🗄️PR Archives
An archive of original publication requests.
PR1 | Build3 Roadmap for Blockchain-Based Construction Supervision
Authorship Team:
Author // Omer Bozok [accepted]
Editor // Kenneth Shultz [accpeted]
PR1 | Click to Expand | Submitted 12 April 2022 | Nomination Accepted 12 April 2022
Abstract
This publication will discuss the roadmap for implementing a public utility supervision blockchain. This research would discover the complete road map logically from easiest to most difficult to implement. An example features road map may look like this (or some variation):
Professional Licensure Authorship: Cryptographic Signatures representing Architectural and Engineering Seals. This functions as the start of the identity network (proof of licensee).
Construction Submittals: Cryptographically signed by the issuer and signed by the reviewer(s)
Permitting: Permits signed on-chain by the submitting parties and signed by the approving authority having jurisdiction.
Note: topic also may include thoughts about the International Building Code, Chapter 1, or other written codes that address permitting requirements. Nothing technically changes about permit applications and approval other than adding the blockchain's underlying storage and authorship mechanism.
Inspections & Occupancy Certificates: Similar to permitting, but for proof of the inspection authority.
Operations and Maintenance: This concept is starting to look much longer into the future but is worth thought and documentation. Is O&M a standalone network interoperable through a Polkadot (or Polkadot-like) parachain? How does O&M tie to the original record of construction supervision, permitting, and occupancy approval?
Property Identity: The contributions from the build3 network related to proof of supervision would be identity markers about a specific property. Each renovation from start to end of a building would contain evidence of the supervision process that helped to secure the safety of the building itself.
This newly found record of building history may tie into COBie reports and digital twin applications.
The incremental move into this phase of adoption would introduce conversations about insurance and lending, two major parties in the industry which rely heavily on underwriting risk.
GIS Maps: Proof of supervision of land survey work tied directly to the public GIS map systems. This use case is quite an abstraction from our original use case of professional supervision. GIS Maps is included as an example to help stretch out as far as we can reach for our purpose of identifying code compliance at the start of a building lifecycle and how that can extend throughout until the end of life. The objective is to postulate the demolition of an ideally chain-documented building. The land remains, but the evidence of the building is gone or nearly gone; however, the blockchain persists as a historical artifact.
Related Research
Blockchain Technology: Implications and Opportunities For Professional Engineers
This NSPE paper points out the connection between a blockchain and risk calculus, specifically how that relates to insurance.
PR2 | Labor-Based Based Voting Authority
Authorship Team:
Author // Phillip Brock [accepted]
Editor // Kenneth Shultz, PE [accepted]
PR2 | Click to Expand | Submitted 12 April 2022 | Nomination Accepted 12 April 2022
Abstract
Blockchain enthusiasts usually tout the benefits of decentralization. Unfortunately, many of the features baked into the technology ultimately lead to a re-centralization in myriad ways. A small central group of miner farms generally controls all rewards on the bitcoin network. When it comes to voting mechanisms, most involve the spending of coins, which makes voter authority directly proportional to their access to funds.
A proposed solution to this problem involves removing or reducing the possibility of exponential relationships from voting power. Non-transferrable voting tokens are issues based on a user's contribution to the network. You earn voting tokens as you review, submit, or otherwise interact with the system. These tokens are non-transferrable, would be burned when used for voting, and may expire after some time. This paper will explore these ideas and propose technical standards for developers to implement as a pallet on the chain. This voting token introduces a new token that is not nonfungible (NFT) nor technically wholly fungible.
PR3 | Authorship, not Ownership: Re-understanding and NFT
Authorship Team:
Lead Author // Kenneth Shultz, PE [accepted]
Author // Bradley Edward Layton, PhD PE [pending acceptance]
Editor // Ed Leite [nominated]
PR3 | Click to Expand | Submitted 12 April 2022
Abstract
A common problem articulated for NFTs is that they do nothing to assure ownership. Anyone can claim any digital asset and mint it as an NFT. This research aims to demonstrate the wholly overlooked use for an NFT: authorship.
Example: Shop Drawing Submittal Review
Equipment manufacturers typically author these drawings. If necessary, the trade contractor then marks up the submittal to prepare the document for review. The licensed designer of record then authors their judgment against the submission and sends it back as either approved or denied (resubmission required). At no point in this chain was ownership relevant to the reason for this communication chain.
That process exists to verify compliance with the construction documents. Compliance with construction documents represents compliance with the highly regulated architectural and engineering design process. The highly regulated design process is in place to ensure compliance with the code, and the code's fundamental purpose is to protect public safety and welfare.
Ownership of these documents is entirely irrelevant within this context. Nothing is more important than proof of authorship and compliance with previously authored construction records.
And so we ask ourselves, what is the name for proof of authorship on a blockchain? These authorship proofs belong to a contract. They are nonfungible in that no two authorship proofs can be considered equal. Unlike artwork or music, an authorship-based supervision compliance supply chain is strictly nontransferrable. The signed documents bind to the construction contract immutably, and the construction contract binds in perpetuity to the property.
PR4 | Cryptographic Certificate of Occupancy
Authorship Team:
Author // [awaiting nomination]
Editor // [awaiting nomination]
PR4 | Click to Expand | Submitted 12 April 2022 | NOT ACCEPTED
Abstract
With architectural and engineering seals, Construction Administration, permit review and approval, and inspections authorship proofs resolved, it isn't a stretch of the mind to consider the Certificate of Occupancy itself as fundamental to the blockchain. The building design and construction cycle would be tied together with minimal disruption to existing workflows, directly to the Occupancy Certificate.
This new cryptographic token will tie to the building identity and introduce new features for a certificate of occupancy that could never have previously existed. This topic encourages the authors' imagination to explore those new features and document them as formal technical specifications.
PR6 | Turn a Nonprofit 503(c) into a Nonprofit DAO
Authorship Team:
Author // Kenneth Shultz, PE [accepted]
Editor // Phil Brock [accepted]
PR6 | Click to Expand | Submitted 12 April 2022 | Nomination Accepted 19 April 2022
Abstract
This paper will explore traditional bylaw language for registered 503(c) organizations and work to integrate them with on-chain governance. The board of directors will vote to approve or reject the newly proposed bylaws. If approved, The Build3 Foundation will submit the bylaws to the State Corporation Commission, included in the final product of this publication, and formally instantiate them on-chain through the substrate pallet configuration.
Construct the paper-contract language such that blockchain governance authorizes all future bylaw changes. Consider conditions for catastrophic network failure. For example, members, a committee, or a board of directors may adopt new bylaws through traditional means. After network recovery, Build3 Foundation must register any off-chain measures adopted to the blockchain.
The purpose is to finalize the Build3 Bylaws and publish findings for future organizations to use in consultation with their legal representation.
Related Research
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