A longitudinal investigation of repressive coping and ageing

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Aging & Mental Health on October 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13607863.2015.1060941.Two studies investigated the possibility that repressive coping is more prevalent in older adults and that this represents a developmental progression rather than a cohort effect. Study 1 examined repressive coping and mental health cross-sectionally in young and old adults. Study 2 examined whether there was a developmental progression of repressive coping prevalence rates in a longitudinal sample of older adults.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The relationship between plant and humans in indoor environment: A pilot test during the COVID-19 pandemic

Little to no studies have examined the relationship between plants and humans during COVID-19, especially the effectiveness of plants in alleviating psychological distress when working in an office. The paper proposes a conceptual framework to investigate the existence of plants to reduce occupants' psychological distress during the pandemic. The selected site was a newly renovated office in an academic institution with all the essential furniture, and Epipremnum aureum was placed on the tabletop. Since the study was conducted during the pandemic, a 3D-rendered scene of the room was developed based on the actual settings of the office. A pilot test was employed in this stage of the study. The survey questionnaires were administered online, with 106 participants responding. Hayes Process Macro for moderation analysis was executed in SPSS v.23 to understand plant relationship with perceived emotional change, including the mediator-room's attractiveness. The pilot test results (actual and simulated models) show that putting E. aureum on a tabletop can positively influence the calmness of the indoor occupants and make them happy (direct effect). Plants that improve the room's attractiveness might not necessarily contribute to calming the indoor occupants, but they make them happy (indirect effect). Lastly, the conceptual framework provides insight to the designers, stakeholders, and policymakers on the importance of plants in reducing occupants' psychological distress and enhancing work productivity

Study of Z → llγ decays at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a study of Z → llγ decays with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis uses a proton–proton data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb−1 collected at a centre-ofmass energy √s = 8 TeV. Integrated fiducial cross-sections together with normalised differential fiducial cross-sections, sensitive to the kinematics of final-state QED radiation, are obtained. The results are found to be in agreement with stateof-the-art predictions for final-state QED radiation. First measurements of Z → llγ γ decays are also reported

Search for leptoquark pair production decaying into te−te¯ + or tμ−t¯μ+ in multi-lepton final states in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for leptoquark pair production decaying into te−te¯ + or tμ−t¯μ+ in final states with multiple leptons is presented. The search is based on a dataset of pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. Four signal regions, with the requirement of at least three light leptons (electron or muon) and at least two jets out of which at least one jet is identified as coming from a b-hadron, are considered based on the number of leptons of a given flavour. The main background processes are estimated using dedicated control regions in a simultaneous fit with the signal regions to data. No excess above the Standard Model background prediction is observed and 95% confidence level limits on the production cross section times branching ratio are derived as a function of the leptoquark mass. Under the assumption of exclusive decays into te− (tμ−), the corresponding lower limit on the scalar mixed-generation leptoquark mass mLQd mix is at 1.58 (1.59) TeV and on the vector leptoquark mass mU˜1 at 1.67 (1.67) TeV in the minimal coupling scenario and at 1.95 (1.95) TeV in the Yang–Mills scenario

Software performance of the ATLAS track reconstruction for LHC run 3

Charged particle reconstruction in the presence of many simultaneous proton–proton (pp) collisions in the LHC is a challenging task for the ATLAS experiment’s reconstruction software due to the combinatorial complexity. This paper describes the major changes made to adapt the software to reconstruct high-activity collisions with an average of 50 or more simultaneous pp interactions per bunch crossing (pileup) promptly using the available computing resources. The performance of the key components of the track reconstruction chain and its dependence on pile-up are evaluated, and the improvement achieved compared to the previous software version is quantified. For events with an average of 60 pp collisions per bunch crossing, the updated track reconstruction is twice as fast as the previous version, without significant reduction in reconstruction efficiency and while reducing the rate of combinatorial fake tracks by more than a factor two

Search for heavy Majorana or Dirac neutrinos and right-handed W gauge bosons in final states with charged leptons and jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy right-handed Majorana or Dirac neutrinos NR and heavy right-handed gauge bosons WR is performed in events with energetic electrons or muons, with the same or opposite electric charge, and energetic jets. The search is carried out separately for topologies of clearly separated final-state products (“resolved” channel) and topologies with boosted final states with hadronic and/or leptonic products partially overlapping and reconstructed as a large-radius jet (“boosted” channel). The events are selected from pp collision data at the LHC with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 collected by the ATLAS detector at √s = 13 TeV. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed. The results are interpreted within the theoretical framework of a left-right symmetric model, and lower limits are set on masses in the heavy righthanded WR boson and NR plane. The excluded region extends to about m(WR) = 6.4 TeV for both Majorana and Dirac NR neutrinos at m(NR) < 1 TeV. NR with masses of less than 3.5 (3.6) TeV are excluded in the electron (muon) channel at m(WR) = 4.8 TeV for the Majorana neutrinos, and limits of m(NR) up to 3.6 TeV for m(WR) = 5.2 (5.0) TeV in the electron (muon) channel are set for the Dirac neutrinos. These constitute the most stringent exclusion limits to date for the model considered

Observation of four-top-quark production in the multilepton final state with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the observation of four-top-quark (tt¯tt¯) production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The analysis is performed using an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected using the ATLAS detector. Events containing two leptons with the same electric charge or at least three leptons (electrons or muons) are selected. Event kinematics are used to separate signal from background through a multivariate discriminant, and dedicated control regions are used to constrain the dominant backgrounds. The observed (expected) significance of the measured tt¯tt¯ signal with respect to the standard model (SM) background-only hypothesis is 6.1 (4.3) standard deviations. The tt¯tt¯ production cross section is measured to be 22.5+6.6−5.5 fb, consistent with the SM prediction of 12.0±2.4 fb within 1.8 standard deviations. Data are also used to set limits on the three-top-quark production cross section, being an irreducible background not measured previously, and to constrain the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling and effective field theory operator coefficients that affect tt¯tt¯ production

Characterization of Monoclonal Antibodies raised against Recombinant Respiratory Syncytial Virus Nucleocapsid (N) Protein: Identification of a Region in the Carboxy Terminus of N Involved in the Interaction with P Protein

To investigate structure and biological properties of the nucleocapsid (N) protein of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), we have generated a panel of 16 monoclonal antibodies, raised against recombinant N protein, and epitope mapped seven of these to three antigenic sites (Site I aa 16–30; Site II aa 341–350; Site III aa 351–365). Characterization by immunofluorescence and by immunoprecipitation assay demonstrated that a monoclonal antibody to antigenic site I can detect N protein complexed with phospho (P) protein. Antibodies to antigenic sites II and III, which are adjacent to each other near the carboxyl terminus of the N protein, have distinct properties. A site III monoclonal antibody detected N protein in cytoplasmic inclusion bodies and in the cytosol, but not when N was complexed to P protein, while the site II antibody reacted with N protein in the nucleocapsid fraction but did not detect cytosolic N protein. Further investigation into the reactivities of the antibodies after binding of P to N in vitro demonstrated that antigenic sites II and III were blocked by the interaction, indicating an involvement for the carboxy domain of N in the N–P interaction. This was confirmed by the ability of peptides from the carboxy terminus of N to inhibit the N–P interaction in vitro