Testing the Limits of Antidiscrimination Law: The Business, Legal, and Ethical Ramifications of Cultural Profiling at Work

While courts have rarely ruled in favor of plaintiffs bringing discrimination claims based on identity performance, legal scholars have argued that discrimination on the basis of certain cultural displays should be prohibited because it creates a work environment that is heavily charged with ethnic and racial discrimination. Drawing upon empirical studies of diversity management, stereotyping, and group dynamics, we describe how workplace cultural profiling often creates an unproductive atmosphere of heightened scrutiny and identity performance constraints that lead workers (especially those from marginalized groups) to behave in less authentic, less innovative ways in diverse organizational settings

Supply Chain Tracing and Anti-Counterfeiting with Distributed Ledger Technology

In recent times, there has been a rampant proliferation of counterfeit products that has left a trail of devastation in the manufacturing sectors. The repercussions of this extend to companies, impacting their brand reputation, revenue streams and overall profitability. Industries like agriculture, banking, electronics, and high-value deliveries uses the emergence of blockchain technology as a powerful tool to discern between authentic and counterfeit items. Its potential as a means to curtail the influx of fake products in the market is substantial. Blockchain technology, at its core, operates as a decentralized and distributed digital ledger system, meticulously recording transactions within interconnected blocks across multiple databases. The inherent security of this technology ensures the immutability of these blocks, rendering them invulnerable to alteration or hacking. By leveraging blockchain technology, consumers can independently verify the authenticity of a product, eliminating the need for reliance on third-party intermediaries. Incorporating recent technological advancements, the utilization of Quick Response (QR) codes offers a robust approach to combat the proliferation of counterfeit goods. The integration of blockchain technology with QR codes serves as a means to uphold the integrity of products. This innovative system securely stores product details and unique codes in the form of blocks,  where QR codes play a pivotal role in collecting and matching these unique codes with entries in the blockchain database. If the QR code matches with entries in the database, the user receives a confirmation of the product's authenticity; otherwise, an alert is triggered, signaling the presence of a counterfeit product

Causal Attributions, Implicit Beliefs, and Immutability from the Perceptions of Pedophiles

Pedophilic immutability is a complex phenomenon that has been challenging to understand. Perceptions of pedophiles have largely been ignored in understanding how pedophilic immutability develops. However, relationships between causal attributions and implicit beliefs may provide evidence for new conceptualizations related to pedophilic immutability. The purpose of this study was to explore pedophiles’ perceptions directly with attribution and implicit theory as key foundational principles of pedophilic immutability. Research questions were developed to allow for rich description from participants regarding their causal attributions and implicit beliefs associated with pedophilic immutability. Qualitative exploration was necessary to address the dearth of research related to pedophilic immutability focusing on pedophiles’ perceptions. Four male individuals volunteered and participated in the research study interviews. Thematic analysis was used to identify common themes among causal attribution and implicit beliefs that are associated with pedophilic immutability. Major themes identified during thematic analysis included that pedophilia development is complex, nature then nurture, nothing I can do about it, never believed but tried and failed, reality for pedophiles, and change is ambiguous. External causal attributions led to entity implicit beliefs related to pedophilic immutability, which was likely a main factor behind that particular mindset. A more diverse population with a deeper sample size would provide stronger evidence for some of the resulting interpretations. The findings from this study can be used to facilitate positive social change through development of a conceptual framework and a more comprehensive societal view of pedophilic immutability

In search of a pan-European culture: European values, beliefs and models of selfhood in global perspective

What, if any, are the common cultural characteristics that distinguish European societies and groups when viewed against a backdrop of global cultural variation? We sought to identify any shared features of European cultures through secondary multilevel analyses of two large datasets that together provided measures of cultural values, beliefs and models of selfhood from samples in all inhabited continents. Although heterogeneous in many respects—including the value dimension of autonomy versus embeddedness—European samples shared two distinctive features: a decontextualized representation of personhood and a cultural model of selfhood emphasizing difference from others. Compared to samples from other regions, European samples on average also emphasized egalitarianism and harmony values, commitment to others in their models of selfhood, and an immutable concept of personhood, but not uniformly so. We interpret these findings in relation to a Durkheimian model of individualism

Blockchain in Oil and Gas Supply Chain: A Literature Review from User Security and Privacy Perspective

Blockchain's influence extends beyond finance, impacting diverse sectors such as real estate, oil and gas, and education. This extensive reach stems from blockchain's intrinsic ability to reliably manage digital transactions and supply chains. Within the oil and gas sector, the merger of blockchain with supply chain management and data handling is a notable trend. The supply chain encompasses several operations: extraction, transportation, trading, and distribution of resources. Unfortunately, the current supply chain structure misses critical features such as transparency, traceability, flexible trading, and secure data storage - all of which blockchain can provide. Nevertheless, it is essential to investigate blockchain's security and privacy in the oil and gas industry. Such scrutiny enables the smooth, secure, and usable execution of transactions. For this purpose, we reviewed 124 peer-reviewed academic publications, conducting an in-depth analysis of 21 among them. We classified the articles by their relevance to various phases of the supply chain flow: upstream, midstream, downstream, and data management. Despite blockchain's potential to address existing security and privacy voids in the supply chain, there is a significant lack of practical implementation of blockchain integration in oil and gas operations. This deficiency substantially challenges the transition from conventional methods to a blockchain-centric approach

A secure and scalable IoT consensus protocol

Several consensus algorithms have been proposed as a way of resolving the Byzantine General problem with respect to blockchain consensus process. However, when these consensus algorithms are applied to a distributed, asynchronous network some suffer with security and/or scalability issues, while others suffer with liveness and/or safety issues. This is because the majority of research have not considered the importance of liveness and safety, with respect to the integrity of the consensus decision. In this paper a novel solution to this challenge is presented. A solution that protects blockchain transactions from fraudulent or erroneous mis-spends. This consensus protocol uses a combination of probabilistic randomness, an isomorphic balance authentication, error detection and synchronised time restrictions, when assessing the authenticity and validity of IoT request. Designed to operate in a distributed asynchronous network, this approach increases scalability while maintaining a high transactional throughput, even when faced with Byzantine failure