Study of the structure of hadronic events at LEP with L3

Global event shape variables and charged particle spectra are studied from hadronic events collected by the L3 detector corresponding to hadronic center of mass energies between 30 and 189 GeV. The strong coupling constant ( alpha /sub s/) and the active number of flavours (N/sub f/) are determined from the event shapes to be: alpha /sub s /(M/sub z/)=0.1220+or-0.0015(exp)+or-0.0060(theo), and N/sub f /=4.4+or-1.0(exp)+or-2.0(theo) respectively. The energy evolution of the moments of the event shapes have been fitted to a combination of O( alpha /sub s//sup 2/) calculations and power law parametrization of the non-perturbative part, and the universality of the power law behaviour is observed. (10 refs).