Blockchain Papers

Elizabeth A. Sweigart

<p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Amidst the rise of Web3, a technology transforming user interactions and challenging corporate control, this study uses a hybrid model of appreciative inquiry that matches the remote and decentralized nature of Web3 communities, to investigate the formation of a blockchain startup and its emergent culture and values. Despite limited resources, the company has built a diverse, global community via digital platforms, exceeding stakeholder expectations. This appreciative inquiry uncovers a community manifesting five core values: excellence, sustainable innovation, inclusivity, continuous learning, and creativity, challenging stereotypes often associated with the Web3 industry. This work advances participative research by introducing a hybrid model of appreciative inquiry tailored for remote and decentralized Web3 communities. By adapting appreciative inquiry to the unique dynamics of blockchain-dependent organizations, this study extends the methodology’s applicability and demonstrates its effectiveness in uncovering and fostering core communal values within cutting-edge technological contexts.</span></p>

Celenkosini Thembelenkosini Nxumalo, Pavitra Pillay, Gugu Mchunu

BACKGROUND: The Durban University of Technology (DUT) Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is embarking on a project to implement a Decentralized Clinical Training Program (DCTP). The DUT FHS DCTP project is being conducted in response to the growing demands of students requiring clinical service placements as part of work-integrated learning. The project is also geared toward responding to existing gaps in current practices related to the implementation of a DCTP, which has mainly been through traditional universities providing training to medical, optometry, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy students. In South Africa, a DCTP is yet to be implemented within the context of a university of technology; it is yet to be implemented within health science faculties that offer undergraduate health science programs in mainstream biomedicine and alternative and complementary disciplines. OBJECTIVE: We aim to design, pilot, and establish an effective DCTP at the DUT FHS in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. METHODS: Participatory action research comprising various designs-namely, appreciative inquiry, qualitative case study design, phenomenography, and descriptive qualitative study design-will be used to conduct the study. Data will be collected using individual interviews, focus group discussions, nominal group technique, consensus methodology, and narrative inquiry. Study participants will include various internal and external stakeholders of the DUT, namely, academic staff; students; key informants from universities currently using successfully established DCTPs; academic support staff; staff working in human resources, finance, procurement, and accounting; and experts in other disciplines such as engineering and information systems. Overall, 4 undergraduate health science programs-namely, Radiography, Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics, Clinical Technology, and Emergency Medical Care and Rescue-will be part of the project's pilot phase. Findings from the project's pilot phase will be used to inform scale-up in the other undergraduate programs in the DUT FHS. The project is being implemented as part of the university's strategic objective of devising innovative curricula and pedagogical practices to improve the mastery, skill set, and competence of health science graduates. RESULTS: The study has currently commenced with the situational analysis, consisting of engagement with external stakeholders implementing DCTPs. The data to be generated from the completion of the situational analysis are anticipated to be published in 2024. CONCLUSIONS: This project is envisioned to facilitate collaboration among the universities of technology, traditional universities, Ministry of Health, and private sector for clinical placement of undergraduate health science students in health establishments that are away from the university, thereby exposing them to real-life experiences related to health care. This will facilitate authentic learning experiences that will contribute to improved competencies of graduates in relation to the health needs of society and the multiple realities of the South African health system. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/52243.

Rariţa Mihail

Social sciences have tried to gain a better understanding of the subjectivity with regard to taste experience, especially in comparison with neo-kantian aesthetic, which considers the independent taste independently of external conditions. In other words, the sociological stake is to denaturalise the philosophical proof and to unveil the social foundations of judging taste. This study analyses Pierre Bourdieu’s perspective, which says that the beauty of the body depends on the social position of an individual (which represents that total volume of capital the individual disposes of: culturally, economically, socially), on the formation of the habitus (in the context of the individual’s social positioning, being a way of seeing the world) and of taste (the process through which the individual owns his choices and preferences, seen as being voluntary, but being rooted in material constraints). For the French sociologist, the choices with which we operate, the judgments we make about beautifulness and ugliness, are the by-product of our habitus, of our ways of thinking, of acting and of feeling, that we own through education and familial environment and which guides our choices in a non-conscious way. Although it is subjective, beauty is not only affected by taste or aesthetics, but equally depends on culture, and can be interpreted as a result of a social construct.