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The Landscape of Sexual Harm in the Video Game, Streaming, and Esports Community
Get PDFWhile sexual harm has been studied across a range of contexts, it has not yet been considered within the video game, streaming, and esports community. This study aimed to explore the landscape of sexual harm in this community, specifically, where it has been committed by esports professionals and video game live streamers. Fifty-five victim statements were extracted from online sources (such as Twitter/X and Reddit) and coded into variables relating to offender and victim demographics, offence characteristics, the offence process, and platform(s) used. Descriptive statistics were generated for each variable and Fisher’s exact tests were conducted to examine the differences between adult-on-adult and adult-on-child cases. The findings reveal diverse offence outcomes across the sample, ranging from rape to sexual communication with a child. Some offence patterns can be seen in wider sexual offending literature, such as pre-offence alcohol consumption, offending against incapacitated victims (e.g., sleeping), and offending within an established romantic relationship. However, several offence process characteristics unique to the video gaming community were identified. These included offenders using their position of fame within the community to access victims and bypass the need for other coercive behaviours. Online offences were more common with children and offenders demonstrated a preference for ‘live’ methods, such as voice chat and video calling, rather than instant messaging or sharing images of themselves. This limits the digital evidence left behind and indicates the offenders’ greater technological literacy. The study’s findings shed light into the sexual harm that exists within this previously unexplored context and highlights areas where esports organisations, live streaming platforms, and educational providers can do more to safeguard players, fans, and viewers in this community
Vibration Vision: Real-Time Machinery Fault Diagnosis with Event Cameras.
Get PDFVibration-based fault detection is a critical technique in industry for identifying machinery defects and preventing operational failures. Traditional vibration monitoring methods usually rely on continuous data streams from sensors attached to the machine, which can be challenging to process in real-time. This paper introduces an innovative approach using event cameras for vibration-based fault detection. Event cameras capture changes in the scene at microsecond resolution, offering significant advantages in dynamic environments over conventional frame-based cameras due to their high temporal resolution, low energy consumption, and wide dynamic range. We propose Event-Based Frequency Mapping (EBFM) to accurately measure vibration frequencies across the observed field. By normalizing the frequency map, we create a detailed heatmap of the vibration frequencies, enabling the precise identification of anomalies and faults. The algorithm leverages the high temporal resolution of event cameras to efficiently compute dominant frequency values. Additionally, our approach includes dynamic region of interest (ROI) tracking, allowing for targeted monitoring of specific areas within the scene. Two separate experiments were conducted to test our system under different conditions. Results show that the EBFM vibration monitoring system was able to effectively measure frequencies in various lighting conditions and detect unusual machine behavior in abnormal conditions
Influence of electrode contact arrangements on Polarisation-Electric field measurements of ferroelectric ceramics: A case study of BaTiO3
Get PDFA range of partial top full bottom electrodes are used to explore the use of bi-polar Polarisation-Electric field (P–E) measurements to quantify recoverable energy (W
rec), energy loss (W
loss) and the efficiency (η) of ferroelectric BaTiO3 ceramics. The values obtained are dependent on the ratio of sample thickness (S) and top contact radius (r). With increasing S/r from 0.17 to 1.96 the P–E responses become increasingly distorted and broader. Measurements show W
rec increases by a factor of ∼ 1.4 but W
loss increases by a factor of ∼7 with η decreasing from ∼ 29% to 8%. Finite element modelling was used to simulate the experimental set-up of the sample/electrode arrangements using the Jiles-Atherton model to replicate the ferroelectric behaviour of BaTiO3. These models demonstrate the experimentally applied electric field using a simple geometric correction for sample thickness is an underestimation of the actual field experienced by the material under the top contact at high S/r values. We stress the importance of reporting the contact sizes and thicknesses of samples when using P–E measurements to assess W
rec, W
loss and η in non-linear dielectric materials. This will allow a fairer comparison of performances between various types of materials being considered for high-energy-density ceramic capacitors
PCRX-201, a novel IL-1Ra gene therapy treatment approach for low back pain resulting from intervertebral disc degeneration
Get PDFLow back pain is the leading cause of global disability with intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration a major cause. However, no current treatments target the underlying pathophysiological causes. PCRX-201 presents a novel gene therapy approach that addresses this issue. PCRX-201 codes for interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, the signalling inhibitor of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1, which orchestrates the catabolic degeneration of the IVD. Here, the ability of PCRX-201 to transduce human nucleus pulposus cells to increase IL-1Ra production was assessed together with effects on catabolic pathways. When transduced with PCRX-201, the production and release of IL-1Ra was increased in degenerate human nucleus pulposus cells and tissue. Whereas, the production of downstream proteins, including IL-1β, IL-6, MMP3, ADAMTS4 and VEGF were decreased in both cells and tissue, indicating a reduction in IL-1-induced catabolic signalling. Here, a novel gene therapy vector, PCRX-201, was shown to transduce degenerate NP cells and tissue, increasing the production of IL-1Ra. The increased IL-1Ra resulted in decreased production of catabolic cytokines, enzymes and angiogenic factors, whilst also increasing aggrecan expression. This demonstrates PCRX-201 enables the inhibition of IL-1-driven IVD degeneration. The ability of PCRX-201 to elicit anti-catabolic responses is promising and warrants further development to determine the efficacy of this exciting, novel gene therapy
Audience Engagement on YouTube: A Merge of Consumer and Media Engagement
Get PDFThis theoretical paper presents a reconceptualisation of “audience engagement” on YouTube and how such a definition may help us to further understand the audience engagement strategies of YouTubers. Audience engagement is commonly referred to as audiences’ participatory activities, including liking, commenting, subscribing, and the direct consumption of video content on YouTube. However, this paper, through the lens of brand marketing and media production, sees YouTubers as both personal brands and content creators. With this angle in mind, the paper discusses how, by seeing YouTubers as personal brands, audience engagement with YouTubers is a form of consumer engagement, a marketing concept that describes the relationship between brands and consumers. The paper will then discuss how, by seeing YouTubers as content creators, audience engagement is also a form of media engagement, the concept that describes audiences' experience of “transportation” when consuming media products. The paper ultimately argues audience engagement with YouTubers is a merge of consumer and media engagement as a multi-dimensional way to understand audience experience on YouTube. The paper proposes that YouTubers’ audience engagement strategies can be understood in two primary ways. The first is from a consumer engagement perspective, by seeing some YouTubers’ strategies as a way of triggering the audience’s active connections outside video consumption, just like other brands’ consumer engagement strategies. The second is from a media engagement perspective, by interpreting some YouTubers’ strategies as a means of encouraging transportation experience among viewers. This paper adds to the existing literature on the concept of audience engagement on YouTube and social media platforms. It also offers a new way of understanding and new directions for exploring YouTubers’ strategies for fan building, from the perspective of consumer and media engagement in today's and future YouTube landscape, where YouTube creators are continuously becoming a convergence of brands and individual personalities
Negotiations, agreements, and understandings: reconceptualising football referee decision-making in sport as a social relational activity
Get PDFFor the past 20 or more years, the study of football referee decision-making has focussed on concepts more suited to functional performance priorities and measurable components of the role, such as assessing fitness levels and foul-discrimination accuracy scores (see Pina et al., 2018). Investigators have rarely sought personal perceptions and insights from match officials concerning what they experience and what they do when they officiate. Adopting an ecologically grounded theory approach (Russell, 2021), we sought to better understand the perspectives of officials on how relational elements of decision-making contribute to the development of gameplay. Two key concepts are presented, ‘building rapport’ and ‘developing common gameplay expectations’, to analytically explain how referees may seek to use decision-making moments to manage individual- and game-orientated performance goals. Referee observations suggest how ‘good refereeing’ can be reimagined as a social relational activity intended to facilitate the game’s evolution, rather than a series of deliberated actions or responses to movement infractions (i.e. invariant adjudicating acts). Our findings indicate that, without knowledge of a referee’s decision-reasoning or awareness of relevant context-dependent constraints, decision-appropriateness may not always be definitively determined. Our data suggests that researchers might avoid conflating technical accuracy with decision-making ‘performance’, because decision interventions serve a diverse range of psychological, cultural, functional, and socially relevant task priorities. Furthermore, we caution against the increasing desire for technical accuracy in the training and development of referees, as it may diminish complex relational strategies officials are using to manage a game. Future work in sports officiating can continue to ground theoretical understanding in cultural knowledge to better understand what referees are really seeking to achieve when officiating
‘Let's talk about the weather’: The activist curriculum and global climate change education
Get PDFActivist movements have garnered significant global attention on a range of sustainability issues, often involving collectives of citizens coming together. Invoked is the idea of citizens informed to act, emerging not from a common‐sense understanding of everyday life, but rather from a deep political understanding of the world—one that is underpinned by a level of civics knowledge that provides the intellectual basis for engaging in public discussions and planning citizen action. Here, the possibility of transformative activist curricular movements for climate education arises and whether to change the curriculum, or to see curriculum as change in itself. This paper examines what schools and teachers can do to develop children's understanding of and engagement with the issues, and to address their concerns, informed by John Dewey's notion of social action and his ideas on democracy and thinking. The discussion draws on a global movement in climate education, and the case of a group of schools in England. The two cases, chosen as illustrative, are theorised by means of Maton's semantic variation theory to identify how the systems of meaning in these, and similar, contexts can be made accessible. How the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of quality education (SDG4) and climate action (SDG13) can be achieved, including the design of the curriculum by teachers, is examined. The need for an activist curriculum is discussed, one that is integrated and embedded rather than inserted, in which young people can engage with and respond to the issues that they face. Such a curriculum posits the school as both democratic and open, in the sense of having boundaries that are fluid and permeable to the concerns of society, while also giving access to disciplinary knowledge that is the basis of conceptual understanding of the problems of, as well as the solutions to, climate change
Microstructural Engineering of Ferroelectric and Electromechanical Properties in 0.65KBT-0.35BCZT Ceramics
Get PDFThe influence of processing procedures and microstructural features on the functional properties of relaxor ferroelectric ceramics are of fundamental interest and directly relevant to their applications in dielectric capacitors and electromechanical sensors/actuators. In the present work, solid solutions of 0.65(K0.5Bi0.5)TiO3-0.35(Ba0.94Ca0.06)(Ti0.93Zr0.07)O3 (0.65KBT-0.35BCZT) were processed by solid-state reaction using two different procedures, distinguished in terms of mixed or separate calcination of the KBT and BCZT components and leading to homogeneous or core-shell-type relaxor ferroelectric ceramics, respectively. Systematic research was conducted on the impact of the processing techniques and air-quenching procedures on the structure and ferroelectric and electromechanical properties. Higher remanent polarization of the separately calcined materials was ascribed to the ferroelectric nature of the core regions, along with the non-ergodic relaxor ferroelectric response in the shell, which was enhanced by the quenching process. It was also demonstrated that the thermal depolarization temperature increased significantly after quenching, from ~100 to ~160 °C for the separately calcined ceramic, and from ~50 to ~130 °C for the mixed material; moreover, these effects are linked to notable improvements in the ferroelectric tetragonal phase content by air-quenching