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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were established during an era of legal segregation in the United States and, by providing access to higher education, added considerably to the progress of millions of Black Americans. Moreover, to the benefit of their students, faculties, staffs, alumni, and local communities, most HBCUs sponsor intercollegiate athletic teams. No doubt on these campuses, student-athletes are under pressure to meet academic and athletic demands. In this chapter, the central narrative is on the academic and athletic experiences of Black male student-athletes matriculating at HBCUs with National Collegiate Athletic Association affiliation. This chapter adds to the extant literature on the athletic status and academic plight of Black male student-athletes at HBCUs.

Empirical studies reveal Black male student-athletes have both positive and negative experiences on predominantly White college and university campuses. Mindful also of race-based stereotypic beliefs about Black male student-athletes in collegiate sports, these phenomena warrant further discourse and scrutiny. Critical race theory is a race-centered theoretical and analytical framework that has shaped discourse on race and racism in intercollegiate athletics in recent years. Discourse in this chapter is therefore grounded in the narrative of critical race theory and focuses primarily on the academic and athletic plight of Black male student-athletes matriculating at predominantly White colleges and universities with National Collegiate Athletic Association affiliation.

The overrepresentation and lack of academic success for Black male athletes on college campuses are problems that warrant attention in the 21st century. A recent report from the University of Pennsylvania shows that over the four-year period between 2007 and 2010, Black males were overrepresented in college sports (Harper, Williams, & Blackman, 2013), a startling reality considering that Black males are severely underrepresented in the general student body. Further complicating matters is the fact that Black male student-athletes do not graduate from college at rates comparable to their peers (Harper et al., 2013). Focused primarily on the experiences of Division I Black male student-athletes, this chapter begins with an overview of literature relevant to successful academic support programs. The authors also present an overview of best practices for advising African American male student-athletes, derived from athletic departments with a demonstrated record of academic success for Black males.

The vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is an emerging area for smart cities as observed in last few decades. However, some hurdles for VANET exist that need to be resolved before its full implementation in smart cities. Routing is one of the main factors for having effective communication between smart vehicles that urgently needs to be addressed. One factor that affects communication between the vehicles is the intersection points that obstruct the communication. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The conventional routing schemes fail to address the intersection problems that occur during the two points of communication. Therefore, this paper analyses the performance of existing position-based routing protocol for inter-vehicle ad hoc networks, considering the impact of a number of intersections. This simulation evaluates different position-based routing protocols such as Intersection-based Distance and Traffic-Aware Routing (IDTAR), Greedy Traffic-Aware Routing, Anchor-based Street and Traffic-Aware Routing and Geographic Source Routing, based on road topology and the number of intersections.

As a result, the protocol IDTAR has a lower end-to-end delay and high packet delivery ratio in terms of the number of intersections as a case study of smart cities. This concludes that IDTAR can be adaptive to smart cities communication, although some questions need to be considered in terms of its security, compatibility, reliability and robustness.

The role of VANET has been highlighted in smart cities due to its implications in day-to-day life. The vehicles in VANET are equipped with wireless communication nodes to provide network connectivity. Such types of network operate without the legacy infrastructure, as well as legacy client/servers.

Additionally, the study contributes to smart cities by measuring the performance of position-based routing protocols for VANETs.

IT was last July that we denounced the Bullock proposals because of our conviction that they would not work. True, that was not by any means the first time that we had voiced that opinion. We said so, firmly, from the moment that they were promulgated. There was so much against them.

The article analyses the current readiness of India to transform its supply chain ecosystem to smarter systems with Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The analysis is carried out in two stages. First, the readiness of India is assessed globally, and then the rate of transformation over the years and supporting policies are analyzed to understand the transformation potential. This analysis is done across nine identified macro factors namely government support, regulations, business environment, human resource, infrastructure, innovation capability, technological advancements, cybersecurity and digital awareness. The study combines empirical data from 2010 onwards with the strategic literature published by government bodies and institutions for analysis.

Results show that India's readiness is just above the global average with a score of 0.44 on a scale of 0–1 (most ready). Government and start-up culture are found to be leading transformation factors, while digital infrastructure, regulations and cybersecurity are most lacking areas.

This study is first of its kind to the best of our knowledge. The academic literature has not reported studies assessing Industry 4.0 readiness of supply chain ecosystem using macro factors for nations.

The study aims to evaluate the effect of inducing emotions (neutral, joy and fear) on the level of visual attention in beer advertisements.

A between-subject experimental study with a multi-method design was carried out using three neuroscience equipment concomitantly. The electroencephalogram and the electrical conductance sensor on the skin were used to assess the emotions induced in the individuals, while eye-tracking was used to assess the visual attention to beer advertisements. Three independent groups were formed. Each group was induced to one emotion (neutral, joy or fear), and then the level of visual attention was observed in ten stimuli of beer advertisements.

The results revealed that the induction of joy increased the visual attention to the brand name, while the induction of fear increased the visual attention to both the brand name and product packaging but reduced the visual attention to human faces within the ads.

This paper extends the literature, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to indicate that induced emotions before ad viewing influence potential consumers’ visual attention.

The findings can serve as a basis for developing advertising campaigns that use emotion induction before ad viewing to increase the visual attention of potential consumers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate whether the emotion induction that happens before ad viewing can impact the level of visual attention to advertisements. The study also provides clear and comprehensible implications from marketing practices to improve visual attention to ads.

Many governments wishing to provide telecommunication services to those who are unconnected have chosen the Universal Service Fund (USF) as the principal policy instrument. However, there is evidence that monies directly or indirectly collected from users of telecommunication services are lying unspent in these funds. The purpose of this paper is to propose metrics for measuring the disbursement efficacy of funds across time and across countries as an essential element of improving the performance of the universal service funds.

This paper proposes two metrics, the total disbursement rate (TDR) and the year-on-year disbursement rate (YDR), which can be used to assess the disbursement efficacy of universal service programs. It illustrates the value of the metrics by applying them to the USFs of India, Malaysia and Pakistan.

A move to push out funds has been observed in India in recent years. Pakistan had not reached the same momentum up to mid-2014. An improvement in Malaysia’s disbursement efficacy was observed until 2013, with nearly all of the funds collected in the previous year being disbursed. A significant proportion of the funds collected are lying unspent in the three USFs, nevertheless.

The proposed metrics are robust, objective and parsimonious indicators that allow comparison over time and across countries. They will enable productive, evidence-based conversations that will hold fund administrators accountable and will inform the design and implementation of more effective policy mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on architecture education during the lockdown in Saudi Arabia, as well as the new normal that has emerged. This indicates the potential to develop frameworks and strategies for adapting architectural pedagogy modes to unexpected situations.

This study is based on qualitative research with phenomenological aspects, focusing on a phenomenon experienced by a group of people involved in a Bachelor of Architecture degree program. This paper uses data collected from a literature study, as well as interviews conducted at the College of Engineering and Islamic Architecture of Umm Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia; the data sources include tutors, students and recent graduates with common teaching and learning experiences in design studios.

The study shows the feasibility of conducting part of the design course in a distance mode and the rest as on-campus attendance, to ensure effectiveness and to produce quality architectural designs with maximum detail. However, research reveals that both students and educators need greater awareness of the self-learning process.

The research value lies in exploring how the imposition of a distance architecture design studio due to the COVID-19 lockdown has potentially established a new pedagogical model for teaching architecture design studio.