Abstract submitted to the
         International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics
                  July 12 - 18, 2001, Budapest, Hungary
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       Phenomenological implications of the proton structure function 
                                F_2 at low Q^2

                    
                               ZEUS Collaboration



                                    Abstract


       The proton structure function data, F_2, measured in e^+p 
       scattering with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated 
       luminosity of 30 pb^{-1} have been used to study some 
       phenomenological issues in deep inelastic scattering.  Particular 
       emphasis is placed on the transition from hadronic-type behavior 
       at Q^2 ~ 0 to the deep inelastic scattering regime (Q^2 >> 1 GeV^2). 
       The derivatives dln(F_2)/dln(1/x) for fixed Q^2 and dF_2/dlog(Q^2) 
       for fixed x are shown, and a comparison of the data to several 
       models is made.