On the Isovector Channels in Relativistic Point Coupling Models within the Hartree and Hartree-Fock Approximations

We investigate the consequences of Fierz transformations acting upon the contact interactions for nucleon fields occurring in relativistic point coupling models in Hartree approximation, which yield the same models but in Hartree-Fock approximation instead. We find for four-fermion interactions occurring in two existing relativistic point coupling phenomenologies that whereas in Hartree the isovector-scalar strength, corresponding to delta-meson exchange, is unnaturally small, indicating a possible new symmetry, in Hartree-Fock it is instead comparable to the isovector-vector strength corresponding to rho-meson exchange, but the sum of the two isovector coupling constants appears to be preserved in both approaches. Furthermore, in Hartree-Fock approximation, both QCD-scaled isovector coupling constants are natural (dimensionless and of order 1) whereas in Hartree approximation only that of the isovector-vector channel is natural. This indicates that it is not necessary to search for a new symmetry and, moreover, that the role of the delta-meson should be reexamined.Comment: 10 pages; accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics

Improvement of heart rate recovery after exercise training in older people.

Twenty-four subjects aged 70 and older were retrospectively selected from our archives and screened for symptoms of cardiovascular disease. Baseline exercise test was negative for myocardial ischemia in all subjects. All subjects had completed an 8-week program, performed for a variety of indications and consisting of an aerobic physical training program including 30 minutes of cycling three times per week at 65% to 75% of maximum heart rate achieved at peak exercise test performed at enrollment, an educational intervention, dietary advice, and psychological support. All subjects underwent a cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX) before and at the end of exercise training. At the end of each CPX, peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak), the rate of increase of ventilation per unit of increase of carbon dioxide production (VE/VCO2slope), and HRR were recorded. Twenty-five healthy subjects younger than 60 with no evidence of exercise-induced myocardial ischemia and not enrolled in any exercise training program were also retrospectively selected from our archives and used as a control group for analyzing HRR. These patients performed two exercise tests several weeks apart. Several studies have shown that changes in vagal tone can be used as an outcome tool that helps identify patients or subjects with or without cardiovascular disease at risk for a cardiovascular event, although the evidence of a prognostic value of HRR in older subjects without cardiovascular disease is rather poor. In this study, exercise training resulted in HRR improvement in healthy elderly subjects, suggesting that exercise training improves vagal/sympathetic balance in older subjects without cardiovascular disease as well. Whether the observed improvement in HRR may have long-term beneficial prognostic effects was not the aim of the study, although a beneficial effect might be postulated, in light of the Framingham dat

Wopper, Version 1.1: A Monte Carlo Event Generator for Four Fermion Production at LEP-II and Beyond

We report on the status of the Monte Carlo event generator WOPPER. Version 1.1 of WOPPER describes four fermion production at LEP-II and beyond with leading logarithmic radiative corrections in the double W pole approximation. These approximations are appropriate for almost all practical purposes, but the inclusion of these finite width effects and radiative corrections is nevertheless indispensable for LEP-II physics.Comment: 6 pages LaTeX (Elsevier proceedings style) with 7 PostScript figures, (Contribution to the Teupitz Workshop 1994), IKDA 94/

A Learnable Model with Calibrated Uncertainty Quantification for Estimating Canopy Height from Spaceborne Sequential Imagery

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.Global-scale canopy height mapping is an important tool for ecosystem monitoring and sustainable forest management. Various studies have demonstrated the ability to estimate canopy height from a single spaceborne multispectral image using end-to-end learning techniques. In addition to texture information of a single-shot image, our study exploits multi temporal information of image sequences to improve estimation accuracy. We adopt a convolutional variant of a long short-term memory (LSTM) model for canopy height estimation from multitemporal instances of Sentinel-2 products. Furthermore, we utilize the deep ensembles technique for meaningful uncertainty estimation on the predictions and postprocessing isotonic regression model for calibrating them. Our lightweight model (∼320k trainable parameters) achieves the mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.29 m in a European test area of 79 km2. It outperforms the state-of-the-art methods based on single-shot spaceborne images as well as costly airborne images while providing additional confidence maps that are shown to be well calibrated. Moreover, the trained model is shown to be transferable in a different country of Europe using a fine-tuning area of as low as ∼2 km2 with MAE = 1.94 m.publishedVersio

Remote sensing for biodiversity monitoring: a review of methods for biodiversity indicator extraction and assessment of progress towards international targets

Recognizing the imperative need for biodiversity protection, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recently established new targets towards 2020, the so-called Aichi targets, and updated proposed sets of indicators to quantitatively monitor the progress towards these targets. Remote sensing has been increasingly contributing to timely, accurate, and cost-effective assessment of biodiversity-related characteristics and functions during the last years. However, most relevant studies constitute individual research efforts, rarely related with the extraction of widely adopted CBD biodiversity indicators. Furthermore, systematic operational use of remote sensing data by managing authorities has still been limited. In this study, the Aichi targets and the related CBD indicators whose monitoring can be facilitated by remote sensing are identified. For each headline indicator a number of recent remote sensing approaches able for the extraction of related properties are reviewed. Methods cover a wide range of fields, including: habitat extent and condition monitoring; species distribution; pressures from unsustainable management, pollution and climate change; ecosystem service monitoring; and conservation status assessment of protected areas. The advantages and limitations of different remote sensing data and algorithms are discussed. Sorting of the methods based on their reported accuracies is attempted, when possible. The extensive literature survey aims at reviewing highly performing methods that can be used for large-area, effective, and timely biodiversity assessment, to encourage the more systematic use of remote sensing solutions in monitoring progress towards the Aichi targets, and to decrease the gaps between the remote sensing and management communities

A Monte Carlo Event Generator for W Off-shell Pair Production including Higher Order Electromagnetic Radiative Corrections

We present the Monte Carlo event generator {\tt WOPPER} for pair production of $W$'s and their decays at high energy $e^+e^-$ colliders. {\tt WOPPER} includes the effects from finite $W$ width and focusses on the calculation of higher order electromagnetic corrections in the leading log approximation including soft photon exponentiation and explicit generation of exclusive hard photons.Comment: Contribution to the Second Workshop -- Munich, Annecy, Hamburg: $e^+e^-$ Collisions at 500~GeV: The Physics Potential, November 20, 1992, to April 3, 1993. LaTeX, 6 pages + 4 uuencoded EPS figures, IKDA 93/28, SI-93-