Embracing complexity in international forest governance: a way forward; Policy Brief

This Policy Brief summarizes the findings of a comprehensive assessment of scientific information about international forest governance carried out by an Expert Panel of over 30 of the world's leading scientists working in the areas of environmental governance and international forest law. It aims to provide policy and decision makers with essential knowledge and building blocks required for a more effective and inclusive governance of the world's forest

Steady non-ideal detonations in cylindrical sticks of expolsives

Numerical simulations of detonations in cylindrical rate-sticks of highly non-ideal explosives are performed, using a simple model with a weakly pressure dependent rate law and a pseudo-polytropic equation of state. Some numerical issues with such simulations are investigated, and it is shown that very high resolution (hundreds of points in the reaction zone) are required for highly accurate (converged) solutions. High resolution simulations are then used to investigate the qualitative dependences of the detonation driving zone structure on the diameter and degree of confinement of the explosive charge. The simulation results are used to show that, given the radius of curvature of the shock at the charge axis, the steady detonation speed and the axial solution are accurately predicted by a quasi-one-dimensional theory, even for cases where the detonation propagates at speeds significantly below the Chapman-Jouguet speed. Given reaction rate and equation of state models, this quasi-one-dimensional theory offers a significant improvement to Wood-Kirkwood theories currently used in industry

Nanoparticles of palladium supported on bacterial biomass : new re-usable heterogeneous catalyst with comparable activity to homogeneous colloidal Pd in the Heck reaction

AbstractThe Heck coupling of iodobenzene with ethyl acrylate or styrene was used to assess the catalytic properties of biogenic nanoparticles of palladium supported upon the surface of bacterial biomass (bioPd), this approach combining advantages of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts. The biomaterial was comparably active or superior to colloidal Pd in the Heck reaction, giving a final conversion of 85% halide and initial rate of 0.17mmol/min for the coupling of styrene and iodobenzene compared to a final conversion of 70% and initial rate of 0.15mmol/min for a colloidal Pd catalyst under the same reaction conditions at 0.5mol.% catalyst loading. It was easily separated from the products under gravity or by filtration for reuse with low loss or agglomeration. When compared to two alternative palladium catalysts, commercial 5% Pd/C and tetraalkylammonium-stabilised palladium clusters, the bioPd was successfully reused in six sequential alkylations with only slight decreases in the rate of reaction as compared to virgin catalyst (initial rate normalised for g Pd decreased by 5% by the 6th run with bioPd catalyst cf. a decrease of 95% for Pd/C). A re-usable Pd-catalyst made cheaply from bacteria left over from other processes would impact on both conservation of primary sources via reduced metal losses in industrial application and the large environmental demand of primary processing from ores

Production and Decay of D_1(2420)^0 and D_2^*(2460)^0

We have investigated $D^{+}\pi^{-}$ and $D^{*+}\pi^{-}$ final states and observed the two established $L=1$ charmed mesons, the $D_1(2420)^0$ with mass $2421^{+1+2}_{-2-2}$ MeV/c$^{2}$ and width $20^{+6+3}_{-5-3}$ MeV/c$^{2}$ and the $D_2^*(2460)^0$ with mass $2465 \pm 3 \pm 3$ MeV/c$^{2}$ and width $28^{+8+6}_{-7-6}$ MeV/c$^{2}$. Properties of these final states, including their decay angular distributions and spin-parity assignments, have been studied. We identify these two mesons as the $j_{light}=3/2$ doublet predicted by HQET. We also obtain constraints on {\footnotesize $\Gamma_S/(\Gamma_S + \Gamma_D)$} as a function of the cosine of the relative phase of the two amplitudes in the $D_1(2420)^0$ decay.Comment: 15 pages in REVTEX format. hardcopies with figures can be obtained by sending mail to: [email protected]

Measurement of the branching fraction for Υ(1S)→τ+τ−\Upsilon (1S) \to \tau^+ \tau^-

We have studied the leptonic decay of the $\Upsilon (1S)$ resonance into tau pairs using the CLEO II detector. A clean sample of tau pair events is identified via events containing two charged particles where exactly one of the particles is an identified electron. We find $B(\Upsilon(1S) \to \tau^+ \tau^-) = (2.61~\pm~0.12~{+0.09\atop{-0.13}})$. The result is consistent with expectations from lepton universality.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, two Postscript figures available upon request, CLNS 94/1297, CLEO 94-20 (submitted to Physics Letters B

Measurement of the Decay Asymmetry Parameters in Λc+→Λπ+\Lambda_c^+ \to \Lambda\pi^+ and Λc+→Σ+π0\Lambda_c^+ \to \Sigma^+\pi^0

We have measured the weak decay asymmetry parameters (\aLC ) for two \LC\ decay modes. Our measurements are \aLC = -0.94^{+0.21+0.12}_{-0.06-0.06} for the decay mode $\Lambda_c^+ \to \Lambda\pi^+$ and \aLC = -0.45\pm 0.31 \pm 0.06 for the decay mode $\Lambda_c \to \Sigma^+\pi^0$. By combining these measurements with the previously measured decay rates, we have extracted the parity-violating and parity-conserving amplitudes. These amplitudes are used to test models of nonleptonic charmed baryon decay.Comment: 11 pages including the figures. Uses REVTEX and psfig macros. Figures as uuencoded postscript. Also available as http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS/1995/CLNS95-1319.p

Observation of the Ξc+\Xi_c^+ Charmed Baryon Decays to Σ+K−π+\Sigma^+ K^-\pi^+, Σ+Kˉ∗0\Sigma^+ \bar{K}^{*0}, and ΛK−π+π+\Lambda K^-\pi^+\pi^+

We have observed two new decay modes of the charmed baryon $\Xi_c^+$ into $\Sigma^+ K^-\pi^+$ and $\Sigma^+ \bar{K}^{*0}$ using data collected with the CLEO II detector. We also present the first measurement of the branching fraction for the previously observed decay mode $\Xi_c^+\to\Lambda K^-\pi^+\pi^+$. The branching fractions for these three modes relative to $\Xi_c^+\to\Xi^-\pi^+\pi^+$ are measured to be $1.18 \pm 0.26 \pm 0.17$, $0.92 \pm 0.27 \pm 0.14$, and $0.58 \pm 0.16 \pm 0.07$, respectively.Comment: 12 page uuencoded postscript file, postscript file also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe