Oxygen to iron abundance ratios of metal-poor stars provide information on nucleosynthesis yields from massive stars which end in Type II supernova explosions .
Using a standard model of chemical evolution of the Galaxy we have reproduced the solar neighborhood abundance data and estimated the oxygen and iron yields of genuine SN II origin .
The estimated yields are compared with the theoretical yields to derive the relation between the lower and upper mass limits in each generation of stars and the IMF slope .
Independently of this relation , we furthermore derive the relation between the lower mass limit and the IMF slope from the stellar mass to light ratio in the solar neighborhood .
These independent relations unambiguously determine the upper mass limit of m _ { u } = 50 \pm 10 M _ { \odot } and the IMF slope index of 1.3 – 1.6 above 1 M _ { \odot } .
This upper mass limit corresponds to the mass beyond which stars end as black holes without ejecting processed matter into the interstellar medium .
We also find that the IMF slope index below 0.5 M _ { \odot } can not be much shallower than 0.8 .