BBC micro:bits have long been used in informal and pre-college educational environments. With a wealth of sensors and a rich ecosystem of add-ons, it provides an engaging platform for teaching basic computer science. The use of block programming separates the learning of Computational Thinking and coding from the challenges students face with language syntax. In addition, the physicality of the device increases student engagement as they see code interact with the real world.

Electronic voting technology has the ability to accelerate the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of voting, and offer convenience for remote voters. Meanwhile, the efficiency of voting can be improved. Immutability, verifiability, and distribution are the main features blockchain can provide. Building an electronic voting system based on the blockchain can help to mitigate the security issues such as single-point failure and data manipulation. However, some blockchain systems are not feasible in the environment of sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a comparative analysis of blockchain-based electronic voting systems from the perspective of blockchain type, cryptography techniques, counting method, and security requirements. We also identify a possible new direction for the design of blockchain-based electronic voting systems for the reference of future research.

Immutability is an important property of blockchain which ensures integrity and prevents forgery modification of previous transactions. However, immutability also prohibits the possibility of amending outdated codes and correcting typography or fraudulent data, both of which are common needs in many use cases. Therefore, a tradeoff that keeps the integrity guarantee but lifts the strict limitation of immutability is necessary to allow the practical applications of blockchain in areas other than cryptocurrencies. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme called Smarkchain, which will enhance blockchain technology with the features of amendment and correction by incorporating smart markers, an approach which enables multiway branching and merging in blockchain. Smarkchain has the unique advantages of allowing multiple consecutive blocks to be amended or corrected at one time, allowing multiple amendments or corrections over the same blocks, and not needing to modify existing blocks. Evaluation results of a prototype implementation show that our approach is practical.

Cancer is known for its heterogeneity and is regarded as an evolutionary process driven by somatic mutations and clonal expansions. This evolutionary process can be modeled by a phylogenetic tree and phylogenetic analysis of multiple subclones of cancer cells can facilitate the study of the tumor variants progression. Copy-number aberration occurs frequently in many types of tumors in terms of segmental amplifications and deletions. In this paper, we developed a distance-based method for reconstructing phylogenies from copy-number profiles of cancer cells. We demonstrate the importance of distance correction from the edit (minimum) distance to the estimated actual number of events. Experimental results show that our approaches provide accurate and scalable results in estimating the actual number of evolutionary events between copy number profiles and in reconstructing phylogenies.