Ninja: Automated Integrand Reduction via Laurent Expansion for One-Loop Amplitudes

We present the public C++ library Ninja, which implements the Integrand Reduction via Laurent Expansion method for the computation of one-loop integrals. The algorithm is suited for applications to complex one-loop processes.Comment: Published versio

Valuing the landscape benefits of rural policies actions in Veneto (Italy)

<p class="p1">This study addresses, with reference to the landscape, a precise request of the EU to quantify the benefits of public expenditure in agriculture. It analyses the implications on rural landscape of some measures of the Common Agricultural Policy at a regional level, taking the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2007-2013 of the Veneto Region, in north-eastern Italy, as case study. A choice experiment (CE) is applied to value four measures of the RDP that directly affect the landscape characteristics.<br />The CE results point out that the landscape benefits of the measures in the Veneto RDP are higher than the subsidies paid to farmers for the provision of services that improve landscape quality. The CE results suggest the opportunity to rethink the distribution of the subsidies.</p

The Value of a Properly Maintained Hiking Trail Network and a Traditional Landscape for Mountain Recreation in the Dolomites

Alpine mountains represent one of the most important tourist destinations in the world, constituting approximately 3.1% of the global tourism market when considering the tourist flows coming from abroad. While there may be numerous factors that motivate tourists to choose rural areas, an important role is played by the opportunity to visit well-conserved landscapes and uncontaminated natural areas. The purpose of this study was to make a monetary valuation of the social benefits generated by the adoption of three measures of the Rural Development Plan (RDP) of Veneto (Italy) aimed specifically at enhancing the recreational usability of the mountain territory. In this regard, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was applied for the economic valuation, and a qualitative survey was used to collect the opinion of respondents related to the measures to protect the meadows and mountain hiking trails. According to the DCE estimates, on average, the benefits due to the conservation of the existing meadows and pastures was equal to \u20ac851 per hectare, those due to the conservation and improvement of the trail network were \u20ac12,260 per km, and the benefits due to the recovery of the meadows and pastures of uncultivated and abandoned areas for naturalistic purposes amounted to \u20ac6,852 per hectare. Comparing the estimates obtained with the expenditure incurred by the RDP to finance the three actions considered in our DCE, it can be seen that the benefits are considerably higher than the costs, especially with regard to the conservation of paths and the recovery of abandoned areas for naturalistic purposes

Testing the difference between experts\u2019 and lay people\u2019s landscape preferences

The European Landscape Convention, ratified by 40 nations, has placed emphasis on the necessity that the value of the landscape is assessed by the population. However it is standard practice that a few experts decide which areas are of landscape interest and the transformations that are compatible with their conservation. To compare the landscape preferences of experts and lay people a study was done on the Po Delta Natural Park (Italy) using a psychophysical approach. In our case study the average scores of experts and lay people are not very different. However it was also ascertained that the experts evaluate the presence of some elements in a way that differs from lay people. As the responsibility for landscape policies is normally devolved to a few experts it would appear necessary that the preferences and opinions of lay people should always be carefully analysed

Colour appearance is affected not only by perceptual but also by linguistic context

Terminology is a crucial problem in science, since quite often the terms used to denote theoretical concepts are directly taken from the vocabulary of common words, which usually have multiple meanings. To solve this problem, scientists must operationalize the theoretical concepts they use but, in psychology, sometimes, this can be a difficult task, since the meaning of the terms used to give the instructions to observers can interfere with the spontaneous meaning that observers give to those terms. Starting from some empirical observations, we show that colour appearance is affected not only by the perceptual but also by the linguistic context

Analytical maximum-likelihood method to detect patterns in real networks

In order to detect patterns in real networks, randomized graph ensembles that preserve only part of the topology of an observed network are systematically used as fundamental null models. However, their generation is still problematic. The existing approaches are either computationally demanding and beyond analytic control, or analytically accessible but highly approximate. Here we propose a solution to this long-standing problem by introducing an exact and fast method that allows to obtain expectation values and standard deviations of any topological property analytically, for any binary, weighted, directed or undirected network. Remarkably, the time required to obtain the expectation value of any property is as short as that required to compute the same property on the single original network. Our method reveals that the null behavior of various correlation properties is different from what previously believed, and highly sensitive to the particular network considered. Moreover, our approach shows that important structural properties (such as the modularity used in community detection problems) are currently based on incorrect expressions, and provides the exact quantities that should replace them.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure