The Use of Gamification and Its Impact on Crowdfunding Participation:

This action research study examined how the use of two gamification tools (CreatiCUBE and Children Story Time) can increase the interest of venture capitalists to invest in the start-up company that designed both tools. Data were collected through interviews and field notes using convenience sampling. The eight participants in this study were people who had previous knowledge of and supported the two projects. The initial findings revealed that participants and potential investors were inclining to support Children Story Time rather than CreatiCUBE. The flexible nature of action research allowed a refocus of the study on the latter gamification tool. Four themes emerged from the analysis of data: 1) participants had no particular interest in funding; 2) funding was a byproduct of market demand; 3) Children Story Time was a market-disrupting tool; and 4) strategies emerged to secure venture capital investment. Three analytical theories shed light on the findings: Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and Csikszentmikalyi’s flow and transactional leadership theories. Findings provide evidence that, to secure financial investment, startup entrepreneurs need to immerse in the cultural capital of their community and appeal to the support of close friends and family members to create a workable application, demonstrate the application has over 10,000 daily users, and hold a successful Kickstarter campaign

RICH detector time alignment and studies of CP violation in the decay B0s → ØØ at the LHCb experiment

LHCb is a high-precision experiment dedicated to measuring the decays of B hadrons. Particle identification at LHCb relies upon two Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detectors, and this thesis describes work carried out relating to these detectors. It includes an analysis performed to investigate ion feedback in the Hybrid Photon Detectors (HPDs) used as photosensors for the RICH system, and studies of the performance of a RICH prototype in test beam conditions. A time alignment system for the RICH detectors has been designed and implemented, and this work is presented here. Excellent particle identification performance is required for efficient reconstruction of the b → s penguin decay B0s → ØØ a channel in which visible New Physics effects are possible. An analysis of this decay has been performed, encompassing event selection at trigger and offline levels, resolution, tagging and acceptance studies, and toy monte carlo experiments on sensitivity and systematic errors in measuring the total weak phase. The results are discussed within

Reconstruction of primary vertices at the ATLAS experiment in Run 1 proton–proton collisions at the LHC

This paper presents the method and performance of primary vertex reconstruction in proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment during Run 1 of the LHC. The studies presented focus on data taken during 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=8 TeV. The performance has been measured as a function of the number of interactions per bunch crossing over a wide range, from one to seventy. The measurement of the position and size of the luminous region and its use as a constraint to improve the primary vertex resolution are discussed. A longitudinal vertex position resolution of about 30μm is achieved for events with high multiplicity of reconstructed tracks. The transverse position resolution is better than 20μm and is dominated by the precision on the size of the luminous region. An analytical model is proposed to describe the primary vertex reconstruction efficiency as a function of the number of interactions per bunch crossing and of the longitudinal size of the luminous region. Agreement between the data and the predictions of this model is better than 3% up to seventy interactions per bunch crossing

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

A sensor kinase controls turgor-driven plant infection by the rice blast fungus

The blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae gains entry to its host plant by means of a specialized pressure-generating infection cell called an appressorium, which physically ruptures the leaf cuticle. Turgor is applied as an enormous invasive force by septin-mediated reorganization of the cytoskeleton and actin-dependent protrusion of a rigid penetration hypha. However, the molecular mechanisms that regulate the generation of turgor pressure during appressorium-mediated infection of plants remain poorly understood. Here we show that a turgor-sensing histidine–aspartate kinase, Sln1, enables the appressorium to sense when a critical turgor threshold has been reached and thereby facilitates host penetration. We found that the Sln1 sensor localizes to the appressorium pore in a pressure-dependent manner, which is consistent with the predictions of a mathematical model for plant infection. A Δsln1 mutant generates excess intracellular appressorium turgor, produces hyper-melanized non-functional appressoria and does not organize the septins and polarity determinants that are required for leaf infection. Sln1 acts in parallel with the protein kinase C cell-integrity pathway as a regulator of cAMP-dependent signalling by protein kinase A. Pkc1 phosphorylates the NADPH oxidase regulator NoxR and, collectively, these signalling pathways modulate appressorium turgor and trigger the generation of invasive force to cause blast disease

Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation indexes preserved semantic memory in healthy ageing

Behavioural studies investigating the preservation of semantic memory in healthy ageing have reported mixed findings. One suggested reason for this discrepancy is that the processes underpinning lexical access to semantic knowledge may be sensitive to ageing. It is therefore necessary to assess semantic memory utilising tasks that are not explicitly linguistic. In this study, a fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) paradigm coupled with EEG was used to assess the ability of younger and older adults to automatically distinguish between images by their semantic category. Participants were presented with a 6Hz stream of images drawn from one semantic category except every fifth image (occurring at a rate of 1.2Hz) which was drawn from an alternate semantic category. For both younger and older adults, results demonstrate successful and comparable semantic categorisation. This was detectable at the individual level for 71% and 72% of older and younger adults, respectively. Given the rapid presentation rate and absence of explicit instruction to categorise images, the task is unlikely to utilise linguistic strategies and suggests the maintenance of semantic memory in healthy ageing. Moreover, this study utilised mobile EEG equipment and short presentation times that would be suitable for practical application outside a research setting

Electronic Spin Relaxation and Clustering in High-Pressure High-Temperature Synthesized Microcrystalline Diamond Particles with Reduced Nitrogen Content

The negatively charged Nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) color center in diamond is widely studied because of numerous applications of this unique quantum system in sensing and quantum information sciences. While substitutional nitrogen is required to form NV- centers, it also yields other paramagnetic defects - primarily the neutrally charged substitutional nitrogen centers (P1) - that decrease NV- spin coherence which in turn degrades performance in applications. Herein, we investigate high-pressure high-temperature synthesized diamond microparticles (ca. 140-185 μm) having lower - ranging from 3 to 38 ppm - than the typical nitrogen content of type 1b diamond (ca. 100 ppm and higher) typically used for production of fluorescent diamond particles with NV- centers. A suite of electron paramagnetic resonance, optically detected magnetic resonance, and nuclear magnetic resonance methods are used to characterize spin properties of P1 and NV- centers in the particles. Upon decreasing the nitrogen content from 29 ppm to 3 ppm, the ensemble NV- T2 relaxation time increased by about 3-fold as measured directly in the Hahn Echo experiment at 1.2 Tesla. Analysis of electronic relaxation of P1 centers revealed the existence of at least two distinct populations of P1 centers, consisting of fast and slower relaxing spins. Even with <10 ppm nitrogen contents, the analysis indicated a highly heterogenous distribution of P1 centers, suggesting the possibility of P1 spin clustering in even at low concentrations. The combined data demonstrate that the particles prepared from HPHT diamond with a low nitrogen content offer improved spin properties that are beneficial for NV- sensing applications