.
Algorithm 3: Token Burning Mechanism
In Zarela ecosystem and according to the figure 3, there is a concept called Remained Daily Tokens of Today and it is being used by token burning mechanism explained by algorithm 2 and pseudo code provided for clarification. It is required to be mention that, burning mechanism of the Zarela’s day is preceded to the any contribution at the beginning of next day. Burning mechanism will be kicked off at the end of 44th day of Zarela and as the result bank’s balance will be updated. This concept is being used by Zarela’s Smart Contract in case the number of rewarded tokens is less than daily rewardable token (caused by shortage of daily contribution). Literally, It is the total number of rewardable tokens remained in the reward pool for any specific Zarela’s day. Record of all Remained Daily Tokens of Today will be kept in Zarela’s Smart Contract. In simple word, They could have been distributed from the reward pool but they did not. The burning mechanism of Remained Daily Tokens of Today is explained by an example below and demonstrated by the following figure.
For instance, on the 46th day of Zarela, the remaining number of 14,400 tokens released on the first day of Zarela are burnt. Similarly On the 47th day, Remained Daily Tokens of Today of second-day will be burnt and so on. This mechanism works on a daily basis, and the number of tokens burned per day is announced on Zarela’s dashboard.
they could be categorized as data (biosignal) scientists, and especially neuroscience and cognitive researchers, companies in the field of medical and brain signal analysis, governmental institutions and in general any individual or public organization working in the field of data analytics. These scientists and engineers steer the development of the application and products in therapeutic and biosignals.
The most recent bank’s balance is the number of Biobits that can be distributed as rewards among the contributors at the end of each Zarela’s day. on every Zarela’s day, a fixed number of Biobits will be added to the bank balance, and if there are any Biobits left over from the previous days, this would be added to the bank balance as well. The priority is to distribute the older Biobits available in the Bank. After a Zarela’s day, Zarela's Smart Contract computes the number of contributors per day, and if the maximum number of the due rewards which should be distributed to all contributors of the day is less than the bank balance, in this case, the maximum attainable reward on that day will be dedicated to each contributor and a record of reward (to-be-distributed) will be appended to the payment queue and remaining tokens will be added to the Bank’s balance. Otherwise, the bank balance will be divided equally among all contributors.
In Zarela there are different halving stages and consequently the maximum reward is vary based on the current halving stage. Additionally, in Zarela’s platform, reward is calculated on the basis of each Zarela’s day. To elaborate more, assuming that in a certain Zarela’s day there have been N number of contributors which have been contributed on the Zarela’s platform. Assuming the balance of the Bank is B on that certain day. Also, maximum number of distributable reward token in a specific halving is M Biobits per contributor per Zarela’s day (M = 50 in the first halving). Hence, the expected reward of each contributor is calculated as following:
Meaning that if the Bank’s balance is more than the number of contributors multiply by the maximum awardable reward in the first halving then, each contributor will receive the maximum reward. Otherwise Biobit rewards shall not be maximum and will be fluctuated depending on the number of contributors. An example of daily reward of each contributor has been presented below:
are laboratories or science labs which are equipped with accurate appliances. Their equipment is highly standard compliance. Neuroscience experts are working in Hub centers and of one their routines could be biosignal data collection. From the token economical perspective, Mages are in charge of biosignal data collection as well as transferring their payable shares (by Wage token) to the Hubs after Mage has acknowledged the acceptance of an suitable sample of data. Therefore, Hubs consider themselves obliged to collect and transmit the applicable data samples for the Mage with highest quality and accuracy. Hub role could be considered as indicator and supplier of the biosignal data.
could be any individual who agrees to share her biosignals data sample on the Zarela platform. By biosignal data transmission, Angel will give permission to the Mage to construct the research based on the acquired biosignal data samples offered by the Angel. Angel will study the Z-paper submitted by the Mage on the Zarela’s platform and then will consult and visit the Hub center. Preparation of the Angel at the first stage will be providing detailed clarification of the purpose and goals of the research by the Hub to the Angel. Secondly, the number of data collection trials (sessions) required by the Angel to attend in the Hub center to fulfil the data collection accuracy. Finally, set up appointments at the Hub center for the Angel. The preparation emergence is necessary for a precise and error-free data collection process performed by the Hub considering the requirements of the Mage which mentioned in the Z-paper. Similarly, Angel act as provider of biosignal data. Once the biosignal file is received and confirmed by the Mage, Zarela’s reward token (BioBit token) will be available to Hub and/or Angel who has proved the biosignal contribution and paid the Ethereum transaction fee. The reward will be appended to the reward distribution queue that is managed by Zarela’s smart contract to be distributed at the end of each Zarela’s day. Additionally, after the confirmation of the biosignal file acceptance by the Mage, the Wage token amount will be dedicated and available to the Angel.
Zarela has been developed on the Ethereum blockchain. Since Zarela’s network operation is based on the Proof-of-Contribution , every transaction made on the Ethereum blockchain through the Zarela’s smart contract will be considered as a contribution. A successful contribution on Zarela consists of a request (by the Mage) and an acknowledgement by the participant (the Angel who gives the biosignal data sample). This contribution will trigger a transaction on the underlying Ethereum network that requires a fee payable by the Angel or the Hub to the Ethereum network. In exchange, Zarela’s smart contract distributes a specific amount of reward (that is described in the Token Economy section below) from its reward pool to the Angel or Hub which had compensated the Ethereum’s network transaction fee.
A Metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. In futurism and science fiction, it is often described as a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality headsets. The term metaverse has its origins in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash as a portmanteau of meta and universe. Various metaverses have been developed for popular use such as virtual world platforms like Second Life. Some metaverse iterations involve integration between virtual and physical spaces and virtual economies, often including a significant interest in advancing virtual reality technology.
Zarela’s Pod is a product of Zarela and it is a compound device that is composed of several inter-connected components. Each component is an independent non-invasive Brain’s signal measurement. Zarela’s Pod simply could be considered as a composite Brain’s signal recorder with high mobility.
As it is mentioned earlier in the Abstract section, we have implemented the Bioverse based on the contribute-to earn concept. To elaborate more, contribute-to-earn is a bridge between Proof-of-Contribution of the Zarela's Smart Contract and the Bioverse itself. It can provide capability to the Bioverse ’s users to perform contribution on the Bioverse and earn BioBit in exchange. For instance, When a contribute-to-earn fulfilled by a user on the Bioverse , the ZSC will be informed about it and regards it as a contribution which is eligible to receive reward from the Zarela’s reward pool. The details of the contribute-to-earn functionalities and possible contributions is available in the Bioverse document.
Zarela’s utility token is Biobit. Zarela’s platform has been developed on the Ethereum network that is based on the ERC-20 standard. Likewise Ethereum, Biobit is complied with the ERC-20 standard.
85 percent of the total available Biobits are safeguarded by the Zarela’s smart contract. Theses tokens will be released to the contributor either which are Angels or Hubs. The formula provided in the Token economy section describes the process of distributing reward pool tokens.
It is the amount of Biobits which have been released from the reward pool and transferred to each contributor’s wallet address. It is calculated at the end of each Zarela’s day and appended to the smart contract’s payment queue. This reward is payable to all contributors who has successfully responded to a request (and paid the Ethereum transaction fee) that had been placed by any Mage on the Zarela’s application platform.
It is the amount of Biobits secured in the Mage’s wallet prior to any contribution. Mage is enforced to secure the promised amount of BioBit (explained in the Z-paper while Mage has submitted her biosignal file request) into her Wallet to be distributed to the contributors. It is vital to be mentioned that Wage token will be distributed to the Hub or/and Angel when Mage confirmed the correctness of the received file from the Angel or/and Hub.Wage is an unavoidable BioBit transfer in the form of a transaction after confirmation of the received signal by the Mage.
It is like a container of the daily released Biobits from the reward pool. Bank holds the daily released tokens plus the remaining tokens which are not distributed from the previous days, tokens that are not burnt and today’s tokens awaiting to be distributed. In a simpler form, Bank’s balance reveals the total number of Biobits that can be distributed among Zarela’s contributors on a daily basis.
It is the research proposal submitted by the Mage and explains about the purpose of the research in a simple and understandable language. Z-paper contains social media information (like LinkedIn page) of the research institution. It indicates which research methodology has been chosen as well as the research outcomes and future benefits for the community. Every Mage is required to submit the Z-paper along with the biosignal request on the Zarela’s platform. Thus, Z-paper could be reviewed by the Angel/s who are interested in biosignal contribution. It needs to be mentioned the Z-paper must follow a standard described at the Zarela’s app.
It is a dashboard available at the address dashboard.zarela.io and contains up-to-dated information about the Zarela’s network difficulty, Zarela Day, Reward Payment Day and statistical data about the number of daily contributors and also number of available tokens on a daily basis. On the Zarela’s dashboard and under the “explorer” tab, all the information about the past transaction can be explored by the user.
This network is active on the Ethereum Ropsten test-net. All events, functions, and activities on this network are exactly synced with the Zarela main-net. The purpose of developing a test-net is to familiarize and educate the users about Zarela’s main-net. The Biobit and Ethereum tokens in this network are available only for test purposes and have no financial value. It’s accessible through testnet.zarela.io.
This is the maximum transaction fee paid by a contributor to pay the reward of the previous contributors that are recorded in the form of an Ethereum transaction. This number is in the range of [1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 128] and is displayed daily through Zarela’s Dashboard.The calculating formula for network difficulty is provided in the section Zarela network difficulty calculation.
Zarela’s smart contract could be used by different applications as an embedded process in the format of request response. To distinguish between different application’s transaction made to the Zarela’s platform, Mage will need to check with Zarela’s GitHub page to pick up a unique and available business ID (a unique number between 2 to 1 million is available) for her business application. This unique ID needs to be sent to the smart contract from any exterior application. The method of defining a new ID for a new business application is managed by the Zarela’s smart contract and details of the methods have been explained in Zarela’s GitHub page.
Zarela’s platform provide support for different category of requests to be submitted on the platform (biosignal request is only a single category that needs a biosignal file to be submitted. But, there are other type of files associated to a specific topic that could be submitted on the Zarela as well). Categorizing the requests on Zarela helps users find the desired requests easily. Selecting research categories by Mages is required while submitting any requests.
An external decentralized file system used for the peer-to-peer file distribution. InterPlanetary File System makes it possible to download a file from many locations that aren’t managed by one organization. Below are some features of InterPlanetary File System files system:
Supports a resilient internet. If someone attacks Wikipedia’s web servers or an engineer at Wikipedia makes a big mistake that causes their servers to catch fire, you can still get the same webpages from somewhere else.
Makes it harder to censor content. Because files on InterPlanetary File System can come from many places, it’s harder for anyone (whether they’re states, corporations, or someone else) to block things. We hope InterPlanetary File System can help provide ways to circumvent actions like these when they happen.
Can speed up the web when you’re far away or disconnected. If you can retrieve a file from someone nearby instead of hundreds or thousands of miles away, you can often get it faster. This is especially valuable if your community is networked locally but doesn’t have a good connection to the wider internet. (Well-funded organizations with technical expertise do this today by using multiple data centers or CDNs — content distribution networks (opens new window). InterPlanetary File System hopes to make this possible for everyone.)
This file system is used in Zarela to securely store the files that Angels send in response to requests.
Every (at least) 24 hours starting from the deployment of Zarela’s main-net is called a Zarela Day, and the payment queue and the rewards are automatically calculated accordingly. Every Zarela Day starts with a participation transaction on Zarela’s network, and the information is displayed on Zarela’s Dashboard. The end of every Zarela’s day is specified by the smart contract when a newly submitted transaction realizes that more than 24 hours have been passed from the initiation time of the request submission. Then, smart contract proceeds to calculate and pay the daily rewards.
The rewards are computed per Zarela’s day. Also, the time in which very first contribution registered (and first transaction block added) on the Zarela’s platform will be considered as Zarela’s zero hour. The total number of daily tokens are those tokens which have been released on each Zarela’s day, plus the number of tokens left over from the previous days. After the rewards have been distributed, the token’s surplus will be added to the next day’s Bank balance. When Hub and Angel respond to a request, at the time of contribution initiation, they will mark the public key which paid the transaction fee. Thus, their submitted wallet addresses will be rewarded at the end of each Zarela’s day with the value up to 50 Biobits in the first halving and the remaining reward tokens will be transferred to the accumulated balance of tokens on the next day Bank balance.
In Zarela’s platform, halving will occur every 590 Zarela’s day. Halving stages will have an impact on the distributable rewards in such a way that, after each halving stage, the maximum reward tokens will be divided in two. In contrast, maximum reward at the commencement of the Zarela’s network initiation will be 50 Biobits and after first having stage it will be 25 Biobits. Worthy to be mentioned that, maximum number of tokens released on each day also are limited to 14400 tokens.
By Proof-of-Contribution made by the Angel or Hub, one of them (they will choose which of them will receive the reward) will be eligible to receive the reward from the Zarela’s reward pool on the next Zarela’s days. The chosen entity therefore will be appended to the payment queue and she will be waiting to receive her reward on the next Zarela’s days. At the end of each Zarela’s day the number of reward tokens for each contributor will be calculated. This calculation is performed to distinguish between contributors of each Zarela’s day.
Noticeably, if N >288 (number of contributors of a day is bigger than 288 on day 0) then, maximum distributable reward that is set to be M = 50 at the beginning of day 0 will not be achievable at the end of day 0. Therefore, M <M ′ for every contributors. Moreover, at the end of each Zarela’s day, there will be a queue of contributors each of which are distinguishable by their day of contribution. Amount of Biobit daily rewards are depended on the total number of contributors of that day and halving stage in which contribution has made. The fact is there might be differentiation between daily rewards of a certain day and consecutive day as explained above.
Algorithm 1 :Reward Distribution
To elaborate more on the Zarela network difficulty calculation, following algorithm as pseudo code provided for clarification. It is necessary to elucidate on the purpose of using the variable zarelaDifficultyOfDay used bellow.
Algorithm 2 :Zarela’s network difficulty
This variable controls the order of token reward distribution among the contributors entering the network. After every Zarela’s day, new contributors pay the transaction fee of rewards of those who are in the payment queue based on the difficulty of Zarela’s daily network (zarelaDifficultyOfDay). Now, based on the zarelaDifficultyOfDay, each contributor triggers the execution of reward token transfer zarelaDifficultyOfDay times. The result will be distribution of rewards token from the bank to the contributors who have been awaiting in the payment queue. It is vital to be mentioned that, in this case the transaction fee of the Zarela’s network will be increased. This is an automatic and decentralized mechanism for paying the rewards in Zarela’s platform. Figure below demonstrates a snapshot of daily reward token distribution process.
Technically speaking, The payment queue is an array of address wallets (Angel’s address wallet or Hub’s address wallet) that are distinct-able by a zero address (0x0 . . . 0) separator in between each day’s addresses.
Input: lastRewardableIndex
Output: reward
if (16 ≤ Contributor Not Yet Received Reward ) then
Distribute DailyReward Of Contributor Based On zarelaDifficultyOfDay ;
end
if (zarelaDifficultyOfDay != 128 & 16 > Contributor Not Yet Received Reward ) then
Distribute Daily Reward Of Contributor AS NORMAL ;
endInput: QueueLenght , ContributionOfLastDay
Output: Distribute DailyReward , zarelaDifficultyOfDay
Data: QueueWaitingRatio = QueueLength / ContributionOfLastDay
if (QueueWaitingRatio < 5) then
zarelaDifficultyOf Day = 2^QueueWaitingRatio ;
Distribute DailyReward Of Contributor Based On zarelaDifficultyOfDay ;
else
if (MaxNumberOfWaitingDays ≥ 7 & QueueLength ≥ 384) then
zarelaDifficultyOfDay = 128 ;
Distribute DailyReward Of Contributor Based On zarelaDifficultyOf Day ;
else
zarelaDifficultyOf Day = 32 ;
Distribute DailyReward Of Contributor Based On zarelaDifficultyOfDay ;
end
endInput: zarelaDayCounter
Output: BurnTokenPerDay
Data: dayOfTokenBurning
if (44 ≤ zarelaDayCounter) then
BankBalance = BankBalance − (RemainedDailyTokensOfToday − 44) ;
BurnRemainedDailyTokensOfToday − 44 ;
DayOfTokenBurning ++ ;
end
As described earlier in the “Definition” section above, every Mage is required to submit a proper Z-paper according to the baseline standard of the Z-paper available at . Next step for Mage which is a pre-requisite for the request submission is to compensate the Ethereum transaction fee by having sufficient amount of Ethereum in her connected wallet. Additionally, Mage also required to reimburse the wage tokens to be distributed among the Angel/Hubs for their contribution.
Assuming that W = Wage, P = participant numbers, The Angel’s Wage token per biosignal submission, The Hub’s wage token per biosignal file collection and Total Biobit tokens (Wage) a Mage need to have in her wallet. Thus, The total number of Biobits to be supplied could be calculated by the below formula:
In Simple word, is the total amount of Biobit tokens (Wage) distributed by the Zarela's Smart Contract to the Hub/s and Angel/s after Mage approved the correctness of the transferred biosignal file/s.will be subtracted from the Mage’s wallet Biobit balance and will be deposited to the Zarela's Smart Contract address while a new request is being submitted.
It is important to clarify that, if a Mage’s approval about the number of received biosignals is less than the number of specified biosignal files at the request submission time/date, the outstanding balance of deposited Biobits by Mage to the Zarela's Smart Contract is not refundable.
Moreover, if a submitted request in terms of number of biosignal contribution reaches to the maximum requested limit, it will be impossible for a new Angel to contribute and send biosignal file/s.
Zarela's Smart Contract exploits the power of asymmetric cryptography of the Ethereum blockchain. It means, any signal sent by Angel are encrypted by the Mage’s public key and will be accessible to that specific Mage only. The access to the Mage’s public key will be granted to the Zarela's Smart Contract and by the Metamask at the time of new request submission.
