Esports Fandom

Esports is dependent on the activities of fans, from the inception of its genres as modded fan creations, to its everyday lived experiences at events, in live-streamed spaces or through playing. This chapter explores the significance of fandom in esports through introducing readers to key theoretical frameworks that underpin the fields of cultural, game and fan studies. These fields frequently encompass debates surrounding fan identities, fan creativity and the ever-changing relations fans negotiate with media industries. Esports provides an exemplary case study for an industry defined by its online enabled fans and one that is in a continual co-creative dialogue, as this chapter explores through a variety of esports examples

From Indy to ubiquity: Minecraft as platform and infrastructure

This article is about digital games, their evolving connections with platforms and infrastructures, and the influence that a decade of Minecraft’s development is having on this process. It begins with a discussion of previously disparate but increasingly convergent methodologies and literatures, including platform studies, media archeology, game studies, and cultural anthropological approaches to the study of infrastructure. Then, it applies points of convergence within these literatures to a political economic analysis of Minecraft that attributes its decade of growth to the systemic and metaphoric merging of platforms and infrastructures. Finally, it provides an ethnographic analysis of computers, made in Minecraft, which show how the game is not only taking on characteristics of platforms and infrastructures, but also affording a means of programming, visualizing, and experiencing platforms as infrastructure

The effects of acute caffeine ingestion on decision-making and pass accuracy in young soccer players: A preliminary randomized controlled trial

Caffeine has been shown to benefit physical aspects of different sports. In this paper, we aimed to understand the effects of caffeine on decision-making and the accuracy of soccer passes. Twelve young soccer players (16–17 years old and 20.8 ± 2.7 kg/m2 BMI) completed the tasks once after taking 3 mg/kg body mass of caffeine (CAF) and once after consuming similar amounts of placebo (PLA). For the decision-making task, participants were asked to determine the best outcome of ten simulated pre-recorded soccer events. For the soccer pass accuracy, participants performed five short- (10 m) and five long passes (30 m), as well as the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test. Although not statistically significant, participants were 1.67 % more accurate in short- and 13.48 % more accurate in long passes when they consumed caffeine compared to the placebo (14.67 ± 2.74 vs. 14.50 ± 2.97, p = 0.34, g = 0.27 and 7.50 ± 2.84 vs. 6.83 ± 3.13, p = 0.60, g = 0.14, respectively). However, participants' decision-making was 7.14 % and LSPT scores were 3.49 % lower when they consumed caffeine compared to the placebo (29.50 ± 3.09 vs. 30.67 ± 2.93, p = 0.28, g = −0.30 and 55.38 ± 11.91 vs. 57.48 ± 12.13, p = 0.08, g = −0.51 respectively). In conclusion, while the short pass accuracy remained consistent among almost all participants before and after caffeine consumption, the performance varied in the case of long passes. Moreover, most of the participants scored lower on decision-making and LSPT after consuming caffeine. This may suggest that more complex tasks with a higher number of passes might negatively be affected by low doses of caffeine ingested one hour before playing soccer. Future studies are required to elucidate the effects of caffeine consumption on distinct cognitive and passing tasks

Collaboration, Engagement, and Tradition in Contemporary and Electronic Music: NoiseFloor Perspectives

Collaboration, Engagement, and Tradition in Contemporary and Electronic Music: NoiseFloor Perspectives offers insights into practices at the forefront of modern music making and is built on a rich collection of concerts and talks, representing over a decade of artistic insight and creative practice showcased at the annual NoiseFloor event. Exploring the themes of collaboration, engagement and tradition, this cutting-edge collection offers chapters on a range of pressing issues, including AI in music, audiovisual composition, environmental sound, and interactive sound systems. NoiseFloor’s aim is to showcase research and original works by international music composers and performers and has attracted prolific artists in a wide range of related fields - many of whom have contributed to this volume. This book provides a timely snapshot of new and emerging developments in the broad field of contemporary music-making. Collaboration, Engagement, and Tradition in Contemporary and Electronic Music will be of interest to postgraduates and advanced undergraduates working in the areas of contemporary music, electronic music, and music technology. This book is also ideal for composers, artists, and researchers investigating theoretical concepts and compositional practices in contemporary music

Islam Channel Appearance

Appearance on the Islam Channel Today Show to discuss the summer riot

BANGLADESH GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS OF THE INGOS: AN EXAMPLE OF ‘INFORMATION POLITICS’ FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

This chapter investigates how the Government of Bangladesh responds to human rights reports of INGOs. It is argued that the Government’s responses mostly deny these reports since they go against Bangladesh’s image and human rights commitments. It is also argued that these INGO reports are not always neutral, and the reporting system is problematically fragmented and inordinately shaped by ‘organisational self-interest’ which gives a kind of de facto impetus to the Government to disregard, manipulate, or block them in their national sphere, which debars the creation of an integrated knowledge base required for building a human rights culture. The information politics as a politics of ‘exploitation and liberation’ suggests that in the absence of compelling strain for change, INGOs will continue to adopt a possessive and predilected approach to report human rights situations, and the Government will continue to disregard and disown these reports. It concludes that both INGO monitoring and Government’s responses need to be made in a succinct and principled way otherwise the current practice may deepen the risk of violations of human rights through the rise of a political antagonism of information

The Talent Management of Indie Authorship: From American independent cinema and short “films” to pay-TV and streaming

This book explores the roles that talent intermediaries, including talent agents, talent managers and producers, play in packaging, marketing and selling screen media products, services and brands by constructing and positioning their clients and collaborators as indie-auteurs. Exploring several case-studies across a range of screen media during an era of media convergence, including American indie cinema, high-end television, music video, advertising and branded content, the book explores the strategies that talent intermediaries adopt and the industrial, cultural, and social connotations and hierarchies that indie-auteurism as a promotional discourse and tool carries and reinforces. Taking a cultural production approach that involves analysing promotional, extratextual and critical discourse surrounding projects such as The Revenant, Judas and the Black Messiah, The O.A and Mr. Robot, the book links taste and professional legitimacy to race and gender inequalities as it scrutinises notions about the maverick White male auteur that have proliferated around contemporary indie productions. Providing new perspectives on the careers of indie-auteurs such as the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbergh, and Tyler Perry, and addressing the work of lesser studied figures such as Amy Seimetz, Dee Rees, and Shaka King, the book stakes out new ground that complicates popular ideas of indie-auteurs as highly autonomous and innovative filmmakers by exploring how this authorial discourse migrates between media and is constructed and reconfigured in relation to changing industrial and cultural contexts

Hyperledger Fabric Based Post Quantum Cryptography Healthcare Application Using Discrete Event Simulation

The centralized data sharing challenges in healthcare have spurred the adoption of distributed methods, including blockchain technology, to enhance security and privacy. This paper proposes a blockchain-based healthcare system leveraging post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to secure sensitive patient data, stored on a permissioned blockchain. Discrete event simulation (DES) is used in the simulation to represent and assess three critical processes: blockchain transactions, patient data requests, and data encryption. We examine the dynamics of blockchain transaction processing, encryption effectiveness, and data access inside the suggested architecture through simulation. The results highlight how post-quantum encryption and blockchain technology can strengthen healthcare data management by resolving important concerns about patient data sharing’s integrity and confidentiality

A Blockchain-Based Hybrid Model for IoMT-Enabled Intelligent Healthcare System

In recent years, the healthcare industry has undergone a digital transformation, making patient data publicly available and accessible. Healthcare units make a portion of the data public while keeping the rest private, necessitating various mechanisms for security and privacy. Blockchain technology has been widely adopted in the healthcare sector to secure data transactions. However, public blockchains face challenges in scalability and privacy, whereas private blockchains struggle with centralization, interoperability, and complexity. To address these challenges, we propose an Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)-based hybrid blockchain architecture. The proposed architecture combines the decentralized Ethereum and the centralized Hyperledger Fabric blockchain (Eth-Fab) using SQLite to leverage Ethereum smart contracts with the Hyperledger permission model. Moreover, we introduce access control strategies to enhance patient data authentication and authorization. We have employed machine learning algorithms to assist healthcare practitioners in accurately detecting diseases and making time-efficient decisions. Additionally, we modeled the proposed architecture using the M/M/1 queuing model and derived closed-form expressions for latency, throughput, and server utilization. The validity of these expressions was verified through Monte Carlo simulations. The results demonstrate that higher service times (block generation) yield better outcomes in terms of latency, throughput, and utilization, regardless of the arrival time, i.e., transactions in the mining pool

Sdn And Nfv: A New Dimension To Virtualization

Software-defined network (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) are two technology trends that have revolutionized network management, particularly in highly distributed networks that are used in public, private, or hybrid cloud services. SDN and NFV technologies, when combined, simplify the deployment of network resources, lower capital and operating expenses, and offer greater network flexibility. The increasing usage of NFV is one of the primary factors that make SDN adoption attractive. The integration of these two technologies; SDN and NFV, offer a complementary service, with NFV delivering many of the real services controlled in an SDN. While SDN is focused on the control plane, NFV optimizes the actual network services that manage the data flows. Devices such as routers, firewalls, and VPN terminators are replaced with virtual devices that run on commodity hardware in NFV physical networking. This resembles the 'as-a-service' typical model of cloud services in many aspects. These virtual devices can be accessed on-demand by communication, network, or data center providers. This book illustrates the fundamentals and evolution of SDN and NFV and highlights how these two technologies can be integrated to solve traditional networking problems. In addition, it will focus on the utilization of SDN and NFV to enhance network security, which will open ways to integrate them with current technologies such as IoT, edge computing and blockchain, SDN-based network programmability, and current network orchestration technologies. The basics of SDN and NFV and associated issues, challenges, technological advancements along with advantages and risks of shifting networking paradigm towards SDN are also discussed. Detailed exercises within the book and corresponding solutions are available online as accompanying supplementary material