Hydrolink 2015/4. Africa

Topic: Afric

NFT Certificates and Proof of Delivery for Fine Jewelry and Gemstones

Fine jewelry is a unique class of ornaments composed of precious metals and gemstones. Premium-grade metals such as gold, platinum, and sliver, and gemstones such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds are used use to make fine jewelry. Paper-based certificates are typically issued by retailers and producers for fine jewelry and gemstones as a proof of origin, sale, ownership, history, and quality. However, paper certificates are subject to counterfeiting, loss, or theft. In this paper, we show how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Ethereum blockchain can be used for digital certification, proof of ownership, sale history, and quality, as well as proof of delivery for fine jewelry and gemstones.We present the proposed system design and architecture with sequence diagrams covering key interactions for jewelry production, purchase, and sale, along with algorithms related to NFT minting, auctioning, ownership management, and physical delivery. We demonstrate that our proposed NFT and blockchain-based solution can provide superior alternative in terms of verifiability, traceability, immutability, and security when compared with paper-based certification and traditional auctioning, delivery and ownership management. We make our developed smart contracts and testing scripts publicly available on GitHub

The New EU Industrial Policy and Deepening Structural Asymmetries: Smart Specialisation not so Smart

Contains fulltext : 250917.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)In response to the 2008financial crisis and rising competitive pressures from emerging markets,EU industrial policy has made a major comeback. One of theflagship policies is Smart Speciali-sation, which is located at the intersection of industrial and cohesion policy, and which serves thetwin purpose of catalysing the transition of manufacturing sectors to innovative Industry 4.0-typetechnologies, as well as inducing social and territorial cohesion and upward economic conver-gence. Employing a critical political economy perspective that accounts for the interplay betweenstate regulation and capitalism’s general dynamic of uneven and combined development, the arti-cle argues that Smart Specialisation is unlikely to lead to the proclaimed and much-needed eco-nomic intra-EU convergence. Although individual Smart Specialisation projects undoubtedlycan lead to a technological upgrading, narrowing the gap between advanced high-tech regionsand rapidly de-industrializing regions, or regions locked into labour-intensive, low value-addedand less knowledge-intensive production, remains a pipedream.19 juni 202

Information Outlook, March 2007

Volume 11, Issue 3https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1002/thumbnail.jp

Exploring Evolving Programs in Architecture: A Detailed Analysis and Design for Future Proofing Singapore’s Changi Airport.

Architecture and technology have a constrained relationship in part to their diverging principal-qualities (permanence vs speed, respectively). Buildings, while often designed with technical integration in mind, are rarely designed to take advantage of or to anticipate future trends or technologies. This misappropriation of technological progress in architecture materializes in form of retrofits, additions, and expansions – a chase in which architecture lags behind technology and its resulting and profound influence on culture and behavior. Architectural design and building programs may benefit from a deeper consideration and anticipation of evolving technological elements early in the design process. There may be no better building typology to understand past, present, and future design approaches than airports and their sequentially constructed terminals – true case studies of design thought and influences in contained and chronological configuration; snapshots of architectural and technological dependencies. This dissertation examines the past, current and proposed terminal designs at Singapore’s Changi Airport in order to understand the influences, technological contribution, and passenger experience goals throughout the terminal design process. The dissertation concludes with an alternative design to the currently proposed Terminal 5 design and aims to conceptually unify and prepare each current terminal for additional terminals as the airport expands