Degradation of isazofos in the soil environment

Field and laboratory studies were conducted to investigate the degradation of the organophosphorus insecticide isazofos (0-5-chloro-l-isopropyl-1H-l,2,4-triazol-3-ylO,O-diethyl phosphorothioate) in soil. In a 6-year field study, soil pH was an important factor influencing the degradation of isazofos inasmuch as an increased rate of degradation was observed in soils with previous isazofos applications and pH of 6.9 or more. A laboratory study of [14Clisazofos confirmed the rapid degradation of this insecticide in high pH soils. No increased degradation rate, however, was observed in sterilized high-pH soils. The availability of isazofos to microorganisms, based on sorption of isazofos to soil, seems to be an important factor influencing the degradation of isazofos in soil. Sorption coefficients were negatively correlated with isazofos degradation rate

About the initial mass function and HeII emission in young starbursts

We demonstrate that it is crucial to account for the evolution of the starburst population in order to derive reliable numbers of O stars from integrated spectra for burst ages t > 2 - 3 Myr. In these cases the method of Vacca & Conti (1992) and Vacca (1994) systematically underestimates the number of O stars. Therefore the current WR/O number ratios in Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies are overestimated. This questions recent claims about flat IMF slopes (alpha ~ 1-2) in these objects. If the evolution of the burst is properly treated we find that the observations are indeed compatible with a Salpeter IMF, in agreement with earlier studies. Including recent predictions from non-LTE, line blanketed model atmospheres which account for stellar winds, we synthesize the nebular and WR HeII 4686 emission in young starbursts. For metallicities 1/5 <= Z/Z_sun <= 1 we predict a strong nebular HeII emission due to a significant fraction of WC stars in early WR phases of the burst. For other metallicities broad WR emission will always dominate the HeII emission. Our predictions of the nebular HeII intensity agree well with the observations in WR galaxies and an important fraction of the giant HII regions where nebular HeII is detected. We propose further observational tests of our result.Comment: ApJ Letters, accepted. 8 pages LaTeX including 3 PostScript figures, uses AASTeX and psfig macros. PostScript file also available at ftp://ftp.stsci.edu/outside-access/out.going/schaerer/imf.p

FZZ Scattering

We study the duality between the two dimensional black hole and the sine-Liouville conformal field theories via exact operator quantization of a classical scattering problem. The ideas are first illustrated in Liouville theory, which is dual to itself under the interchange of the Liouville parameter b by 1/b. In both cases, a classical scattering problem does not determine uniquely the quantum reflection coefficient. The latter is only fixed by assuming that the dual scattering problem has the same reflection coefficient. We also discuss the relation of this approach to the method that exploits the parafermionic symmetry of the model to compute the reflection coefficient.Comment: 19 pages, JHEP style. v2: Minor changes in the proposed field of sine-Liouville type, new section discussing the relation with parafermionic symmetry, references adde

Ethyl 4-(4-chloro­phen­yl)-6-methyl-2-thioxo-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­pyrimidine-5-carboxyl­ate

In the title compound, C14H15ClN2O2S, the tetra­hydro­pyrimidine ring adopts a twisted boat conformation with the carbonyl group in an s-trans conformation with respect to the C=C double bond of the six-membered tetra­hydro­pyrimidine ring. The mol­ecular conformation is determined by an intra­molecular C—H⋯π inter­action. The crystal structure is further stabilized by inter­molecular N—H⋯O mol­ecular chains and centrosymmetric N—H⋯S dimers

2-(4-Chloro-3-nitro­phen­yl)-4-(4-chloro­phen­yl)-1,3-thia­zole

The title compound, C15H8Cl2N2O2S, crystallizes with two mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The dihedral angles between the 4-chloro-3-nitro­phenyl ring and the thia­zole ring are 0.5 (1) and 7.1 (1)° and those between the 4-chloro­phenyl ring and the thia­zole ring are 7.1 (1) and 7.4 (1)° in the two mol­ecules. The crystal structure is stabilized by inter­molecular C—H⋯Cl and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Ethyl 4-(4-hydroxy­phen­yl)-6-methyl-2-oxo-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­pyrimidine-5-carboxyl­ate monohydrate

In the title compound, C14H16N2O4·H2O, the dihedral angles between the planes of the 4-hydroxy­phenyl and ester groups with the plane of the six-membered tetra­hydro­pyrimidine ring are 87.3 (1) and 75.9 (1)°, respectively. The crystal structure is stabilized by O—H⋯O and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonding between the water mol­ecule and the organic functionalities

The SASSCAL contribution to climate observation, climate data management and data rescue in Southern Africa

A major task of the newly established "Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management" (SASSCAL; www.sasscal.org) and its partners is to provide science-based environmental information and knowledge which includes the provision of consistent and reliable climate data for Southern Africa. Hence, SASSCAL, in close cooperation with the national weather authorities of Angola, Botswana, Germany and Zambia as well as partner institutions in Namibia and South Africa, supports the extension of the regional meteorological observation network and the improvement of the climate archives at national level. With the ongoing rehabilitation of existing weather stations and the new installation of fully automated weather stations (AWS), altogether 105 AWS currently provide a set of climate variables at 15, 30 and 60 min intervals respectively. These records are made available through the SASSCAL WeatherNet, an online platform providing near-real time data as well as various statistics and graphics, all in open access. This effort is complemented by the harmonization and improvement of climate data management concepts at the national weather authorities, capacity building activities and an extension of the data bases with historical climate data which are still available from different sources. These activities are performed through cooperation between regional and German institutions and will provide important information for climate service related activities

The Electric Dipole Moment and CP Violation in B→Xsl+l−B \to X_s l^+ l^- in SUGRA Models with Nonuniversal Gaugino Masses

The constraints of electric dipole moments (EDMs) of electron and neutron on the parameter space in supergravity (SUGRA) models with nonuniversal gaugino masses are analyzed. It is shown that with a light sparticle spectrum, the sufficient cancellations in the calculation of EDMs can happen for all phases being order of one in the small tan$\beta$ case and all phases but $\phi_{\mu}$ ($|\phi_{\mu}| <\sim \pi/6$) order of one in the large tan$\beta$ case. This is in contrast to the case of mSUGRA in which in the parameter space where cancellations among various SUSY contributions to EDMs happen $|\phi_{\mu}|$ must be less than $\pi/10$ for small $tan\beta$ and ${\cal{O}}(10^{-2})$ for large $tan\beta$. Direct CP asymmetries and the T-odd polarization of lepton in $B\to X_s l^+l^-$ are investigated in the models. In the large tan$\beta$ case, $A_{CP}^2$ and $P_N$ for l=$\mu$ ($\tau$) can be enhanced by about a factor of ten (ten) and ten (three) respectively compared to those of mSUGRA.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 4 figures, a few change

The Forward-Backward Asymmetry in the B→πℓ+ℓ−B \to \pi\ell^+\ell^- Decay

Using the most general effective Hamiltonian comprising scalar,vector and tensor type interactions, we have written the branching ratio, the forward-backward (FB) asymmetry and the normalized FB asymmetry as functions of the new Wilson coefficients. It is found that the branching ratio depends on all new coefficients,but the dependence of asymmetries on coefficients could be analyzed only for one Wilson coefficient.Comment: 14 pp, 7 figure