597 research outputs found
Assessing impacts of typhoons and the Chi-Chi earthquake on Chenyulan watershed landscape pattern in Central Taiwan using landscape metrics
The Chi-Chi earthquake (M-L = 7.3) occurred in the central part of Taiwan on September 21, 1999. After the earthquake, typhoons Xangsane and Toraji produced heavy rainfall that fell across the eastern and central parts of Taiwan on November 2000 and July 2001. This study uses remote sensing data, landscape metrics, multivariate statistical analysis, and spatial autocorrelation to assess how earthquake and typhoons affect landscape patterns. It addresses variations of the Chenyulan watershed in Nantou County, near the earthquake's epicenter and crossed by Typhoon Toraji. The subsequent disturbances have gradually changed landscape of the Chenyulan watershed. Disturbances of various types, sizes, and intensities, following various tracks, have various effects on the landscape patterns and variations of the Chenyulan watershed. The landscape metrics that are obtained by multivariate statistical analyses showed that the disturbances produced variously fragmented patches, interspersed with other patches and isolated from patches of the same type across the entire Chenyulan watershed. The disturbances also affected the isolation, size, and shape-complexity of patches at the landscape and class levels. The disturbances at the class level more strongly affected spatial variations in the landscape as well as patterns of grasslands and bare land, than variations in the watershed farmland and forest. Moreover, the earthquake with high magnitude was a starter to create these landscape variations in space in the Chenyulan watershed. The cumulative impacts of the disturbances on the watershed landscape pattern had existed, especially landslides and grassland in the study area, but were not always evident in space and time in landscape and other class levels
Comparison of [(11)C]choline positron emission tomography with T2- and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging for delineating malignant intraprostatic lesions
Purpose: To compare the accuracy of ¹¹C-choline (CHOL) positron emission tomography (PET) with the combination of T2-weighted (T2W) and diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for delineating malignant intraprostatic lesions (IPLs) for guiding focal therapies and to investigate factors predicting the accuracy of CHOL-PET. Methods and Materials: This study included 21 patients who underwent CHOL-PET and T2W-/DW-MRI prior to radical prostatectomy. Two observers manually delineated IPL contours for each scan, and automatic IPL contours were generated on CHOL-PET based on varying proportions of the maximum standardized uptake value (SUV). IPLs identified on prostatectomy specimens defined the reference standard contours. The imaging-based contours were compared with the reference standard contours using Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), sensitivity and specificity. Factors that could potentially predict the DSC of the best contouring method were analyzed using linear models. Results: The best automatic contouring method, SUV60, had similar correlations (DSC 0.59) with the manual PET contours (DSC 0.52, P=0.127) and significantly better correlations than the manual MRI contours (DSC 0.37, P<0.001). The sensitivity and specificity values were 72% and 71% for SUV60; 53% and 86% for PET manual contouring; and 28% and 92% for MRI manual contouring. The tumor volume and transition zone pattern could independently predict the accuracy of CHOL-PET. Conclusions: CHOL-PET is superior to the combination of T2W- and DW-MRI for delineating IPLs. The accuracy of CHOL-PET is insufficient for gland-sparing focal therapies, 3 however may be accurate enough for focal boost therapies. The transition zone pattern is a new classification that may predict for how well CHOL-PET delineates IPLs.Joe H. Chang, Daryl Lim Joon, Ian D. Davis, Sze Ting Lee, Chee-Yan Hiew, Stephen Esler, Sylvia J. Gong, Morikatsu Wada, David Clouston, Richard O'Sullivan, Yin P. Goh, Damien Bolton, Andrew M. Scott, Vincent Kho
Observation of Two New N* Peaks in J/psi -> and Decays
The system in decays of is limited to be
isospin 1/2 by isospin conservation. This provides a big advantage in studying
compared with and experiments which mix
isospin 1/2 and 3/2 for the system. Using 58 million decays
collected with the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, more than 100 thousand
events are obtained. Besides two well known
peaks at 1500 MeV and 1670 MeV, there are two new, clear peaks in
the invariant mass spectrum around 1360 MeV and 2030 MeV. They are the
first direct observation of the peak and a long-sought "missing"
peak above 2 GeV in the invariant mass spectrum. A simple
Breit-Wigner fit gives the mass and width for the peak as MeV and MeV, and for the new peak above 2 GeV
as MeV and MeV, respectively
Non-Markovian dynamics for an open two-level system without rotating wave approximation: Indivisibility versus backflow of information
By use of the two measures presented recently, the indivisibility and the
backflow of information, we study the non-Markovianity of the dynamics for a
two-level system interacting with a zero-temperature structured environment
without using rotating wave approximation (RWA). In the limit of weak coupling
between the system and the reservoir, and by expanding the time-convolutionless
(TCL) generator to the forth order with respect to the coupling strength, the
time-local non-Markovian master equation for the reduced state of the system is
derived. Under the secular approximation, the exact analytic solution is
obtained and the sufficient and necessary conditions for the indivisibility and
the backflow of information for the system dynamics are presented. In the more
general case, we investigate numerically the properties of the two measures for
the case of Lorentzian reservoir. Our results show the importance of the
counter-rotating terms to the short-time-scale non-Markovian behavior of the
system dynamics, further expose the relations between the two measures and
their rationality as non-Markovian measures. Finally, the complete positivity
of the dynamics of the considered system is discussed
Air fluorescence measurements in the spectral range 300-420 nm using a 28.5 GeV electron beam
Measurements are reported of the yield and spectrum of fluorescence, excited
by a 28.5 GeV electron beam, in air at a range of pressures of interest to
ultra-high energy cosmic ray detectors. The wavelength range was 300 - 420 nm.
System calibration has been performed using Rayleigh scattering of a nitrogen
laser beam. In atmospheric pressure dry air at 304 K the yield is 20.8 +/- 1.6
photons per MeV.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Astroparticle Physic
Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities
A golden age for heavy quarkonium physics dawned a decade ago, initiated by
the confluence of exciting advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and an
explosion of related experimental activity. The early years of this period were
chronicled in the Quarkonium Working Group (QWG) CERN Yellow Report (YR) in
2004, which presented a comprehensive review of the status of the field at that
time and provided specific recommendations for further progress. However, the
broad spectrum of subsequent breakthroughs, surprises, and continuing puzzles
could only be partially anticipated. Since the release of the YR, the BESII
program concluded only to give birth to BESIII; the -factories and CLEO-c
flourished; quarkonium production and polarization measurements at HERA and the
Tevatron matured; and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC have opened a window on the
deconfinement regime. All these experiments leave legacies of quality,
precision, and unsolved mysteries for quarkonium physics, and therefore beg for
continuing investigations. The plethora of newly-found quarkonium-like states
unleashed a flood of theoretical investigations into new forms of matter such
as quark-gluon hybrids, mesonic molecules, and tetraquarks. Measurements of the
spectroscopy, decays, production, and in-medium behavior of c\bar{c}, b\bar{b},
and b\bar{c} bound states have been shown to validate some theoretical
approaches to QCD and highlight lack of quantitative success for others. The
intriguing details of quarkonium suppression in heavy-ion collisions that have
emerged from RHIC have elevated the importance of separating hot- and
cold-nuclear-matter effects in quark-gluon plasma studies. This review
systematically addresses all these matters and concludes by prioritizing
directions for ongoing and future efforts.Comment: 182 pages, 112 figures. Editors: N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, B. K.
Heltsley, R. Vogt. Section Coordinators: G. T. Bodwin, E. Eichten, A. D.
Frawley, A. B. Meyer, R. E. Mitchell, V. Papadimitriou, P. Petreczky, A. A.
Petrov, P. Robbe, A. Vair
Direct Measurement of the Pseudoscalar Decay Constant fD+
The absolute branching fraction of has been directly
measured by an analysis of a data sample of about 33 collected
around GeV with the BES-II at the BEPC. At these energies,
meson is produced in pair as . A total of mesons are reconstructed from this data set. In the
recoil side of the tagged mesons, purely leptonic decay
events of are observed. This yields a branching fraction of
, and a
corresponding pseudoscalar decay constant
MeV.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, Submitted to Physics Letters B in October, 200
Direct Measurements of the Branching Fractions for and and Determinations of the Form Factors and
The absolute branching fractions for the decays and
are determined using singly
tagged sample from the data collected around 3.773 GeV with the
BES-II detector at the BEPC. In the system recoiling against the singly tagged
meson, events for and events for decays are observed. Those yield
the absolute branching fractions to be and . The
vector form factors are determined to be
and . The ratio of the two form
factors is measured to be .Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
\psi(2S) Decays into \J plus Two Photons
Using \gamma \gamma J/\psi, J/\psi \ra e^+ e^- and events
from a sample of \psip decays collected with the BESII
detector, the branching fractions for \psip\ra \pi^0\J, \eta\J, and
\psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c1},\gamma\chi_{c2}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi are measured
to be B(\psip\ra \pi^0\J) = (1.43\pm0.14\pm0.13)\times 10^{-3}, B(\psip\ra
\eta\J) = (2.98\pm0.09\pm0.23)%,
B(\psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c1}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi) = (2.81\pm0.05\pm 0.23)%,
and B(\psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c2}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi) = (1.62\pm0.04\pm
0.12)%.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev.
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