The relationship between students' subject preferences and their information behaviour

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between preferred choice of school subject and student information behaviour (IB). Design/methodology/approach Mixed methods were employed. In all, 152 students, teachers and librarians participated in interviews or focus groups. In total, 1,375 students, key stage 3 (11-14 years) to postgraduate, responded to a questionnaire. The research population was drawn from eight schools, two further education colleges and three universities. Insights from the literature review and the qualitative research phase led to a hypothesis which was investigated using the questionnaire: that students studying hard subjects are less likely to engage in deep IB than students studying soft subjects. Findings Results support the hypothesis that preferences for subjects at school affect choice of university degree. The hypothesis that a preference for hard or soft subjects affects IB is supported by results of an analysis in which like or dislike of maths/ICT is correlated with responses to the survey. Interviewees’ comments led to the proposal that academic subjects can be classified according to whether a subject helps students to acquire a “tool of the Mind” or to apply such a tool. A model suggesting how IB may differ depending on whether intellectual tools are being acquired or applied is proposed. Practical implications The “inner logic” of certain subjects and their pedagogies appears closely linked to IB. This should be considered when developing teaching programmes. Originality/value The findings offer a new perspective on subject classification and its association with IB, and a new model of the association between IB and tool acquisition or application is proposed, incorporating the perspectives of both teacher and student

Astrophysical Uncertainties in the Cosmic Ray Electron and Positron Spectrum From Annihilating Dark Matter

In recent years, a number of experiments have been conducted with the goal of studying cosmic rays at GeV to TeV energies. This is a particularly interesting regime from the perspective of indirect dark matter detection. To draw reliable conclusions regarding dark matter from cosmic ray measurements, however, it is important to first understand the propagation of cosmic rays through the magnetic and radiation fields of the Milky Way. In this paper, we constrain the characteristics of the cosmic ray propagation model through comparison with observational inputs, including recent data from the CREAM experiment, and use these constraints to estimate the corresponding uncertainties in the spectrum of cosmic ray electrons and positrons from dark matter particles annihilating in the halo of the Milky Way.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

QCD Predictions for the Transverse Energy Flow in Deep-Inelastic Scattering in the Small x HERA Regime

The distribution of transverse energy, $E_T$, which accompanies deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering at small $x$, is predicted in the central region away from the current jet and proton remnants. We use BFKL dynamics, which arises from the summation of multiple gluon emissions at small $x$, to derive an analytic expression for the $E_T$ flow. One interesting feature is an $x^{-\epsilon}$ increase of the $E_T$ distribution with decreasing $x$, where $\epsilon = (3\alpha_s/\pi)2\log 2$. We perform a numerical study to examine the possibility of using characteristics of the $E_T$ distribution as a means of identifying BFKL dynamics at HERA.Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX 3.0, no figures. (Hardcopies of figures available on request from Professor A.D. Martin, Department of Physics, University of Durham, DH1 3LE, England.) Durham preprint : DTP/94/0

Pinning down the Glue in the Proton

The latest measurements of $F_2$ at HERA allow for a {\it combination} of gluon and sea quark distributions at small $x$ that is significantly different from those of existing parton sets. We perform a new global fit to deep-inelastic and related data. We find a gluon distribution which is larger for x \lapproxeq 0.01, and smaller for $x \sim 0.1$, and a flatter input sea quark distribution than those obtained in our most recent global analysis. The new fit also gives $\alpha_s(M_Z^2) = 0.114$. We study other experimental information available for the gluon including, in particular, the constraints coming from fixed-target and collider prompt $\gamma$ production data.Comment: 8 pages, LATEX, 6 figs available as .uu fil

Bottom Quark Fragmentation in Top Quark Decay

We study the fragmentation of the b quark in top decay in NLO QCD, within the framework of perturbative fragmentation, which allows one to resum large logarithms $\sim\log (m_t^2/m_b^2)$. We show the b-energy distribution, which we compare with the exact ${\cal O} (\alpha_S)$ result for a massive b quark. We use data from $e^+e^-$ machines in order to describe the b-quark hadronization and make predictions for the energy spectrum of b-flavoured hadrons in top decay. We also investigate the effect of NLL soft-gluon resummation in the initial condition of the perturbative fragmentation function on parton- and hadron-level energy distributions.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure

Transverse Energy Flow at HERA

We calculate the transverse energy flow accompanying small $x$ deep-inelastic events and compare with recent data obtained at HERA. In the central region between the current jet and the remnants of the proton we find that BFKL leading $\ln(1/x)$ dynamics gives a distinctively large transverse energy distribution, in approximate agreement with recent data.Comment: 8 LaTeX pages, 4 figures included as uuencoded postscript at the end of the LaTeX file, Durham preprint DTP/94/3

Perturbative QCD effects and the search for a H->WW->l nu l nu signal at the Tevatron

The Tevatron experiments have recently excluded a Standard Model Higgs boson in the mass range 160 - 170 GeV at the 95% confidence level. This result is based on sophisticated analyses designed to maximize the ratio of signal and background cross-sections. In this paper we study the production of a Higgs boson of mass 160 GeV in the gg -> H -> WW -> l nu l nu channel. We choose a set of cuts like those adopted in the experimental analysis and compare kinematical distributions of the final state leptons computed in NNLO QCD to lower-order calculations and to those obtained with the event generators PYTHIA, HERWIG and MC@NLO. We also show that the distribution of the output from an Artificial Neural Network obtained with the different tools does not show significant differences. However, the final acceptance computed with PYTHIA is smaller than those obtained at NNLO and with HERWIG and MC@NLO. We also investigate the impact of the underlying event and hadronization on our results.Comment: Extra discussion and references adde

Joint resummation in electroweak boson production

We present a phenomenological application of the joint resummation formalism to electroweak annihilation processes at measured boson momentum Q_T. This formalism simultaneously resums at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy large threshold and recoil corrections to partonic scattering. We invert the impact parameter transform using a previously described analytic continuation procedure. This leads to a well-defined, resummed perturbative cross section for all nonzero Q_T, which can be compared to resummation carried out directly in Q_T space. From the structure of the resummed expressions, we also determine the form of nonperturbative corrections to the cross section and implement these into our analysis. We obtain a good description of the transverse momentum distribution of Z bosons produced at the Tevatron collider.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures as eps files. Some additions to earlier version, this version as published in Phys. Rev. D66 (2002) 01401

Recoil and Threshold Corrections in Short-distance Cross Sections

We identify and resum corrections associated with the kinematic recoil of the hard scattering against soft-gluon emission in single-particle inclusive cross sections. The method avoids double counting and conserves the flow of partonic energy. It reproduces threshold resummation for high-p_T single-particle cross sections, when recoil is neglected, and Q_T-resummation at low Q_T, when higher-order threshold logarithms are suppressed. We exhibit explicit resummed cross sections, accurate to next-to-leading logarithm, for electroweak annihilation and prompt photon inclusive cross sections.Comment: minor modifications of the text, some references added. 51 pages, LaTeX, 6 figures as eps file

Hadronic final states in deep-inelastic scattering with Sherpa

We extend the multi-purpose Monte-Carlo event generator Sherpa to include processes in deeply inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering. Hadronic final states in this kinematical setting are characterised by the presence of multiple kinematical scales, which were up to now accounted for only by specific resummations in individual kinematical regions. Using an extension of the recently introduced method for merging truncated parton showers with higher-order tree-level matrix elements, it is possible to obtain predictions which are reliable in all kinematical limits. Different hadronic final states, defined by jets or individual hadrons, in deep-inelastic scattering are analysed and the corresponding results are compared to HERA data. The various sources of theoretical uncertainties of the approach are discussed and quantified. The extension to deeply inelastic processes provides the opportunity to validate the merging of matrix elements and parton showers in multi-scale kinematics inaccessible in other collider environments. It also allows to use HERA data on hadronic final states in the tuning of hadronisation models.Comment: 32 pages, 22 figure