Fan’s perspective on professional leagues and sporting events during COVID-19 confinement period

The restriction imposed by COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great social change in the world and has affected many sectors, including the sport industry by having an impact and altering the normal development of the sport competitions and events. Therefore, it is fundamental to know sport fans’ opinions about the professional championships during the confinement period. The sample is composed by 1025 professional sports leagues fans and major sporting events celebrated in Spain, with people in the age range 18-70. The instrument used to collect data was an adaptation of the American questionnaire designed by Seton Hall University. The results show that 55% of fans thought that sport leagues and events were cancelled on time. Furthermore, 92.8% of the survey respondents would not attend a live match without social distancing measures or without the existence of a vaccine; 67.4% would follow it through mass media resources with the same interest. The population group under 25 feels safe attending sports leagues or events (9.7%). These results might help to take decisions based on preventive measures to guarantee security within the sport context

A holistic model of emergency evacuations in large, complex, public occupancy buildings

Evacuations are crucial for ensuring the safety of building occupants in the event of an emergency. In large, complex, public occupancy buildings (LCPOBs) these procedures are significantly more complex than the simple withdrawal of people from a building. This thesis has developed a novel, holistic, theoretical model of emergency evacuations in LCPOBs inspired by systems safety theory. LCPOBs are integral components of complex socio-technical systems, and therefore the model describes emergency evacuations as control actions initiated in order to return the building from an unsafe state to a safe state where occupants are not at risk of harm. The emergency evacuation process itself is comprised of four aspects - the movement (of building occupants), planning and management, environmental features, and evacuee behaviour. To demonstrate its utility and applicability, the model has been employed to examine various aspects of evacuation procedures in two example LCPOBs - airport terminals, and sports stadiums. The types of emergency events initiating evacuations in these buildings were identified through a novel hazard analysis procedure, which utilised online news articles to create events databases of previous evacuations. Security and terrorism events, false alarms, and fires were found to be the most common cause of evacuations in these buildings. The management of evacuations was explored through model-based systems engineering techniques, which identified the communication methods and responsibilities of staff members managing these events. Social media posts for an active shooting event were analysed using qualitative and machine learning methods to determine their utility for situational awareness. This data source is likely not informative for this purpose, as few posts detail occupant behaviours. Finally, an experimental study on pedestrian dynamics with movement devices was conducted, which determined that walking speeds during evacuations were unaffected by evacuees dragging luggage, but those pushing pushchairs and wheelchairs will walk significantly slower.Open Acces

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Globalisation, football and emerging urban 'tribes' : fans of the European leagues in a Nigerian city

Football is arguably the world's most popular and globalised sport, and it has been implicated in the continuing efforts in social science disciplines to understand current globalisation processes. Electronic colonialism, the metonym for the dominance of global mediascape by transnational media corporations like Sky and Fox has combined with the ongoing commodification of football to create a complex world-wide web of football authorities, clubs, players and agents, sport equipment makers, sponsors and advertisers, the media, cable and satellite television companies and fans. The central logic in this chain of events is that transnational broadcast of live football matches of European leagues is generating a massive base of 'long distance' fans of elite football clubs and star players across developed and developing countries. The current paper investigates the interplay between transnational football broadcasting and football viewing centres with a view to identiying the spatial, economic and socio-cultural correlates of the rising incidence of the so-called 'electronic' fandom in urban Nigeria. Drawing on a fieldwork conducted between 18th October 2014 and 5th January 2015 in the city of Enugu in Southeast Nigeria, the paper argues that ritualised television spectating within the confines of various viewing centres in the city creates the social contexts that positively reinforce fan behaviours, values, and attitudes. Employing the emergent notion of sports fans as consumers, the paper highlights how this expanding television-mediated fan base has become a veritable target market for many Nigerian companies, and concludes by speculating on the economic and socio-cultural knock-on effects of this emergent phenomenon

The Visual Social Distancing Problem

One of the main and most effective measures to contain the recent viral outbreak is the maintenance of the so-called Social Distancing (SD). To comply with this constraint, workplaces, public institutions, transports and schools will likely adopt restrictions over the minimum inter-personal distance between people. Given this actual scenario, it is crucial to massively measure the compliance to such physical constraint in our life, in order to figure out the reasons of the possible breaks of such distance limitations, and understand if this implies a possible threat given the scene context. All of this, complying with privacy policies and making the measurement acceptable. To this end, we introduce the Visual Social Distancing (VSD) problem, defined as the automatic estimation of the inter-personal distance from an image, and the characterization of the related people aggregations. VSD is pivotal for a non-invasive analysis to whether people comply with the SD restriction, and to provide statistics about the level of safety of specific areas whenever this constraint is violated. We then discuss how VSD relates with previous literature in Social Signal Processing and indicate which existing Computer Vision methods can be used to manage such problem. We conclude with future challenges related to the effectiveness of VSD systems, ethical implications and future application scenarios.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. All the authors equally contributed to this manuscript and they are listed by alphabetical order. Under submissio

People flow modelling - benefits and applications within industry

Within the design of any building, there is a requirement for designers to understand the intended purposes of the building and the elements that influence performance. These elements can be as tangible as providing a lecture hall within a university or relatively intangible such as the environmental temperatures of the rooms. The elements involved are generally recognised within the design industry and a combined force of engineers, architects, and specialist advisors work together to ensure all of the elements are in place for each new design. However, one element affecting performance that has not yet been comprehensively covered (at least for many building types) is that relating to occupant movement and the influence this has on experience and hence performance. For example, the number of times people have to negotiate cross-flow environments in a train station before becoming agitated is unknown. Also, the average distance people will walk through a shopping centre before becoming tired and ending the activity is unknown. Even so, they will both be impacted upon by the design and they will both reflect back on the performance of the design. Before starting this research, it was realised by the research engineer that there was only a limited understanding and application of people flow analyses within industry and, where it existed, it was solely related to transport terminals, pedestrian walkways/crossings, sports stadia arrivals/egress, and evacuation analyses

Exploring the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for Stimulating Future Research Agendas for Managing Crises and Disasters at International Sport Events

While the interdisciplinary study of crisis, disasters and emergency management has become increasingly sophisticated, the identification of synergies, useful concepts and future research agendas in relation to studies within the domain of sport event management to inform these areas, is still at a very early stage of development. The far-reaching global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic further illustrates the timely importance of this research agenda for both sports events and broader studies in festivals and events. The purpose of this paper is to critically scope the resilience landscape to help further understand how studies on both International Sports Events (ISEs) specifically and both sport and event management studies more generally, could be better informed by disaster management and resilience studies. The paper highlights eight key thematic areas that merits further investigation, and combines to identify a multidisciplinary research agenda and framework for advancing knowledge on managing crises and disasters in both sport and event management studies

Poetics and politics of the trace: Notes on surveillance practices through Harun Farocki’s work

Found footage and archive images, split-screen or a multiplication of the image on screen, a replacement of the original soundtrack with commentary, a detached voice-over alternating long/silent sequences, an explanatory use of info-graphics and tracking technologies. These elements feature in Harun Farocki’s work on surveillance – work ranging from documentary films to video installations that constitutes a complex imagery based on practices of watching and being watched, control and the gaze, triggered throughout private and public spaces