Semi-leptonic decays heavy-light to heavy light

We present results for the QCD matrix elements involved in semi-leptonic decays of B-mesons into pseudo scalar heavy light states. The application of NRQCD heavy quarks allows for quark masses around the physical b-quark. We investigate the dependence of the form factors on the external momenta and looked at the mass dependence at zero recoil. For the first time, results for radially excited decay products are presented.Comment: 3 pages LaTeX, 5 figures, Talk given at LATTICE99(Heavy Quarks), June 29th to July 3rd, 1999, Pisa, Ital

New results on heavy hadron spectroscopy with NRQCD

We present results for the spectrum of b-bbar bound states in the quenched approximation for three different values of the lattice spacing. Results for spin-independent splittings are shown to have good scaling behaviour; spin-dependent splittings are more sensitive to discretisation effects. We discuss what needs to be done to match the experimental spectrum.Comment: 3 pages, contribution to Lattice'9

Critical care provision after colorectal cancer surgery

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the 2nd largest cause of cancer related mortality in the UK with 40 000 new patients being diagnosed each year. Complications of CRC surgery can occur in the perioperative period that leads to the requirement of organ support. The aim of this study was to identify pre-operative risk factors that increased the likelihood of this occurring. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study of all 6441 patients who underwent colorectal cancer surgery within the West of Scotland Region between 2005 and 2011. Logistic regression was employed to determine factors associated with receiving postoperative organ support. Results: A total of 610 (9 %) patients received organ support. Multivariate analysis identified age ≥65, male gender, emergency surgery, social deprivation, heart failure and type II diabetes as being independently associated with organ support postoperatively. After adjusting for demographic and clinical factors, patients with metastatic disease appeared less likely to receive organ support (p = 0.012). Conclusions: Nearly one in ten patients undergoing CRC surgery receive organ support in the post operative period. We identified several risk factors which increase the likelihood of receiving organ support post operatively. This is relevant when consenting patients about the risks of CRC surgery

Searching for magnetic monopoles trapped in accelerator material at the Large Hadron Collider

If produced in high energy particle collisions at the LHC, magnetic monopoles could stop in material surrounding the interaction points. Obsolete parts of the beam pipe near the CMS interaction region, which were exposed to the products of pp and heavy ion collisions, were analysed using a SQUID-based magnetometer. The purpose of this work is to quantify the performance of the magnetometer in the context of a monopole search using a small set of samples of accelerator material ahead of the 2013 shutdown.Comment: 11 page