44 research outputs found
Characterizing LEDAPS surface reflectance products by comparisons with AERONET, field spectrometer, and MODIS data
This study provides a baseline quality check on provisional Landsat Surface Reflectance (SR) products as generated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) software. Characterization of the Landsat SR products leveraged comparisons between aerosol optical thickness derived from LEDAPS and measured by Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), as well as reflectance correlations with field spectrometer and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Results consistently indicated similarity between LEDAPS and alternative data products in longer wavelengths over vegetated areas with no adjacent water, while less reliable performance was observed in shorter wavelengths and sparsely vegetated areas. This study demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of the atmospheric correction methodology used in LEDAPS, confirming its successful implementation to generate Landsat SR products
Characterizing LEDAPS surface reflectance products by comparisons with AERONET, field spectrometer, and MODIS data
This study provides a baseline quality check on provisional Landsat Surface Reflectance (SR) products as generated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) software. Characterization of the Landsat SR products leveraged comparisons between aerosol optical thickness derived from LEDAPS and measured by Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), as well as reflectance correlations with field spectrometer and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Results consistently indicated similarity between LEDAPS and alternative data products in longer wavelengths over vegetated areas with no adjacent water, while less reliable performance was observed in shorter wavelengths and sparsely vegetated areas. This study demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of the atmospheric correction methodology used in LEDAPS, confirming its successful implementation to generate Landsat SR products
Experimental Evidence of Giant Electron - Gamma Bursts Generated by Extensive Atmospheric Showers in Thunderclouds
The existence of a new phenomena - giant electron-gamma bursts is
established. The bursts are generated in thunderclouds as a result of the
combined action of runaway breakdown and extensive atmosphere showers (RB-EAS).
The experiments were fulfilled at the Tien Shan Mountain Scientific Station
using EAS-Radio installation. This specially constructed installation consists
of a wide spread EAS trigger array and a high time resolution
radiointerferometer.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figure
Ecological Invasion, Roughened Fronts, and a Competitor's Extreme Advance: Integrating Stochastic Spatial-Growth Models
Both community ecology and conservation biology seek further understanding of
factors governing the advance of an invasive species. We model biological
invasion as an individual-based, stochastic process on a two-dimensional
landscape. An ecologically superior invader and a resident species compete for
space preemptively. Our general model includes the basic contact process and a
variant of the Eden model as special cases. We employ the concept of a
"roughened" front to quantify effects of discreteness and stochasticity on
invasion; we emphasize the probability distribution of the front-runner's
relative position. That is, we analyze the location of the most advanced
invader as the extreme deviation about the front's mean position. We find that
a class of models with different assumptions about neighborhood interactions
exhibit universal characteristics. That is, key features of the invasion
dynamics span a class of models, independently of locally detailed demographic
rules. Our results integrate theories of invasive spatial growth and generate
novel hypotheses linking habitat or landscape size (length of the invading
front) to invasion velocity, and to the relative position of the most advanced
invader.Comment: The original publication is available at
www.springerlink.com/content/8528v8563r7u2742
THE RATE OF BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGERS INFERRED FROM ADVANCED LIGO OBSERVATIONS SURROUNDING GW150914
A transient gravitational-wave signal, GW150914, was identi
fi
ed in the twin Advanced LIGO detectors on 2015
September 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC. To asse
ss the implications of this discovery,
the detectors remained in operation with
unchanged con
fi
gurations over a period of 39 days around the time of t
he signal. At the detection statistic threshold
corresponding to that observed for GW150914, our search of the 16 days of simultaneous two-detector observational
data is estimated to have a false-alarm rate
(
FAR
)
of
<
́
--
4.9 10 yr
61
, yielding a
p
-value for GW150914 of
<
́
-
210
7
. Parameter estimation follo
w-up on this trigger identi
fi
es its source as a binary black hole
(
BBH
)
merger
with component masses
(
)(
)
=
-
+
-
+
mm
M
,36,29
12
4
5
4
4
at redshift
=
-
+
z
0.09
0.04
0.03
(
median and 90% credible range
)
.
Here, we report on the constraints these observations place on the rate of BBH coalescences. Considering only
GW150914, assuming that all BBHs in the universe have the same masses and spins as this event, imposing a search
FAR threshold of 1 per 100 years, and assuming that the BBH merger rate is constant in the comoving frame, we infer a
90% credible range of merger rates between
–
--
2
53 Gpc yr
31
(
comoving frame
)
. Incorporating all search triggers that
pass a much lower threshold while accounting for the uncerta
inty in the astrophysical origin of each trigger, we estimate
a higher rate, ranging from
–
--
13 600 Gpc yr
31
depending on assumptions about the BBH mass distribution. All
together, our various rate estimat
es fall in the conservative range
–
--
2
600 Gpc yr
31
Measurement of the top-quark mass using a leptonic invariant mass in pp collisions at s√ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
A measurement of the top-quark mass (mt) in the tt¯
→ lepton + jets channel is presented, with an experimental technique which exploits semileptonic decays of b-hadrons produced in the top-quark decay chain. The distribution of the invariant mass mℓμ of the lepton, ℓ (with ℓ = e, μ), from the W-boson decay and the muon, μ, originating from the b-hadron decay is reconstructed, and a binned-template profile likelihood fit is performed to extract mt. The measurement is based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1 of s√
= 13 TeV pp collisions provided by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS detector. The measured value of the top-quark mass is mt = 174.41 ± 0.39 (stat.) ± 0.66 (syst.) ± 0.25 (recoil) GeV, where the third uncertainty arises from changing the PYTHIA8 parton shower gluon-recoil scheme, used in top-quark decays, to a recently developed setup
Forecasting Stock Returns in the Japanese, UK and US Markets During the Crash of October 1987
High energy cosmic ray particles and the most powerful discharges in thunderstorm atmosphere
Licking and Liking: The Assessment of Hedonic Responses in Rodents
Affective processes are a key determinant of behaviour: At its simplest, liked stimuli are approached while disliked stimuli are avoided. Although assessing hedonic responses in nonverbal animals can be difficult, one relatively tractable approach relies on detailed analyses of rodents' consummatory behaviour. Rodents typically produce rhythmic sets of licks that can be grouped into clusters on the basis of the intervals between licks. The mean number of licks in a cluster (cluster size) is directly related to the concentration of palatable and unpalatable solutions. These relationships suggest that lick cluster size might be a useful index of an animal's hedonic reaction to the solution being consumed. I begin by reviewing studies of conditioned flavour preference and aversion that support the idea that lick cluster size can provide useful information about rats' hedonic reactions. I then describe how this methodology has been used to address previously intractable issues in the investigation of contrast effects as well as revealing an analogue of effort justification effects that, in humans, are commonly explained in terms of cognitive dissonance reduction. Finally, I consider how lick analysis might provide information about hedonic responses in animal models of human psychiatric disorders. In all these cases, how an animal did something was particularly informative about why it was doing it