Latest news with #Ching
Scoop
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Game Of Rivals: E-Sports Study Finds Winning Formula
As Saudi Arabia kicks off the 2025 Esports World Cup with a US $70 million prize pool and an opening-night concert by Post Malone, researcher Dr Kenny Ching (University of Auckland) says the most successful squads may well be built on past rivalries. By analysing esports teams, Ching and co-authors Enrico Forti (Manhattan College) and Evan Rawley (University of Connecticut) find that people who've competed against each other in the past make better teammates. Their study evaluates millions of randomly formed teams in the global multiplayer game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). Players in DOTA 2 are frequently reshuffled into new teams, offering the chance to measure how different team compositions influence success, says Ching, an avid gamer himself. 'Defense of the Ancients is a high-pressure game where two teams of five players battle head-to-head. 'With millions of active players and a professional circuit that sells out stadiums, it's one of the most competitive and team-oriented games in the esports world.' The large-scale study finds that teammates who've competed against one another in the past, gaining what the researchers call 'competitive familiarity', perform significantly better than those who haven't. So why might past rivalry make for better teamwork? Ching says competition, especially high-stakes public competition, offers insights into how people think, react, and strategise. 'When those same individuals become teammates, those insights can be used to improve coordination and decision-making. 'Competing against a person builds familiarity. Things that might be overlooked when on the same team might be more clearly noticed and remembered during competition.' One professional player quoted in the study, Su 'Super' Peng, described how competition helped him 'feel' his opponent's style of play, allowing for a deeper understanding once they were on the same team. 'Competitive familiarity is surprisingly common in organisational life,' says Ching. 'It happens when companies merge, poach talent from competitors, or bring rival teams together for product development.' Real-world examples where organisations harness rivalry to drive innovation and learning include Samsung, where competition between some internal teams is encouraged before bringing them together to develop new products. Cybersecurity and tech companies sometimes form 'red teams' of internal contrarians who mimic rival attackers to identify weaknesses. And sports teams frequently pay big bucks to bring former adversaries into the fold. Ching's paper, published in Organization Science, includes a few ideas to harness the benefits of competition: Rotating employees through competing teams, staging internal competitions and encouraging former rivals to co-lead projects. 'Esports provides a unique lens into how teams form, adapt and compete under pressure,' he says. 'Just as people learn to work better together through collaboration, they can also learn and have better outcomes through competition.'
Scoop
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Game Of Rivals: E-Sports Study Finds Winning Formula
As Saudi Arabia kicks off the 2025 Esports World Cup with a US $70 million prize pool and an opening-night concert by Post Malone, researcher Dr Kenny Ching (University of Auckland) says the most successful squads may well be built on past rivalries. By analysing esports teams, Ching and co-authors Enrico Forti (Manhattan College) and Evan Rawley (University of Connecticut) find that people who've competed against each other in the past make better teammates. Their study evaluates millions of randomly formed teams in the global multiplayer game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). Players in DOTA 2 are frequently reshuffled into new teams, offering the chance to measure how different team compositions influence success, says Ching, an avid gamer himself. "Defense of the Ancients is a high-pressure game where two teams of five players battle head-to-head. "With millions of active players and a professional circuit that sells out stadiums, it's one of the most competitive and team-oriented games in the esports world." The large-scale study finds that teammates who've competed against one another in the past, gaining what the researchers call 'competitive familiarity', perform significantly better than those who haven't. So why might past rivalry make for better teamwork? Ching says competition, especially high-stakes public competition, offers insights into how people think, react, and strategise. "When those same individuals become teammates, those insights can be used to improve coordination and decision-making. "Competing against a person builds familiarity. Things that might be overlooked when on the same team might be more clearly noticed and remembered during competition." One professional player quoted in the study, Su 'Super' Peng, described how competition helped him "feel" his opponent's style of play, allowing for a deeper understanding once they were on the same team. "Competitive familiarity is surprisingly common in organisational life," says Ching. "It happens when companies merge, poach talent from competitors, or bring rival teams together for product development." Real-world examples where organisations harness rivalry to drive innovation and learning include Samsung, where competition between some internal teams is encouraged before bringing them together to develop new products. Cybersecurity and tech companies sometimes form 'red teams' of internal contrarians who mimic rival attackers to identify weaknesses. And sports teams frequently pay big bucks to bring former adversaries into the fold. Ching's paper, published in Organization Science, includes a few ideas to harness the benefits of competition: Rotating employees through competing teams, staging internal competitions and encouraging former rivals to co-lead projects. "Esports provides a unique lens into how teams form, adapt and compete under pressure,' he says. 'Just as people learn to work better together through collaboration, they can also learn and have better outcomes through competition."
The Star
02-07-2025
- Business
- The Star
Sorting facility along Sg Klang to stem pollution
Ching (right) and Abd Hamid (red shirt) watching excavators removing river debris along Sungai Klang to be sent to the facility. — AZLINA ABDULLAH/The Star Centre focuses on separating waste manually, recycling plastics collected by interceptor A RIVER plastic waste sorting facility along Sungai Klang, Selangor, was unveiled in efforts to cut down plastic waste going into landfills. The facility located along Sungai Klang, will separate recyclable wastes collected by a rubbish-collecting vessel from the river. The vessel – Interceptor 002 – then releases the waste into a log boom, which are then picked up by excavators and sent to the facility to be sorted manually. Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Ching Thoo Kim, who attended the facility's launch, said it was the first such centre by Dutch non-profit organisation The Ocean Cleanup. The project by The Ocean Cleanup is in collaboration with its partners Landasan Lumayan Sdn Bhd (LLSB), J&K Wonderland Foundation and Coca-Cola Malaysia. Klang mayor Datuk Abd Hamid Hussain, who launched the facility yesterday, said it demonstrated the possibilities when multiple stakeholders came together with a common goal. The in-house set-up will sort waste collected with LLSB stepping in as the operator. LLSB was appointed by Selangor government as the main driver of the Selangor Maritime Gateway, aimed at carrying out cleaning, development and conservation activities for Sungai Klang. LLSB managing director Syaiful Azmen Nordin said sorting facility was aimed at maxi- mising recycling outcomes and create job opportunities for the locals. 'A team of full-time workers are stationed at the site to sort waste by hand, separating recyclables such as plastic and aluminium from organic and non-recyclable waste. 'This sorting process aims to contribute to more sustainable and efficient waste management practices,' he added. Syaiful Azmen said the project also explored new applications for the recovered materials, with additional support from partners CNH Industrial and Orca Cika Malaysia. 'Both partners are working to repurpose materials into alternative products such as construction materials, granules and pellets thus reinforcing the project's commitment to circularity and innovation.' The Ocean Cleanup rivers director Marco Piet said the facility would help improve management of rubbish and stop waste reaching the sea. The Coca-Cola Company Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei franchise operations senior director Amanda Lin said removing plastics from Sungai Klang was part of its broader partnership with The Ocean Cleanup in South-East Asia to help prevent plastic waste from flowing into the ocean.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Slumlord Millionaire: how landlords, politicians and developers are fueling the housing crisis
The trouble began when the ceiling above the toilet collapsed. The Bravo family lost hot water and heat – sometimes the temperature would drop to 20F – and they had to boil water to bathe. Nathan, the youngest in the family, has asthma and needs a machine to help him breathe. A doctor blamed mould and cockroaches. Related: 'A cynical ploy to hold power': how the US right has exploited racial division 'It was because of a leak,' says his sister Samantha Bravo-Huertero. 'When someone doesn't fix it, it does start filling with mould. It's disgusting to see. The landlord, her solution was to paint over it. You've covering it but it's still there. Like, you're not fixing it!' It's a story that could be told in any of the world's poorest countries. But it is happening in the 21st century in 'the greatest city in the world', as Lin-Manuel Miranda put it in Hamilton. The Bravo family live in New York – Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to be precise – and are experiencing the dark side of the new gilded age. Their 15-year struggle with an abusive landlord who targeted Latino families is among the stories told in Slumlord Millionaire, a documentary directed by Steph Ching and Ellen Martinez that explores the housing crisis in New York, focusing on the impacts of gentrification, predatory landlords and developer influence on the city's residents. 'We wanted to showcase how interconnected all these systems were and dig more into the roots of why this housing crisis exists and how it continues to persist,' Ching, 37, says via Zoom from Brooklyn. 'Looking at how real estate money feeds into the politics of our city. There are these same issues that impact not only tenants but also homeowners.' New York is the US's biggest city but increasingly unaffordable for the average American. Some 69% of its residents rent. A third of New Yorkers spend more than 50% of their income on rent. The average Manhattan rent now stands at $5,000 a month. The median rent nationwide has surpassed $2,000 a month for the first time in history. As rents increase, some landlords have become more aggressive in trying to get long-term tenants to move out of their homes. A major theme of Slumlord Millionaire is the unethical and often illegal methods used to push out existing, often rent-stabilised tenants to make way for higher-paying residents. These tactics include neglect (ignoring repairs, turning off heat and gas, doing nothing to eliminate vermin infestations), creating uninhabitable living conditions (rats 'will come marching in, almost like troops', says one woman), and engaging in verbal and physical harassment. The 86-minute film exposes the influence of wealthy real estate developers on local politics and legislation. This is exemplified by the onslaught against Moumita Ahmed, who ran for election to the city council in Queens with a pro-tenant agenda. Ching explains: 'Her campaign was viciously attacked by a Super Pac [political action committee] that was started by these billionaire developers who put a million dollars into it. 'Everyone is familiar with big real estate money in politics, especially on a national or even state level. But for it to trickle down to these smaller local elections was eye-opening to us and shows how much hand the real estate industry has in all of our politics and, as a result, the legislation that gets written in our city.' Meanwhile, the 421-a tax break, an incentive programme intended to encourage development, has disproportionately benefited luxury housing developers at a significant cost to the city, resulting in billions in lost potential revenue. The rent guidelines board, appointed by the mayor, determines rent increases for nearly half of New York apartments, illustrating a direct link between political power and rent affordability. A mayor bankrolled by the pro-developer lobby could choose to stack the board with anti-tenant individuals. Martinez, 37, who used to live in a rent-stabilised unit, says: 'I remember my rent going up a random amount and I had no idea that this was actually a thing that you could go see and also that it was so directly tied to the mayor. 'There's a lot of candidates in the race for mayor right now who are promising rent freezes and that is something they are able to achieve because they do appoint this board of people that determines the rent each year for stabilised units.' Slumlord Millionaire also sheds light on the lesser-known but devastating issue of deed theft, in which scammers target homeowners, particularly in historically Black neighborhoods, and steal their properties through fraudulent means. One example is Janina Davis, a former supermodel who is trying to reclaim her home after a deed theft scam. Ching adds: 'We did want to show how it's not just tenants versus landlords. It's these big money real-estate industry developers against your average resident here. 'Janina was a smaller landlord but she had been able to buy this beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn. She actually wanted to expand her building. She wasn't in any sort of financial issue or anything. A lot of times when people talk about deed theft they think people are not educated enough and it's their fault that they got scammed. 'But Janina is super well educated – graduated from Howard University with an economics major – and she was scammed out of this building by these developers who gained her trust and went into business with her and, through the course of years and all this paperwork, stole her home from her.' The low prosecution rate for deed theft allows scammers to operate with little fear of significant consequences. The crime is often racially motivated. Martinez comments: 'The racial dynamic is very clear. The deed fraud case is overwhelmingly people of colour targeted. Historically Black and brown neighborhoods in Brooklyn are being targeted. 'We have a scene, it's a hearing to discuss deed fraud – there's some politicians there – and literally it's an entire room, basically, of African American people that were victimised by deed fraud. It's extremely clear. People are now calling this a new form of redlining, where they don't want certain people to own homes.' Despite the overwhelming power dynamics, the directors point to the resilience and efforts of residents, activists and non-profit organisations fighting back. Examples include the Bravo family's advocacy for the Asthma-Free Housing Act and victory at the Human Rights Commission, community organising efforts in Chinatown against luxury towers, and Ahmed's campaign as a renter advocating for tenants' rights. Ching reflects: 'This is an issue that is happening throughout not just New York City but in other cities in the country, especially in places that are predominantly people of colour. Remember that you are not alone. There are resources that exist. Definitely use the voice that you have. Any form of community engagement is very helpful.' Slumlord Millionaire is now showing at DCTV in New York with more cities to follow. It will premiere on PBS on 28 July
Time of India
27-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Tata Consumer acquisitions report double-digit revenue growth in FY'25
HighlightsTata Consumer Products Limited reported that the acquired brands Capital Foods and Organic India achieved combined sales of Rs 1,173 crore for the financial year 2024-25. Capital Foods, known for the popular Ching's Secret brand, generated a revenue of Rs 799 crore and a profit of Rs 119 crore, while Organic India reported a revenue of Rs 374 crore with a loss of Rs 1.93 crore. Following the integration of Capital Foods and Organic India, Tata Consumer Products Limited has streamlined operations and explored new market opportunities, particularly in the organic products sector with a focus on wellness portfolio expansion. Capital Food and Organic India brands, which were acquired by Tata Consumer Products Ltd (TCPL) a year ago, have reported a double-digit revenue growth in FY2024-25, according to the latest annual report of the company. "Both the brands "achieved combined sales of Rs 1,173 crore, with Capital Foods revenue at Rs 799 crore and Organic India revenue at Rs 374 crore," the Tata group's FMCG arm said in its report. Both delivered strong gross margins, supported by synergies that also drove EBITDA margin expansion year-on-year, it added. TCPL in January 2024 acquired Capital Foods, which owns popular Ching's Secret brand, and Fab India-backed Organic India for a combined enterprise value of Rs 7,000 crore. Capital Foods reported a profit of Rs 119 crore, while Organic India had a loss of Rs 1.93 crore for the financial year which ended on March 31, 2025. Capital Food's revenue for the financial year ended March 31, 2023, was Rs 705.5 crore and Organic India's revenue was Rs 324.4 crore. TCPL said the recent acquisition of Capital Foods and Organic India has further boosted its product portfolio. It has integrated logistics and warehousing for Capital Foods and Organic India to streamline operations and reduce costs. "With the integration complete and businesses stabilised during the year, we were able to capitalise on the synergy benefits and scale the businesses," it said. Capital Foods continues to build growth momentum with targeted innovation, market innovation, expansion into white spaces and strategic brand collaboration. Its operating margin witnessed growth despite higher investment behind brands including collaboration with PepsiCo India's Kurkure to create a breakthrough limited edition snack that combined its signature Schezwan flavours with Kurkure's iconic texture, this was combined with a high energy media and other marketing campaigns. While for Organic India, TCPL is exploring alternate channels also. "With growing consumer demand for organic products, Organic India can leverage this opportunity, through wellness portfolio expansion and strengthening the brand equity and consumer connect. We are strategically building future ready channels like Pharma and Food Services to drive long term growth," it said.
