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The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of nitrogen (N) deposition on clonal growth in a rhizome clonal plant, Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel.

The study established seven N concentration gradients (0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 g N m⁻²) to simulate the continuous increase in N deposition for the cultivation of L. chinensis seedlings and assess the response mechanism of the cloned L. chinensis plant at different N levels by analyzing the aboveground and belowground plant appearance traits, parent ramets and daughter ramets of resource allocation and biomass allocation.

The results of this study showed that the different N treatment levels could promote clonal growth and had certain regularity under the seven treatments. The addition of N could significantly increase the ramet number, rhizome length, rhizome spacer length, biomass of mother ramets, daughter ramets and belowground L. chinensis population when the N addition was greater than 4 g m⁻²; however, the clonal growth ability of L. chinensis decreased and the rhizome length, ramet number, stem and leaf biomass of daughter ramets and stem biomass of mother ramets significantly decreased when the N addition was greater than 32 g N m⁻².

With global warming, atmospheric N deposition is increasing and it is of great significance to explore the response mechanism of different N levels for the growth of clone plants. This study provides basic data and a theoretical basis for the survival prediction of cloned plants under the background of a global climate change strategy and has important theoretical and practical significance for the scientific management of grasslands in the future.

Emerging evidence regarding crowdfunding challenges long-standing “gender gap” views of traditional entrepreneurial financing and indicates that female entrepreneurs may have an advantage in crowdfunding. Yet, the literature primarily focuses on influences at the individual level, largely overlooking the interaction between gender and higher-level culture. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, this paper aims to investigate the associations among entrepreneurs' gender, culture and crowdfunding performance, particularly in how entrepreneurs' gender and culture interact to affect crowdfunding performance.

Leveraging a sample of 21,730 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns and combining these data with data from Hofstede's study, the World Bank (WB) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this study applies multilevel models to empirically investigate this question across 22 countries/regions.

This study confirms that the advantageous effect, that female entrepreneurs are likely to obtain better fundraising performance over their male counterparts, does exist in crowdfunding. Furthermore, the findings reveal that this advantageous effect of female entrepreneurs on crowdfunding performance would be reinforced when cultures of individualism and indulgence are high and culture of long-term orientation is low.

This study contributes to the literature on gender gaps in crowdfunding and entrepreneurial financing by adding an important culture-related boundary condition to the gender preference reported in earlier crowdfunding work. Moreover, the paper extends the knowledge about the impact of culture on crowdfunding performance and enlightens future research on leveraging multilevel modeling approach to examine the complex interplay between individuals and situations in crowdfunding.

This article presents a novel case study that analyzes the applicability of DoE in the curling sport in order to improve their own performance and the performance of its athletes. Specifically, this study analyzes the most important factors to increase accuracy and precision in the draw game with curlers' opinions. It was decided to use the “Last Stone Draw (LSD)’ as an appropriate play situation.

Specifically, this study analyzes most important factors to increase accuracy and precision in the draw game with curlers opinions from the German Curling association. Three research techniques were used in this study: case study, interviews and a well-designed experiment. The analysis through the use of DoE includes a measurement system analysis, an initial variance test between two players, a screening and a characterization experiment.

The results obtained from DoE suggest that the factors routine, stress, release, balance, and the previous play situation have a substantial impact on the score of the player's draw game. However, no factor has a statistically significant impact on the average distance to the center of the target. Moreover, the DoE analysis also concludes that the accuracy and precision of the player's performance is not affected equally by all analyzed factors, but they turn into highly significant when examining their relationship to the other factors.

The findings of this study can be beneficial to other sports events in improving the performance. Moreover, DoE has proved to be an invaluable tool for many people in the German Curling Association in understanding the factors which influence the curlers performance and also factors which do not affect the curlers performance.

This research attempts to contribute to the existing sports management literature by identifying a way in which DoE can be an effective tool in non-manufacturing settings for identification of most important factors which influence the curling performance.