Heavy quark production at HERA and its relevance for the LHC

The import of HERA data on heavy quark production for LHC experiments is discussed. Knowlegde of all aspects of the beauty and charm production process, viz. the parton density functions of colliding hadrons, the hard scatter, and the fragmentation of the quarks into hadrons, can aid LHC experimentation. This short write-up concentrates on possible influences HERA data can have and on the current status (and history) of beauty production from both HERA and Tevatron experiments. In general, next-to-leading order QCD gives a reasonable description of beauty production although some regions of phase space such as low p_T show indications of differences.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in DIS2006 conference proceeding

Heavy quark production at HERA and the LHC

Measurements of heavy quark production, particularly from HERA, their theoretical understanding and their relevance for the LHC are reviewed. The status of beauty and charm production is discussed in the context of the different components of the production process: the parton density function of the colliding hadrons; the hard scatter; and the fragmentation of the quarks into hadrons. The theory of QCD at next-to-leading order generally describes well the hadronic structure and the production of heavy quarks although sometimes fails in details which are highlighted. The fragmentation of heavy quarks measured at HERA is consistent with that at LEP and hence supports the notion of universality.Comment: Write-up of talk at the workshop, "A workshop on the implications of HERA for LHC physics". To appear in proceedings. 10 pages, 7 figure

The Discreet Trader

This paper examines insider trading, specifically trades by corporate insiders around quarterly earnings announcements. Announcements were broken up into three categories: earnings above analyst expectations, earnings below expectations, and earnings in line with expectations. Trade data was collected from the thirty companies of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 2012-’13. The trades were sorted by purchases and sales by date and analyzed with the earnings report of which the trades were made. Only trades in the interval from twenty days before the announcement date to twenty days after the announcement date were considered. The prediction was that corporate insiders would leverage their inside knowledge to delay trading until after the earnings announcement. They would benefit financially by trading after the announcement and draw less attention from the SEC, as they delayed trading until the announcement became public information. However, knowing how the market would react would allow them to make a meditated decision. For an announcement that was below analyst expectations, corporate insiders should buy stock after the market reaction causes the price to drop. Our findings were that corporate insiders did in fact wait until the announcement day and overall were net buyers. The study will give better insights into how corporate insiders trade and how restrictions can be made to stop this insider trading activity

Biochemical and haematological aspects of ethanol metabolism in humans : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biochemistry at Massey University, New Zealand

Macrocytosis or raised mean cell volume (MCV) (which as measured by the Coulter S counter) is one of the results of alcohol abuse. There is a need to identify (chronic) alcoholics by laboratory tests. The obvious measurement of blood alcohol is not suitable as ethanol is so rapidly cleared from the body. It is usually undetectable 2 – 3 hours after drinking. To this the following battery of tests: MCV, fast haemoglobin, gamma glutamyl transferase and thiamine, have been examined These tests which were performed, on a population consisting of 115 random hospital patients, 14 patients attending diabetic clinic and 13 'normal' volunteers. For ethical reasons it was not possible to obtain samples from known alcoholics. Instead those samples which contained red cells above 92 fl of MCV were suspected of including alcoholics and correlated with other parameter which may be assumed to be elevated in alcoholics. The results showed that there were 23 abnormal findings likely to be associated with heavy drinkings in 70 bloods selected for high MCV