The University of Birmingham's MSc in Mathematical Finance teaches technically trained graduates - including in Mathematics, Science and Engineering – to apply their quantitative skills to financial analysis. Successful completion of the MSc will qualify students to work in quantitative analysis in City of London

A wide variety of least-squares linear regression procedures used in observational astronomy, particularly investigations of the cosmic distance scale, are presented and discussed. The classes of linear models considered are (1) unweighted regression lines, with bootstrap and jackknife resampling; (2) regression solutions when measurement error, in one or both variables, dominates the scatter; (3) methods to apply a calibration line to new data; (4) truncated regression models, which apply to flux-limited data sets; and (5) censored regression models, which apply when nondetections are present. For the calibration problem we develop two new procedures: a formula for the intercept offset between two parallel data sets, which propagates slope errors from one regression to the other; and a generalization of the Working-Hotelling confidence bands to nonstandard least-squares lines. They can provide improved error analysis for Faber-Jackson, Tully-Fisher, and similar cosmic distance scale relations.

A global kinetic model of the FTS over a Co/Al2O3 state-of-the-art catalyst is developed in a fixed bed micro-reactor under conditions relevant to industrial operation (temperature, 210–235 °C; pressure, 8–25 bar; H2/CO feed molar ratio, 1.8–2.7; gas hourly space velocity, 2000–. On the basis of proposed reaction mechanisms, developed according to the carbide theory and the alkyl mechanism, the kinetic expressions for n-paraffins and α-olefins formation are derived. Both the calculated CO conversion and the hydrocarbon distribution (up to n=49) in FT reaction are satisfactorily predicted.