New kid on the block: a strategic archetypes approach to understanding the Blockchain

Emerging Blockchain technologies have received considerable attention in the financial services domain. This is due to the potential of those technologies to radically disrupt existing financial systems by introducing new types of assets and new ways of managing transactions. Yet many of these technologies are so new and seemingly complex that strategic decision-makers may not fully understand the alternative Blockchain technologies on offer, let alone the costs and benefits associated with specific instantiations. This paper reviews the Blockchain literature and identifies eight key system design characteristics. From this, four Blockchain archetypes emerge, each of which is presented using a recognizable existing system to allow tangible discussion of similarities and differences across archetypes. The identification of these archetypes provides an important foundation for future research, enabling in-depth research to be conducted that will outline the costs, benefits, risks, and issues associated with each archetype

A Conceptual Stages of Growth Model for Managing an Organization\u27s Social Media Business Profile (SMBP)

Social media can have enormous benefits for organisations, but a failure to manage how these applications are used can have significant and unintended consequences. In this paper, the authors propose a conceptual Stages of Growth (SOG) Model for managing an organisation’s Social Media Business Profile (SMBP). Following extensive reviews of SOG models in the literature, social media practitioner reports and best practice guides, and industry reported cases of SMBP implementations, the authors propose a conceptual growth model consisting of five stages and the paths of evolution between stages. The authors also suggest 10 benchmark variables by which it is proposed the stages and their dominant problems can be measured and managed. The paper concludes with a discussion of its limitations and the field studies currently being undertaken in 40 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland to test the SMBP SOG model

Ephemeral Returns: Social Network Valuations and Perceived Privacy

This paper investigates the valuations of social media platforms (SMPs) in light of the recent initial public offering (IPO) of Snapchat. Innovative platforms with unproven business models and non-voting shares commanding relatively high valuations at IPO stage as well as a shift in investor profile towards personal rather than institutional investors have eerie connotations with the tech bubble of 2000. We posit that investors value a passive audience for SMPs rather than an active user community and apply potentially unrealistic customer lifetime values and expected user growth in a highly competitive market. We also posit that investors overestimate willingness to participate, the potential success in the adoption of paid services and do not account fully for perceived or real privacy features

Leveraging Distributed Collective Intelligence: An Investigation of Solver Engagement with Innovation Challenges

There is growing interest in the potential of Internet-enabled crowdsourcing platforms to leverage distributed collective intelligence for innovation purposes. Central to the promise of such platforms is the broad participation of self-selecting innovators. However, the factors affecting solver engagement with specific challenges remains only partially understood. This paper presents a study of the engagement of 15 contestants with 5 different challenges on InnoCentive. The results reveal the effects of a solver’s attitude, their assessment of risk, expected value, challenge characteristics, coping mechanisms and the characteristics of the intermediaries’ website on a solver’s engagement with specific challenges. The analysis reveals that the decision making of solvers can be characterized as an ‘attitude vs. risk’ calculus rather than a ‘cost vs. benefit’ calculus. Given these results, the paper concludes by discussing our conceptualization of the solver as a “Speculative Freelancer,” which we posit represents a unique emergent form of knowledge work

Rising sea levels and the increase of shoreline wave energy at American Samoa.

American Samoa is experiencing rapid relative sea level rise due to increases in global sea level and significant post-2009 earthquake land subsidence, endangering homes and critical infrastructure. Wave and water-level observations collected over a fringing reef at Fagaitua Bay, American Samoa, in 2017 reveal depth-limited shoreline sea-swell wave heights over the range of conditions sampled. Using field data to calibrate a one-dimensional, phase-resolving nonhydrostatic wave model (SWASH), we examine the influence of water level on wave heights over the reef for a range of current and future sea levels. Assuming a fixed reef bathymetry, model results predict rising sea levels will escalate nearshore extreme water levels that are dominated by an increase in nearshore sea-swell wave heights. Model results provide insight into how and at what reef depths rising sea levels reduce reef capacity to dissipate wave energy, compounding shoreline threats. This study aims to bring increased attention to the immediate threats to American Samoas way of life, and to demonstrate the utility of SWASH for extrapolating wave transformation to future sea level

Blood Pressure Loci Identified with a Gene-Centric Array

Raised blood pressure (BP) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have identified 47 distinct genetic variants robustly associated with BP, but collectively these explain only a few percent of the heritability for BP phenotypes. To find additional BP loci, we used a bespoke gene-centric array to genotype an independent discovery sample of 25,118 individuals that combined hypertensive case-control and general population samples. We followed up four SNPs associated with BP at our p < 8.56 × 10−7 study-specific significance threshold and six suggestively associated SNPs in a further 59,349 individuals. We identified and replicated a SNP at LSP1/TNNT3, a SNP at MTHFR-NPPB independent (r2 = 0.33) of previous reports, and replicated SNPs at AGT and ATP2B1 reported previously. An analysis of combined discovery and follow-up data identified SNPs significantly associated with BP at p < 8.56 × 10−7 at four further loci (NPR3, HFE, NOS3, and SOX6). The high number of discoveries made with modest genotyping effort can be attributed to using a large-scale yet targeted genotyping array and to the development of a weighting scheme that maximized power when meta-analyzing results from samples ascertained with extreme phenotypes, in combination with results from nonascertained or population samples. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and transcript expression data highlight potential gene regulatory mechanisms at the MTHFR and NOS3 loci. These results provide candidates for further study to help dissect mechanisms affecting BP and highlight the utility of studying SNPs and samples that are independent of those studied previously even when the sample size is smaller than that in previous studies