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Active employment of additive manufacturing for scaffolds preparation requires the development of advanced methods which can accurately characterize the morphologic structure and its changes during an interaction of the scaffolds with substrate and aqueous medium. This paper aims to use the method of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging for preclinical characterization of 3D-printed scaffolds based on novel allyl chitosan biocompatible polymer matrices.

Biocompatible polymer scaffolds were fabricated via stereolithography method. Using NMR imaging the output quality control of the scaffolds was performed. Scaffolds stability, polymer matrix homogeneity, kinetic of swelling processes, water migration pathways within the 3D-printed parts, effect of post-print UV curing on overall scaffolds performance were studied in details.

NMR imaging visualization of water uptake and polymer swelling processes during the interaction of scaffolds with aqueous medium revealed the formation of the fronts within the polymer matrices those dynamics is governed by case I transport (Fickian diffusion) of the water into polymer network. No significant difference was observed in front propagation rates along the polymer layers and across the layers stack. After completing the swelling process, the polymer scaffolds retain their integrity and no internal defects were detected.

NMR imaging revealed that post-print UV curing aimed to improve the overall performance of 3D-printed scaffolds might not provide a better quality of the finish product, as this procedure apparently yield strongly inhomogeneous distribution of polymer crosslink density which results in subsequent inhomogeneity of water ingress and swelling processes, accompanied by stress-related cracks formation inside the scaffolds.

This study introduces a method which can successfully complement the standard tests which now are widely used in either additive manufacturing or scaffolds engineering.

This work can help to improve the overall performance of the polymer scaffolds used in tissue engineering.

The results of this study demonstrate feasibility of NMR imaging for preclinical characterization of 3D printed biocompatible polymer scaffolds. The results are believed to contribute to better understanding of the processes vital for improving the design of 3D-printed polymer scaffolds.

This paper critically evaluates the political economy of Web3 and offers a neo-institutional model to explain qualitative observations of contemporary digital social movements. By starting to develop a sociological model of Web3 rooted in micro-organizational practices, including trust mediation and social coproduction, this paper re-evaluates assumptions of scarcity, economic value, and social belonging. It concludes by introducing a novel research program to study digital polycentric governance that focuses on community self-governance of digital common pool resources (DCPRs) and looks forward to empirical research using on-chain datasets from decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

This chapter explores if alternative participatory co-creation approaches have the potential for deploying an emancipatory urbanism that is able to contest the urban dynamics of (digital) capitalism. It does so by focusing on the Barcelona case. Barcelona fully embraced a “smart citizen” approach in 2011 to become a European referent in smart urban strategies. However, in 2015, with the arrival of a new municipal government, Barcelona has situated itself contesting the “smart city” and at the forefront of alternative possibilities with its “technological sovereignty” strategy. This shift aims to remake the smart city agenda for citizens through the advancement of the right to information and guarantees to open, transparent, and participatory decision-making through new digital and platform technologies. The chapter argues, first, that “technological sovereignty” has been instrumental in re-politicizing the notions of (smart) citizenship and technology, deploying initiatives aimed at regaining public control on data and citizens participating in policy-making. Second, Barcelona’s technological sovereignty strategy, though framed as locally and bottom-up, is based on a global comprehension and diagnosis of the global dynamics of digital capitalism. However, sometimes, there still remains an over-optimistic stance concerning digital technology. Thus, for any alternative to the neoliberal smart city, it is necessary to decenter the debate from the technologies themselves or the local, and recognize that any emancipatory strategy is also about acknowledging that technology-led solutions are not autonomous of broader relations of production and complex political economy geographies.

The paper considers the phenomenon of Big Data through the work of Hannah Arendt on technology and on thinking. By exploring the nuance to Arendt’s critique of technology, and its relation to the social and political spheres of human activity, the paper presents a case for considering the richness of Arendt’s thought for approaching moral questions of Big Data. The paper argues that the nuances of Arendt’s writing contribute a sceptical, yet also hopeful lens to the moral potential of Big Data. The scepticism is due to the potential of big data to reduce humans to a calculable, and thus manipulatable entity. Such warnings are rife throughout Arendt’s oeuvre. The hope is found in the unique way that Arendt conceives of thinking, as having a conversation with oneself, unencumbered by ideological, or fixed accounts of how things are, in a manner which challenges preconceived notions of the self and world. If thinking can be aided by Big Data, then there is hope for Big Data to contribute to the project of natality that characterises Arendt’s understanding of social progress. Ultimately, the paper contends that Arendt’s definition of what constitutes thinking is the mediator to make sense of the morally ambivalence surrounding Big Data. By focussing on Arendt’s account of the moral value of thinking, the paper provides an evaluative framework for interrogating uses of Big Data.

This chapter develops a conceptual taxonomy of five emerging digital citizenship regimes: (1) the globalised and generalisable regime called pandemic citizenship that clarifies how post-COVID-19 datafication processes have amplified the emergence of four intertwined, non-mutually exclusive and non-generalisable new technopoliticalised and city-regionalised digital citizenship regimes in certain European nation-states’ urban areas; (2) algorithmic citizenship, which is driven by blockchain and has allowed the implementation of an e-Residency programme in Tallinn; (3) liquid citizenship, driven by dataism – the deterministic ideology of big data – and contested through claims for digital rights in Barcelona and Amsterdam; (4) metropolitan citizenship, as revindicated in reaction to Brexit and reshuffled through data co-operatives in Cardiff; and (5) stateless citizenship, driven by devolution and reinvigorated through data sovereignty in Barcelona, Glasgow and Bilbao. This chapter challenges the existing interpretation of how these emerging digital citizenship regimes together are ubiquitously rescaling the associated spaces/practices of European nation-states.

The chapter advances some critical reflections around commons and commoning in the smart city. It suggests that so-called smart commons – that is, forms of ownership of data and digital infrastructure increasingly central to the discourse around appropriation and co-production of smart technologies – tends to focus more on the outcome (open data or free software) rather than the process which maintains and reproduces such commons. Thus, the chapter makes a positional argument for a “smart approach” to the commons, advocating for a central role for the public as a stakeholder in advancing, nurturing, and maintaining urban commons in the smart city. The argument is illustrated through three brief case studies which reflect on instances of commons and commoning in relation to the implementation of public Internet infrastructure.

This chapter is concerned with examining Pokémon Go in light of the digital economy and surveillance capitalism. The chapter begins by developing the theoretical framework underpinning this undertaking, which includes Bauman and Lyon (2013) ‘liquid surveillance’ and Zuboff's (2019) ‘surveillance capitalism’. Following this, we outline the various implications involved in the playing of Pokémon Go, when the production of locative data is not framed as leisure but labour. While Pokémon Go might be suited to the machinations of surveillance capitalism, as we establish, little research has examined this topic from the position of familial locative play or joint-media engagement. As a corollary to this, then, one of the aims of this chapter is to understand how issues of surveillance are perceived by the parents who play this hybrid reality game (HRG) with their children. Consequently, the chapter is driven by the following research questions. First, are families cognisant of the data they produce by playing this HRG, and how these data might be used? Second, do families think critically about the gamic mechanics of this HRG, such as the spawning locations of Pokémon and the reasoning behind these decisions? Third, are participants concerned about the potential application of their gamic data, and if so, how are these concerns reconciled? Fourth, do participants use the familial playing of Pokémon Go as an opportunity to discuss the production of data and its multifaced uses with their children?