Beam-induced backgrounds measured in the ATLAS detector during local gas injection into the LHC beam vacuum

Inelastic beam-gas collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), within a few hundred metres of the ATLAS experiment, are known to give the dominant contribution to beam backgrounds. These are monitored by ATLAS with a dedicated Beam Conditions Monitor (BCM) and with the rate of fake jets in the calorimeters. These two methods are complementary since the BCM probes backgrounds just around the beam pipe while fake jets are observed at radii of up to several metres. In order to quantify the correlation between the residual gas density in the LHC beam vacuum and the experimental backgrounds recorded by ATLAS, several dedicated tests were performed during LHC Run 2. Local pressure bumps, with a gas density several orders of magnitude higher than during normal operation, were introduced at different locations. The changes of beam-related backgrounds, seen in ATLAS, are correlated with the local pressure variation. In addition the rates of beam-gas events are estimated from the pressure measurements and pressure bump profiles obtained from calculations. Using these rates, the efficiency of the ATLAS beam background monitors to detect beam-gas events is derived as a function of distance from the interaction point. These efficiencies and characteristic distributions of fake jets from the beam backgrounds are found to be in good agreement with results of beam-gas simulations performed with theFluka Monte Carlo programme

The pricing of underwriting services in the Australian capital market

Recent media releases have placed enormous strains on the credibility of the underwriting industry. It has been alleged that underwriters in the US and UK collude and fix underwriting fees. In contrast to recent evidence on underwriter spreads in the US (Chen, H.-C., Ritter, J.R., 2000. The seven percent solution. Journal of Finance, in press.), we find that Australian underwriting fees are not clustered at one particular percentage. Using 282 underwritten industrial IPOs from 1980 to 1996, we find that underwriters systematically price their services according to firm-specific variables such as the offer size, the subscription period of the issue, the retained ownership after the IPO, the offer price, and whether options form part of the underwriter's compensation.</p

The Impact of Forecast Disclosure and Accuracy on Equity Pricing:The IPO Perspective

In a relatively less litigious environment like Australia, it is common to find IPO firms that voluntarily provide forecasts in their prospectus. Using 158 Australian industrial IPOs listed from 1991 to 1997, we examine the impact of the disclosure and accuracy of earnings and dividend forecasts on equity pricing. Our results show that IPO firms’ disclosure policy is not related to their initial and long-run valuation. However, the market appears to price managers’ ability to forecast: firms with inaccurate earnings and dividend forecasts, especially those that fall short of their forecasts, experience adverse price reactions surrounding the day when the actual figures are released. Our results also show a significant relationship between forecast errors and IPO firms’ postlisting performance. Further analysis shows that this relationship is driven mainly by the announcement effect.</p

3-D target electromagnetic modelling for SAR applications

International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)21395-1397IGRS

Photodegradation of parathion

Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology385820-826BECT

MIMO radar 3D imaging with improved rotation parameters estimation

Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium214-22

Effect of powder calcination on the sintering of hydroxyapatite

The sintering behaviour of synthesized HA powder that was calcined at various temperatures ranging from 700 degrees C to 1000 degrees C was investigated in terms of phase stability, bulk density, Young's modulus and Vickers hardness. The calcination treatment resulted in higher crystallinity of the starting HA powder. Decomposition of HA phase to form secondary phases was not observed in all the calcined powders. The results also indicated that powder calcination (up to 900 degrees C) prior to sintering has negligible effect on the sinterability of the HA compacts. However, powder calcined at 1000 degrees C was found to be detrimental to the properties of sintered hydroxyapatite bioceramics

Islet autoimmunity status in Asians with young-onset diabetes (12-40 years): Association with clinical characteristics, beta cell function and cardio-metabolic risk factors

10.1016/j.diabres.2007.12.003Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice802224-23

Integrating interpersonal space and shared workspace for translation groupware development

Translation is a process that allows people to learn and comprehend others' ideas or cultures in their own language. A translation groupware, that allows two or more human translators to edit the output of machine translation at different times and different places, is developed in order to overcome the limitation of human translators and machine translation. However, translation groupware still not widely adopted by current human translators and the effectiveness is not known. An understanding of how multiple translators work and interact within a group is vital to develop a usable groupware. It is hypothesized that collaborative awareness can improve the translation groupware usability. Collaborative awareness components, such as interpersonal space and shared workspace, are identified as important characteristics to enhance the usability of translation groupware

Fully silicided NiSi gate on La2O3 MOSFETs

10.1109/LED.2003.812569IEEE Electron Device Letters245348-350EDLE