Beyond Scattered Applications

As a decentralised digital ledger, blockchain has become a buzzword in the recent years, due to its advantageous characteristics. The application of blockchain has been associated with different implications, ranging from trust generator to increased efficiency. Recently, blockchain application has gained momentum by being implemented by different governments and public bodies, as a solution for tackling different issues, with the intent of providing more efficient public policies. Different blockchain-based systems and platforms have been increasingly introduced as a more secure and orderly alternative of delivering various public functions and services. Given the expansion of use cases in different countries and the scattered information in this regard, this chapter develops a taxonomy of blockchain outcomes in the public domain by identifying the emerging patterns and subcategories. The proposed taxonomy can support decision makers and researchers to better identify the various blockchain applications, alongside their benefits, implications, and possible associated risks.

Taking “Use Case” Inventory of Available Open Shared Visuals for Teaching and Learning From Searches in the Federated Creative Commons Search (Old)

In instructional design, there are a number of common “use cases” for acquiring open-source shared visuals and images: breaking up gray text, driving attention, sparking the imagination, illustrating concepts, providing examples, explaining phenomena, representing reality, depicting models, and others. The instating of licensure and open-source releases has meant that there are literally hundreds of millions of such visuals available online, with varying levels of releases (with variations on the following dimensions: editability, [non]crediting, [non]commercial usages, [non]required sharing, all the way up to full release into the public domain with no restrictions). The federated Creative Commons Search (old) enables exploration and acquisition across a range of web-based platforms for digital images based on text search. When pursuing actual images for particular usage, the abundance of shared imagery suddenly becomes small-set and limited. This work explores this phenomenon and provides some ideas for mitigation.

From Unparalleled “Greatness” to Predictable Insularity. A Composite Sketch of “Warped Britishness” as Drawn in Selected Works of Contemporary English Fiction

Brexit, as seen from the present perspective, is seemingly a success story. Taking into account a myriad of voices expressed in the public domain over the past few years, it is legitimate to make a cautious claim that some of the expectations people shared before/during the referendum have been inflated and deflated in the post-plebiscite reality. In 2016, across the majority that voted for the divorce, a growing consensus on the soundness and solidity of pro-Leave arguments about Britain being in crisis was seen. The proponents of change had endorsed the policy of restoring a sense of national dignity. That mode of reasoning, though still present within current “British” mindsets, has been confronted with the “unplanned” turbulence of national (re) adjustment. The whole process of bidding farewell to the European Union has led to sentiments of uncertainty/anxiety/regret, rather than to the anticipated sense of satisfaction/relief. Therefore, it seems both vital and interesting to juxtapose the passion about restoring people’s trust in Britishness/Englishness, and its “exceptionality” with more sobering projections of a new post-Brexit world. In order to discuss the consequences of this self-inflicted condition, I will here elaborate on selected English literary texts. They feature authors who draw conclusions running parallel to Anderson’s assumptions that in times of crisis a general predilection for self-deluding (re)constructions of collective identity can be observed, which are variously expressed in a merely referential, subversive or satirical manner.

An Innovative Methodology for Estimating Rock Mechanical Properties from Weight or Volume Fractions of Mineralogy and its Application to Middle East Reservoirs

The influences of mineralogy on rock mechanical properties have profound application in oil and gas exploration and production processes, including hydraulic fracturing operations. In conventional resources, the rock mechanical properties are predominantly controlled by porosity; however, in unconventional tight formations, the importance of mineralogy as a function of rock mechanical properties has not been fully investigated. In unconventional tight formations, mechanical properties are often derived from mineralogy weight fraction together with the best estimate of porosity, assumption of fluid types, the extent of pore fillings, and fluid properties. These properties are then adjusted for their volumetric fractions and subsequently calibrated with acoustics or geomechanical lab measurements. A new method is presented that utilizes mineralogy weight fractions (determined from well logs or laboratory measurements). This process uses public domain information of minerals using Voigt and Reuss averaging algorithms as upper and lower bounds, respectively. An average of these bounds (also known as Hill average) provides a representative value for these parameters. Further, based on isotropic conditions, all the elastic properties are calculated. A typical output consisting of bulk-, shear-, and Young's - modulus, together with Poisson's ratio obtained from traditional methods of volume fractions and this new method using weight fractions is discussed and analyzed along with the sensitivity and the trends for individual rock properties. Furthermore, corresponding strengths, hardness, and fracture toughness could also be estimated using well known public domain algorithms. Data from carbonate reservoirs has been discussed in this work. This method shows how to estimate grain compressibility that can be challenging to be measured in the lab for unconventional tight rock samples. In low-porosity samples, the relative influence of porosity is negligible compared to the mineralogy composition. This approach reduces several assumptions and uncertainties associated with accurate porosity determination in tight rocks as it does not require the amount of pore fluids and fluid properties in calculations. The grain-compressibility and bulk-compressibility (measured by hydrostatic tests in the laboratory on core plugs or calculated from density and cross-dipole log) are used to calculate poroelastic Biot's coefficient, as this coefficient will be used to calculate in-situ principal effective stresses (overburden, minimum horizontal, and maximum horizontal stresses), which are, together with rock properties and pore pressure, constitutes the geomechanical model. The geomechanical model is used for drilling, completions, and hydraulic fracture modeling, including wellbore stability, and reservoir integrity analyses.

FAIR Interconnection and Enrichment of Public-Domain Music Resources on the Web

Vast amounts of publicly licensed classical music resources are housed within many different repositories on the Web encompassing richly diverse facets of information—including bibliographical and biographical data, digitized images of music notation, music score encodings, audiovisual performance recordings, derived feature data, scholarly commentaries, and listener reactions. While these varied perspectives ought to contribute to greater holistic understanding of the music objects under consideration, in practice, such repositories are typically minimally connected. The TROMPA project aims to improve this situation by interconnecting and enriching public-domain music repositories. This is achieved, on the one hand, by the application of automated, cutting-edge Music Information Retrieval techniques, and on the other, by the development of contribution mechanisms enabling users to integrate their expertise. Information within established repositories is interrelated with data generated by the project within a data infrastructure whose design is guided by the FAIR principles of data management and stewardship: making music information Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. We provide an overview of challenges of description, identification, representation, contribution, and reliability toward applying the FAIR principles to music information, and outline TROMPA's implementational approach to overcoming these challenges. This approach applies a graph-based data infrastructure to interrelate information hosted in different repositories on the Web within a unifying data model (a 'knowledge graph'). Connections are generated across different representations of music content beyond the catalogue level, for instance connecting note elements within score encodings to corresponding moments in performance time-lines. Contributions of user data are supported via privacy-first mechanisms that retain control of such data with the contributing user. Provenance information is captured throughout, supporting reproducibility and re-use of the data both within and outside the context of the project.

Research on the Symbiosis of Public Art and Urban Art

Public art and urban art are two independent and interdependent concepts. Public art is characterized by publicity, which refers to the unique artistic features displayed in the urban public domain. Urban art is relatively restrained and implicit, which refers to the historical culture accumulated in the historical development of the city. However, there is a certain commonality between them, which can influence each other, promote each other and develop each other, and have an important impact on contemporary urban development and urban construction. This paper mainly explores the symbiosis between public art and urban art, and further analyzes and explains the symbiotic forms between public art and urban art.