Status report:The Groningen AMS facility

The Groningen AMS facility has been in operation since 1994. The AMS is based on a 2.5 MV tandetron accelerator. It is an automatic mass spectrometer, dedicated to C-14 analysis. Thus far, a grand total of about 16 000 C-14 targets have been measured. We report here on the status and performance of the facility, technical improvements and a precision study on atmospheric samples. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

A low-lying scalar meson nonet in a unitarized meson model

A unitarized nonrelativistic meson model which is successful for the description of the heavy and light vector and pseudoscalar mesons yields, in its extension to the scalar mesons but for the same model parameters, a complete nonet below 1 GeV. In the unitarization scheme, real and virtual meson-meson decay channels are coupled to the quark-antiquark confinement channels. The flavor-dependent harmonic-oscillator confining potential itself has bound states epsilon(1.3 GeV), S(1.5 GeV), delta(1.3 GeV), kappa(1.4 GeV), similar to the results of other bound-state qqbar models. However, the full coupled-channel equations show poles at epsilon(0.5 GeV), S(0.99 GeV), delta(0.97 GeV), kappa(0.73 GeV). Not only can these pole positions be calculated in our model, but also cross sections and phase shifts in the meson-scattering channels, which are in reasonable agreement with the available data for pion-pion, eta-pion and Kaon-pion in S-wave scattering.Comment: A slightly revised version of Zeitschrift fuer Physik C30, 615 (1986

Comment on Intrinsic and dynamically generated scalar meson states

The scalar-meson assignments of Shakin and Wang in a generalized Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model are contradicted by recent experimental information. Also the strict distinction made by these authors between ``intrinsic'' and ``dynamically generated'' states is contested, as well as a number of other statements.Comment: 7 pages, (v2 cosmetics, v3 corrections in one reference), to be published in Phys.Rev.

FAIR-compliant clinical, radiomics and DICOM metadata of RIDER, interobserver, Lung1 and head-Neck1 TCIA collections

Purpose: One of the most frequently cited radiomics investigations showed that features automatically extracted from routine clinical images could be used in prognostic modeling. These images have been made publicly accessible via The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). There have been numerous requests for additional explanatory metadata on the following datasets — RIDER, Interobserver, Lung1, and Head–Neck1. To support repeatability, reproducibility, generalizability, and transparency in radiomics research, we publish the subjects’ clinical data, extracted radiomics features, and digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) headers of these four datasets with descriptive metadata, in order to be more compliant with findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data management principles. Acquisition and validation methods: Overall survival time intervals were updated using a national citizens registry after internal ethics board approval. Spatial offsets of the primary gross tumor volume (GTV) regions of interest (ROIs) associated with the Lung1 CT series were improved on the TCIA. GTV radiomics features were extracted using the open-source Ontology-Guided Radiomics Analysis Workflow (O-RAW). We reshaped the output of O-RAW to map features and extraction settings to the latest version of Radiomics Ontology, so as to be consistent with the Image Biomarker Standardization Initiative (IBSI). Digital imaging and communications in medicine metadata was extracted using a research version of Semantic DICOM (SOHARD, GmbH, Fuerth; Germany). Subjects’ clinical data were described with metadata using the Radiation Oncology Ontology. All of the above were published in Resource Descriptor Format (RDF), that is, triples. Example SPARQL queries are shared with the reader to use on the online triples archive, which are intended to illustrate how to exploit this data submission. Data format: The accumulated RDF data are publicly accessible through a SPARQL endpoint where the triples are archived. The endpoint is remotely queried through a graph database web application at http://sparql.cancerdata.org. SPARQL queries are intrinsically federated, such that we can efficiently cross-reference clinical, DICOM, and radiomics data within a single query, while being agnostic to the original data format and coding system. The feder

Gaia Early Data Release 3: The celestial reference frame (Gaia-CRF3)

Context. Gaia-CRF3 is the celestial reference frame for positions and proper motions in the third release of data from the Gaia mission, Gaia DR3 (and for the early third release, Gaia EDR3, which contains identical astrometric results). The reference frame is defined by the positions and proper motions at epoch 2016.0 for a specific set of extragalactic sources in the (E)DR3 catalogue. Aims. We describe the construction of Gaia-CRF3 and its properties in terms of the distributions in magnitude, colour, and astrometric quality. Methods. Compact extragalactic sources in Gaia DR3 were identified by positional cross-matching with 17 external catalogues of quasi-stellar objects (QSO) and active galactic nuclei (AGN), followed by astrometric filtering designed to remove stellar contaminants. Selecting a clean sample was favoured over including a higher number of extragalactic sources. For the final sample, the random and systematic errors in the proper motions are analysed, as well as the radio-optical offsets in position for sources in the third realisation of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3). Results. Gaia-CRF3 comprises about 1.6 million QSO-like sources, of which 1.2 million have five-parameter astrometric solutions in Gaia DR3 and 0.4 million have six-parameter solutions. The sources span the magnitude range G = 13-21 with a peak density at 20.6 mag, at which the typical positional uncertainty is about 1 mas. The proper motions show systematic errors on the level of 12 μas yr-1 on angular scales greater than 15 deg. For the 3142 optical counterparts of ICRF3 sources in the S/X frequency bands, the median offset from the radio positions is about 0.5 mas, but it exceeds 4 mas in either coordinate for 127 sources. We outline the future of Gaia-CRF in the next Gaia data releases. Appendices give further details on the external catalogues used, how to extract information about the Gaia-CRF3 sources, potential (Galactic) confusion sources, and the estimation of the spin and orientation of an astrometric solution

Production of the doubly strange H dibaryon

There is much current interest in the spectroscopy of multiquark states. Predictions abound for the existence of baryonium (Q/sup 2/ anti Q/sup 2/) and six-quark dibaryon (Q/sup 6/) resonances, for instance. In the strangeness S = -2 sector of Q/sup 6/, the MIT bag model predicts a dibaryon H with quantum numbers J/sup ..pi../ = 0/sup +/, isospin I = 0, and mass M/sub H/ approx. = 2150 MeV approx. = 2M/sub ..lambda../ -80 MeV. The H has quark composition uuddss, so all quarks can occupy the ls state; it is unique in that it possesses no strong decay modes. The fact that the H mass is considerably below the ..lambda lambda.. or XiN thresholds precludes its interpretation as a deuteron-like object bound by conventional long-range meson exchange forces. The H has been searched for in the reaction p + p ..-->.. K/sup +/ + K/sup +/ + H by Carroll et al., with an upper limit of about 100 nb/sr/sup 2/ for two K/sup +/'s at +- 18/sup 0/ in the lab system. Some crude cross section estimates we have made for this process indicate much smaller cross sections than this limit. A more natural way to produce the H, in our view, is via the (K/sup -/, K/sup +/) reaction on a diproton in a nuclear target, i.e. K/sup -/ + (pp) ..-->.. K/sup +/ + H