1,097 research outputs found
Heavy metals in paddy fields in Taiwan: chemical behavior in soil and uptake by brown rice
Levels of cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) were measured in 19 individual paddy fields in Taiwan. Total, reactive, and available metal levels were measured using Aqua Regia, 0.43 N HNO3, 0.1 M HCl, 0.05 M EDTA and 0.01 M CaCl2. Total metal levels ranged from below background levels to polluted and were highly heterogeneous across most fields. In general levels of metals in the soil decreased with an increase in distance from the water inlet which suggests that most metals originate from the irrigation water. Availability as measured by 0.01 M CaCl2 could be predicted well (Cd, Ni, Zn) by a Freundlich model similar to the one used in non-tropical soils. The fit of models for Cu and Pb was poor due to the lack of data on dissolved organic carbon (DOC). For Cr no fit was obtained at all. Uptake of Cd by rice was highly correlated to the availability as measured by CaCl2. Uptake models based on either the CaCl2 extractable Cd and Zn in soil solution, or a combination of the reactive Cd content in combination with pH and CEC proved equally suitable to predict Cd in rice. The impact of pH and, to a lesser extent, CEC urges the need to considere both properties when deriving soil quality standards (SQS). Uptake by rice by Indica species was markedly higher than that of Japonica although uptake by roots proved to be similar between both species. This suggests that differences between Japonica and Indica are more related to internal redistribution rather than differences in root uptake processes. Using the models, user friendly tools are designed allowing farmers and policy makers alike to evaluate the quality of the soil for a specific cultivar. This allows for a more accurate assessment of the suitability of the soil to be used for rice cropping compared to present soil standards based on Aqua Regia or HCl. As such the approach can be transferred easily to other countries as well based on a limited number of field tests
Nonleptonic Weak Decays of Bottom Baryons
Cabibbo-allowed two-body hadronic weak decays of bottom baryons are analyzed.
Contrary to the charmed baryon sector, many channels of bottom baryon decays
proceed only through the external or internal W-emission diagrams. Moreover,
W-exchange is likely to be suppressed in the bottom baryon sector.
Consequently, the factorization approach suffices to describe most of the
Cabibbo-allowed bottom baryon decays. We use the nonrelativistic quark model to
evaluate heavy-to-heavy and heavy-to-light baryon form factors at zero recoil.
When applied to the heavy quark limit, the quark model results do satisfy all
the constraints imposed by heavy quark symmetry. The decay rates and up-down
asymmetries for bottom baryons decaying into and
are calculated. It is found that the up-down asymmetry is negative except for
decay and for decay modes with in the final
state. The prediction for
is consistent with the recent CDF measurement. We also present
estimates for decays and compare with various model
calculations.Comment: 24 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev. Uncertainties with form factor q^2
dependence are discusse
Characterization of soil heavy metal pools in paddy fields in Taiwan: chemical extraction and solid-solution partitioning
Ongoing industrialization has resulted in an accumulation of metals like Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn, and Pb in paddy fields across Southeast Asia. Risks of metals in soils depend on soil properties and the availability of metals in soil. At present, however, limited information is available on how to measure or predict the directly available fraction of metals in paddy soils. Here, the distribution of Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn, and Pb in 19 paddy fields among the total, reactive, and directly available pools was measured using recently developed concepts for aerated soils. Solid-solution partitioning models have been derived to predict the directly available metal pool. Such models are proven to be useful for risk assessment and to derive soil quality standards for aerated soils. Soil samples (0-25 cm) were taken from 19 paddy fields from five different communities in Taiwan in 2005 and 2006. Each field was subdivided into 60 to 108 plots resulting in a database of approximately 3,200 individual soil samples. Total (Aqua Regia (AR)), reactive (0.43 M HNO3, 0.1 M HCl, and 0.05 M EDTA), and directly available metal pools (0.01 M CaCl2) were determined. Solid-solution partitioning models were derived by multiple linear regressions using an extended Freundlich equation using the reactive metal pool, pH, and the cation exchange capacity (CEC). The influence of Zn on metal partitioning and differences between both sampling events (May/November) were evaluated. Total metals contents range from background levels to levels in excess of current soil quality standards for arable land. Between 3% (Cr) and 30% (Cd) of all samples exceed present soil quality standards based on extraction with AR. Total metal levels decreased with an increasing distance from the irrigation water inlet. The reactive metal pool relative to the total metal content is increased in the order C
de Sitter geodesics: reappraising the notion of motion
The de Sitter spacetime is transitive under a combination of translations and
proper conformal transformations. Its usual family of geodesics, however, does
not take into account this property. As a consequence, there are points in de
Sitter spacetime which cannot be joined to each other by any one of these
geodesics. By taking into account the appropriate transitivity properties in
the variational principle, a new family of maximizing trajectories is obtained,
whose members are able to connect any two points of the de Sitter spacetime.
These geodesics introduce a new notion of motion, given by a combination of
translations and proper conformal transformations, which may possibly become
important at very-high energies, where conformal symmetry plays a significant
role.Comment: 9 pages. V2: Presentation changes aiming at clarifying the text;
version accepted for publication in Gen. Rel. Gra
Hamiltonian Formalism of the de-Sitter Invariant Special Relativity
Lagrangian of the Einstein's special relativity with universal parameter
() is invariant under Poincar\'e transformation which preserves
Lorentz metric . The has been extended to be
one which is invariant under de Sitter transformation that preserves so called
Beltrami metric . There are two universal parameters and in
this Special Relativity (denote it as ). The
Lagrangian-Hamiltonian formulism of is formulated in this
paper. The canonic energy, canonic momenta, and 10 Noether charges
corresponding to the space-time's de Sitter symmetry are derived. The canonical
quantization of the mechanics for -free particle is
performed. The physics related to it is discussed.Comment: 24 pages, no figur
Charmless Exclusive Baryonic B Decays
We present a systematical study of two-body and three-body charmless baryonic
B decays. Branching ratios for two-body modes are in general very small,
typically less than , except that \B(B^-\to p \bar\Delta^{--})\sim
1\times 10^{-6}. In general, due to
the large coupling constant for . For three-body modes we
focus on octet baryon final states. The leading three-dominated modes are with a branching ratio of
order for and
for . The penguin-dominated decays with strangeness
in the meson, e.g., and , have appreciable rates and the mass
spectrum peaks at low mass. The penguin-dominated modes containing a strange
baryon, e.g., , have
branching ratios of order . In contrast, the decay
rate of is smaller. We explain why some of
charmless three-body final states in which baryon-antibaryon pair production is
accompanied by a meson have a larger rate than their two-body counterparts:
either the pole diagrams for the former have an anti-triplet bottom baryon
intermediate state, which has a large coupling to the meson and the
nucleon, or they are dominated by the factorizable external -emission
process.Comment: 46 pages and 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D. Major changes are:
(i) Calculations of two-body baryonic B decays involving a Delta resonance
are modified, and (ii) Penguin-dominated modes B-> Sigma+N(bar)+p are
discusse
Characteristics and Sensing Properties of the La1-xNdxCo0.3Fe0.7O3 System for CO Gas Sensors
A series of nanostructured La1-xNdxCo0.3Fe0.7O3 perovskite-type (x ranging from 0 to 1) were prepared using the co-precipitation method. CO gas sensing properties of La1-xNdxCo0.3Fe0.7O3 sensors were performed. La0.7Nd0.3Co0.3Fe0.7O3 sensor showed the highest response at 250 °C (S=52.8)
Applicability of perturbative QCD to decays
We develop perturbative QCD factorization theorem for the semileptonic heavy
baryon decay , whose form factors are
expressed as the convolutions of hard quark decay amplitudes with universal
and baryon wave functions. Large logarithmic
corrections are organized to all orders by the Sudakov resummation, which
renders perturbative expansions more reliable. It is observed that perturbative
QCD is applicable to decays for velocity transfer
greater than 1.2. Under requirement of heavy quark symmetry, we predict the
branching ratio , and determine
the and baryon wave functions.Comment: 12 pages in Latex file, 3 figures in postscript files, some results
are changed, but the conclusion is the sam
First Report of Alternaria Black Spot Disease Caused by Alternaria alternata on the Invasive Weed Solanum rostratum in Xinjiang, China
Solanum rostratum is a noxious weed, native to Mexico and the USA, which has invaded Liaoning, Jilin, Hebei, Inner
Mongolia, Shanxi, Xinjiang and Beijing, China (Eminniya et al., 2013). In August 2015, foliar symptoms of yellowish to black
spots were observed on plants of S. rostratum nearby an agricultural plantation in Changji, Xinjiang. The following year, about
17% of the 206 plants surveyed on about 0.2 ha of deserted farmland were infected from July-September (at 19-35°C under
29-97% RH)
1/m_Q Corrections to the Bethe-Salpeter Equation for \Lambda_{Q} in the Diquark Picture
Corrections of order 1/m_Q (Q=b or c) to the Bethe-Salpeter (B-S) equation
for \Lambda_Q are analyzed on the assumption that the heavy baryon \Lambda_Q is
composed of a heavy quark and a scalar, light diquark. It is found that in
addition to the one B-S scalar function in the limit m_Q -> \infty, two more
scalar functions are needed at the order 1/m_Q. These can be related to the B-S
scalar function in the leading order. The six form factors for the weak
transition \Lambda_b -> \Lambda_c are expressed in terms of these wave
functions and the results are consistent with heavy quark effective theory to
order 1/m_Q. Assuming the kernel for the B-S equation in the limit m_Q ->
\infty to consist of a scalar confinement term and a one-gluon-exchange term we
obtain numerical solutions for the B-S wave functions, and hence for the
form factors to order 1/m_Q. Predictions are given
for the differential and total decay widths for \Lambda_b -> \Lambda_c l
\bar{\nu}, and also for the nonleptonic decay widths for \Lambda_b -> \Lambda_c
plus a pseudoscalar or vector meson, with QCD corrections being also included.Comment: Latex, 24 pages, two figure
- …