Recent developments in automated NLO calculations: the HELAC-NLO case

Achieving a precise description of multi-parton final states is crucial for the interpretation of the LHC data. Recent years have seen a huge effort in developing methods for an efficient and fully automated computation of cross sections at the one-loop level enlarging the wealth of predictions accessible at the next-to-leading order (NLO). In this proceedings contribution we briefly review the main features of the HELAC-NLO method and show, as an illustratory example, some results of a complete NLO study of Higgs signal t anti t H (H→b anti b) versus irreducible QCD background in t anti tb anti b production at the LHC. (Abstract Copyright [2010], Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)