SUSY Searches for Inclusive Squark and Gluino Production at the LHC

A selection of recent searches for Supersymmetry conducted by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations is presented, summarizing the relevant results for inclusive squark and gluino production at the LHC. No indication for the existence of Supersymmetry in terms of an excess above the Standard Model background is seen by any analysis, therefore limits are reported on parameters of the various models used to interpret the findings.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Proceedings of the 48th Rencontres de Moriond on QCD and High Energy Interactions, La Thuile, Italy, 9 - 16 Mar 201

Pseudo-Gambling and Whaling: How Loot Boxes Prey on Vulnerable Populations and How to Curtail Future Predatory Behavior

The video game industry has blossomed from a niche hobby into a mainstream cultural industry, outpacing global box office sales in annual revenue. Yet the price of a video game has barely increased since the industry’s inception, and the current standard price point of sixty dollars has survived for over a decade. Competitive market forces drive companies to invest ever more time and money into creating increasingly complex software in order to remain on the cutting edge of graphics and design, while simultaneously increasing revenue. Thus, video game developers and publishers have developed a multitude of alternative money- making services to provide revenue beyond the initial sale of a game. Of these, the one technique that has garnered the most attention, and the most legislative scrutiny, is the “loot box.” Through this system, players are allowed to pay a sum of real-world currency in exchange for receiving one or more random in-game items. This technique simulates gambling practices yet escapes current gambling oversight, leaving games containing this technique available to anyone. This includes vulnerable populations that do not have the capacity for rational spending, such as minors and those suffering from gambling addiction. Though loot boxes stubbornly persist in existing titles and popular franchises, market forces are slowly phasing out the practice. While current regulatory forces discuss loot boxes, other monetization methods are rising to replace them and no law currently stands in the way of their return. Efforts should be focused toward creating a video game distributor regulatory board, fostering parental education regarding electronic parental controls, and enacting long-term legislation at state and federal levels to prevent similar issues from occurring in future

Calorimeter-Based Triggers at the ATLAS Detector for Searches for Supersymmetry in Zero-Lepton Final States

This thesis consists of three closely related parts. An analysis of data recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2010 in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 33.4/pb is performed, searching for supersymmetric final states containing jets and missing transverse energy and no electrons or muons (zero-lepton channel). No excess over the Standard Model background expectation is observed. Using the CLs and PLR methods, exclusion limits are set in two different supergravity models. These considerably extend the excluded parameter ranges from earlier experiments. The rates and efficiencies of triggers based on combined signatures with jets plus missing transverse energy in ATLAS are studied, which are the primary triggers for the search for Supersymmetry in the zero-lepton channel. For the measurement of the efficiencies in data collected in 2010 and 2011, the bootstrap method is applied. Different sample triggers based on jets and missing transverse energy are compared and their efficiencies are measured. A reweighting approach is used to correct for the bias from the propagation of the uncertainties in the bootstrap method. A universal model is developed to describe the contribution of fake missing transverse energy from resolution effects to the rates of missing transverse energy triggers as function of the level of in-time pile-up, i.e. the number of concurrent proton-proton interactions. The input parameters are tuned to the properties of the ATLAS trigger system, and the model predictions are compared to measurements of trigger rates in ATLAS. Good agreement is found for low thresholds for which the rates are dominated by resolution effects, whereas the rates for higher thresholds are underestimated due to additional sources of fake and real missing transverse energy, which are not incorporated in the model.Comment: PhD thesis, 327 pages. Published on http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl/?webdoc-342

Pseudo-Gambling and Whaling: How Loot Boxes Pray on Vulnerable Populations and How to Curtail Future Predatory Behavior

The video game industry has blossomed from a niche hobby into a mainstream cultural industry, outpacing global box office sales in annual revenue. Yet the price of a video game has barely increased since the industry’s inception, and the current standard price point of sixty dollars has survived for over a decade. Competitive market forces drive companies to invest ever more time and money into creating increasingly complex software in order to remain on the cutting edge of graphics and design, while simultaneously increasing revenue. Thus, video game developers and publishers have developed a multitude of alternative money- making services to provide revenue beyond the initial sale of a game. Of these, the one technique that has garnered the most attention, and the most legislative scrutiny, is the “loot box.” Through this system, players are allowed to pay a sum of real-world currency in exchange for receiving one or more random in-game items. This technique simulates gambling practices yet escapes current gambling oversight, leaving games containing this technique available to anyone. This includes vulnerable populations that do not have the capacity for rational spending, such as minors and those suffering from gambling addiction. Though loot boxes stubbornly persist in existing titles and popular franchises, market forces are slowly phasing out the practice. While current regulatory forces discuss loot boxes, other monetization methods are rising to replace them and no law currently stands in the way of their return. Efforts should be focused toward creating a video game distributor regulatory board, fostering parental education regarding electronic parental controls, and enacting long-term legislation at state and federal levels to prevent similar issues from occurring in future

Methylglyoxal induces platelet hyperaggregation and reduces thrombus stability by activating PKC and inhibiting PI3K/Akt pathway

Diabetes is characterized by a dysregulation of glucose homeostasis and platelets from patients with diabetes are known to be hyper-reactive and contribute to the accelerated development of vascular diseases. Since many of the deleterious effects of glucose have been attributed to its metabolite methylgyloxal (MG) rather than to hyperglycemia itself, the aim of the present study was to characterize the effects of MG on platelet function. Washed human platelets were pre-incubated for 15 min with MG and platelet aggregation, adhesion on matrix-coated slides and signaling (Western blot) were assessed ex vivo. In vivo, the effect of MG on thrombus formation was determined using the FeCl3-induced carotid artery injury model. MG potentiated thrombin-induced platelet aggregation and dense granule release, but inhibited platelet spreading on fibronectin and collagen. In vivo, MG accelerated thrombus formation but decreased thrombus stability. At the molecular level, MG increased intracellular Ca2+ and activated classical PKCs at the same time as inhibiting PI3K/Akt and the β3-integrin outside-in signaling. In conclusion, these findings indicate that the enhanced MG concentration measured in diabetic patients can directly contribute to the platelet dysfunction associated with diabetes characterized by hyperaggregability and reduced thrombus stability

Immunoreactive human chorionic gonadotropin and its free ß-subunit in serum and ascites of patients with malignant tumors

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a clinically relevant marker of trophoblastic and nontrophoblastic malignancies. In the present studies, in addition to determining serum hCG, we investigated the presence and properties of hCG immunoreactivity in ascites of patients with nontrophoblastic malignant tumors and, for comparison, in ascites caused by cirrhotic liver disease. Total hCG immunoreactivity [hCG (+hCG-ß)] was found to be elevated above the reference value (>5 IU/liter) in the serum of 2 of 20 patients with cirrhosis and 11 of 20 patients with malignant tumors. For comparison, in ascites, hCG (+hCG-ß) concentrations were frequently higher than in the corresponding serum samples and exceeded 10 IU/liter in 0 of 20 cirrhotic samples and in 16 of 20 malignant samples. In order to elucidate the nature of the hCG immunoreactive material, all samples were then assessed by immunoradiometric assays specific for the intact hCG molecule (holo-hCG) and the free hCG-ß subunit, respectively. In the holo-hCG assay, elevated values were detected in 0 of 20 (0 of 20) cirrhotic ascites (serum) samples and 0 of 20 (1 of 20) malignant ascites (serum) samples. In the free hCG-ß assay, on the other hand, no positive results were obtained in the ascites or serum of 20 patients with liver cirrhosis; however, 8 of 20 serum samples and 16 of 20 ascites samples derived from tumor patients were positive. In accord with the immunological data, gel chromatographical studies of malignant ascites revealed the abundance of free hCG-ß subunit rather than that of holo-hCG. In contrast to malignancy-related ascites, in ascites of patients receiving hCG injections for treatment of infertility, holo-hCG was more abundant than free hCG-ß immunoreactivity. Incubation experiments of purified holo-hCG in ascites for 24 h at -20, 20, or 37°C showed no substantial dissociation of the hCG molecule and release of free hCG-ß immunoreactivity, thus arguing against production of free hCG-ß by degradation of holo-hCG and in favor of its tumor-related secretion. In conclusion, hCG-ß immunoreactivity is frequently elevated in malignancy-related ascites and appears to be related to the presence of free ß subunit of hCG rather than that of the intact hCG molecule. Interestingly, hCG-ß determination in ascites proved to be clearly superior to serum measurement in discriminating between tumor and cirrhosis. Thus, hCG-ß might be a useful marker of malignancy-related ascites and should be prospectively assessed for possible clinical use in comparison with other well-established parameters, such as cytology and protein determination. For this purpose, according to our results, only assays that exhibit a high sensitivity for free hCG-ß subunit appear to be suitable

Persistence of Tripartite Nonlocality for Non-inertial Observers

We consider the behaviour of bipartite and tripartite non-locality between fermionic entangled states shared by observers, one of whom uniformly accelerates. We find that while fermionic entanglement persists for arbitrarily large acceleration, the Bell/CHSH inequalities cannot be violated for sufficiently large but finite acceleration. However the Svetlichny inequality, which is a measure of genuine tripartite non-locality, can be violated for any finite value of the acceleration.Comment: 4 pages, pdflatex, 2 figure