Struggle and compromise: A history of South African adult education from 1960 to 2001

http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/download.aspxThis article provides an overview of the history of adult education in South Africa from 1960 (when the apartheid regime crushed the main black political movements) to the end of 2001 when, after a period of painful struggle (which reached its climax in the late eighties and early nineties), South Africa was well into the second term of a democratic government. It is a history of an amazingly complex relationship between adult education and political trends (many of them foreign influenced) and with the changes in the associated social, economic, religious and cultural features of South African society. The article describes the sixties when what remained of a night school movement was closed down and rendered illegal and an “alternative” education NGO movement began (originally in support of black student activists expelled from universities); the seventies when, in spite of severe repression, there was a revival of radical literacy work and innovations in alternative educational media under the influence of a heady melange of Paris 1968, Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, ‘black consciousness’ and liberation theology; and the eighties with its bitter and dramatic resurgence of internal resistance associated with trades unions, NGOs, and ‘people’s education’ . The nineties saw the victory of democracy and the (so-far) lacklustre attempt to institutionalise a state system of adult basic education and training as South Africa made ethical, political and economic compromises with the new world order. The author, himself an adult education activist since 1962, provides a number of reflections on this history and the ideologies that were embedded in the discourses, actions and compromises that adult education actors, their supporters and enemies, engaged in during this period and describes some of the rethinking that a small but growing group of adult educators are beginning to articulate about a renewal of a more radical adult education tradition.Department of HE and Training approved lis

On the Quantization of the Abelian Chern-Simons Coefficient at Finite Temperature

We show that when the Abelian \CS\ theory coupled to matter fields is quantized in a vacuum with non vanishing magnetic flux (or electric charge), the requirement of gauge invariance at finite temperature leads to the quantization of the \CS\ coefficient and its quantum corrections, in a manner similar to the non-Abelian case.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, no figures, no special macros. Some discussion and references added. A minor error corrected. Final version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Gauge Invariance and Finite Temperature Effective Actions of Chern-Simons Gauge Theories with Fermions

We discuss the behavior of theories of fermions coupled to Chern-Simons gauge fields with a non-abelian gauge group in three dimensions and at finite temperature. Using non-perturbative arguments and gauge invariance, and in contradiction with perturbative results, we show that the coefficient of the Chern-Simons term of the effective actions for the gauge fields at finite temperature can be {\it at most} an integer function of the temperature. This is in a sense a generalized no-renormalization theorem. We also discuss the case of abelian theories and give indications that a similar condition should hold there too. We discuss consequences of our results to the thermodynamics of anyon superfluids and fractional quantum Hall systems.Comment: Revtex, multico

Fixed Charge Ensembles and Parity Breaking Terms

Recently derived results for the exact induced parity-breaking term in 2+1 dimensions at finite temperature are shown to be relevant to the determination of the free energy for fixed-charge ensembles. The partition functions for fixed total charge corresponding to massive fermions in the presence of Abelian and non-Abelian magnetic fields are discussed. We show that the presence of the induced Chern-Simons term manifests itself in that the free energy depends strongly on the relation between the external magnetic flux and the value of the fixed charge.Comment: 10 pages, Revte

Induced Parity Breaking Term at Finite Temperature

We compute the exact induced parity-breaking part of the effective action for 2+1 massive fermions in $QED_3$ at finite temperature by calculating the fermion determinant in a particular background. The result confirms that gauge invariance of the effective action is respected even when large gauge transformations are considered.Comment: to be published in Physical Review Letters. 5 pages, Revtex, no figure

Effective theory for deformed nuclei

Techniques from effective field theory are applied to nuclear rotation. This approach exploits the spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry and the separation of scale between low-energy Nambu-Goldstone rotational modes and high-energy vibrational and nucleonic degrees of freedom. A power counting is established and the Hamiltonian is constructed at next-to-leading order

Abelian and Non-Abelian Induced Parity Breaking Terms at Finite Temperature

We compute the exact canonically induced parity breaking part of the effective action for 2+1 massive fermions in particular Abelian and non Abelian gauge field backgrounds. The method of computation resorts to the chiral anomaly of the dimensionally reduced theory.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, no figure

Induced Parity Breaking Term in Arbitrary Odd Dimensions at Finite Temperature

We calculate the exact parity odd part of the effective action ($\Gamma_{odd}^{2d+1}$) for massive Dirac fermions in 2d+1 dimensions at finite temperature, for a certain class of gauge field configurations. We consider first Abelian external gauge fields, and then we deal with the case of a non-Abelian gauge group containing an Abelian U(1) subgroup. For both cases, it is possible to show that the result depends on topological invariants of the gauge field configurations, and that the gauge transformation properties of $\Gamma_{odd}^{2d+1}$ depend only on those invariants and on the winding number of the gauge transformation.Comment: 10 pages, revtex, no figure

Particle creation rate for dynamical black holes

We present the particle creation probability rate around a general black hole as an outcome of quantum fluctuations. Using the uncertainty principle for these fluctuation, we derive a new ultraviolet frequency cutoff for the radiation spectrum of a dynamical black hole. Using this frequency cutoff, we define the probability creation rate function for such black holes. We consider a dynamical Vaidya model, and calculate the probability creation rate for this case when its horizon is in a slowly evolving phase. Our results show that one can expect the usual Hawking radiation emission process in the case of a dynamical black hole when it has a slowly evolving horizon. Moreover, calculating the probability rate for a dynamical black hole gives a measure of when Hawking radiation can be killed off by an incoming flux of matter or radiation. Our result strictly suggests that we have to revise the Hawking radiation expectation for primordial black holes that have grown substantially since they were created in the early universe. We also infer that this frequency cut off can be a parameter that shows the primordial black hole growth at the emission moment.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. The paper was rewritten in more clear presentation and one more appendix is adde

Striking the right balance: evidence to inform combined physical activity and sedentary behaviour recommendations

Crucial evidence gaps regarding: (1) the joint association of physical activity and sedentary time with health outcomes and (2) the benefits of light-intensity physical activity were identified during the development of recommendations for the World Health Organization Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior (SB). The authors present alternative ways to evidence the relationship between health outcomes and time spent in physical activity and SB and examine how this could be translated into a combined recommendation in future guidelines. Methods:We used compositional data analysis to quantify the dose–response associations between the balance of time spent in physical activity and SB with all-cause mortality. The authors applied this approach using 2005–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey accelerometer data. Results: Different combinations of time spent in moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity, light-intensity physical activity, and SB are associated with similar all-cause mortality risk level. A balance of more than 2.5 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per hour of daily sedentary time is associated with the samemagnitude of risk reduction for all-cause mortality as obtained by being physically active according to the current recommendations. Conclusion: This method could be applied to provide evidence for more flexible recommendations in the future with options to act on different behaviors depending on individuals’ circumstances and capacity