Vegetable Consumption patterns in Yaounde, Cameroon

A survey was conducted in August and September 2008 in Yaoundé, Cameroon to assess vegetable consumption attitudes, constraints and factors that stimulate households’ consumption. Stratified sample based on district size, socioeconomic status and ethnics groups were used. Three hundred households were interviewed using a questionnaire and there were four times as many women as men in the sample. Data were analyzed using SNAP. More than 80% of the respondents were educated at the secondary (54%) and tertiary (30%) levels. The respondents were generally the wife (35%) or children (30%), and sometimes the husband (20%). More than 50% of the respondents were landlords living in their own homes and the rest were tenants. On average, the population of Yaoundé consumed vegetables frequently (2 to 4 times per week). Tomato, onion, carrot, and chili pepper were the most preferred exotic vegetables while bitter leaf (>80%) and okra (>70%), were the most preferred traditional vegetables. Attitudes towards vegetables varied according to socioeconomic and ethnic group. Main constraints to vegetable consumption were preparation time for respondents in the upper class (30%) and social taboos (amaranth is an ominous crop and can cause impotency in men; okra can inhibit the traditional treatment of some diseases) for the middle and lower classes. Freshness, wholesomeness, and color of the fruit or leaves determined the decision to purchase vegetables. Diversification of diet which is good for health, the preference of family members, and taste were the main reasons for consuming vegetables. Taste, degree of sliminess (okra), and smell after cooking were factors that increased satisfaction during consumption. Two-thirds of the respondents knew the benefits of vegetable consumption but their knowledge was not specific and is influenced by social taboos. Willingness to pay for processed traditional vegetables was higher among respondents in the upper income class (56.9%) than the lower (45.8%) and middle (37.1%) classes. The study revealed a need to further promote the consumption vegetables and inform consumers of their nutritional benefits.Keywords: vegetables, consumption, nutrition, vitamins, mineralsAfrican Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, Volume 13 No. 2 April 201

Trapped in low performance? Tracking the learning trajectory of disadvantaged girls and boys in the Complementary Basic Education programme in Ghana

This study examines the link between initial school performance on subsequent learning for marginalised children in the Complementary Basic Education programme in Northern Ghana. Specifically, we focus on whether initial low performance of girls and boys differentially affects learning trajectories. Drawing on longitudinal data, we find a significant association between initial and subsequent low performance as students transit into formal education, even after taking account of other potential factors. Boys are more likely than girls to improve from low attainment as they move into formal school. As such, girls are at particular risk of maintaining low levels of learning, and therefore warrant greater support within both complementary and mainstream schooling contexts.UK Department for International Development (DFID

Relativistic phase space: dimensional recurrences

We derive recurrence relations between phase space expressions in different dimensions by confining some of the coordinates to tori or spheres of radius $R$ and taking the limit as $R \to \infty$. These relations take the form of mass integrals, associated with extraneous momenta (relative to the lower dimension), and produce the result in the higher dimension.Comment: 13 pages, Latex, to appear in J Phys

The ΔS=1\Delta S=1 Effective Hamiltonian Including Next-to-Leading Order QCD and QED Corrections

In this paper we present a calculation of the $\Delta S=1$ effective weak Hamiltonian including next-to-leading order QCD and QED corrections. At a scale $\mu$ of the order of few GeV, the Wilson coefficients of the operators are given in terms of the renormalization group evolution matrix and of the coefficients computed at a large scale $\sim M_W$. The expression of the evolution matrix is derived from the two-loop anomalous dimension matrix which governs the mixing of the relevant current-current and penguin operators, renormalized in some given regularization scheme. We have computed the anomalous dimension matrix up to and including order \alphas^2 and \alphae \alphas in two different renormalization schemes, NDR and HV, with consistent results. We give many details on the calculation of the anomalous dimension matrix at two loops, on the determination of the Wilson coefficients at the scale $M_W$ and of their evolution from $M_W$ to $\mu$. We also discuss the dependence of the Wilson coefficients/operators on the regularization scheme.Comment: 59, LaTeX, ENS 93/11, ROME prep. 92/913, ULB-TH 93/0

‘Give courage to the ladies’: expansive apprenticeship for women in rural Malawi

Apprenticeship in developed and industrialised nations is increasingly understood as a theory of learning which connects workplace activity and formal study. The concept of ‘expansive apprenticeship’ defines frameworks for workforce development where participants acquire knowledge and skills which will help them in the future as well as in their current roles, whilst ‘restrictive’ apprenticeships limit opportunities for wider, lifelong learning. In developing nations apprenticeship is a traditional route to learning and employment, but apprenticeships in these contexts tend to reflect a restrictive approach characterized by narrowly defined roles and weak educational outcomes. This paper examines a project in Malawi which uses concepts of expansive apprenticeship to address barriers to female continuing education and chronic teacher shortages. The Malawi Access to Teaching Scholarship recruited one thousand women to follow a year-long combined programme of academic distance study and practical work experience in rural primary schools. The aim is to increase the numbers of women teachers in Malawi, especially in rural areas. The Scholarship materials and support structures are designed to move participants from restrictive to expansive contexts for learning so that Scholars develop hybrid roles as students, community workers and apprentice pedagogues. The programme’s resources and approach offer an innovative model of expansive apprenticeship in Sub Saharan Africa

Associated production of H^{\pm} and W^{\mp} in high-energy e+e- collisions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

We study the associated production of the charged Higgs boson and W^{\pm} gauge boson in high energy e+e- collisions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). This associated production, which first arises at the one loop level, offers the possibility of producing the charged Higgs boson at the e+e- collider with mass more than half the center-of-mass energy, when the charged Higgs pair production is kinematically forbidden. We present analytic and numerical results for the cross section for e+e- --> W+ H- in the full MSSM, taking into account the previously uncalculated contributions from supersymmetric (SUSY) particles. We find that the contributions of the SUSY particles enhance the cross section over most of SUSY parameter space, especially when the SUSY particles are light, ~200 GeV. With favorable SUSY parameters, at small tan beta, this process can yield more than ten W^{\pm}H^{\mp} events for m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 350 GeV in 500 fb-1 at a 500 GeV e+e- collider, or m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 600 GeV in 1000 fb-1 at a 1000 GeV collider. 80% left-handed polarization of the e- beam improves these reaches to m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 375 GeV and m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 670 GeV, respectively.Comment: v2: 21 pages, 9 figures, comments on Higgs search bounds and new references added, and minor changes; v3: 23 pages, 11 figures, review of literature moved from introduction to new Sec.5 and 2 plots added, references added, typos corrected; v4: bug fixed in nu nubar H0 cross section (Fig.11), version to appear in PR

Musaco 5ème réunion du Comité de pilotage: Rapport de synthèse, Cotonou, Bénin, 11-12 Février 2002

Adoption du rapport de la 4ème réunion du Comité de pilotage (Accra 2000) Le rapport ayant été préalablement envoyé pour amendements à tous les membres du réseau (deux mois avant la tenue de la 5ème réunion), l'adoption du rapport de la 4ème réunion du Comité de pilotage a surtout consisté à la vérification de l'exécution de chaque recommandation. Présentations des centres régionaux et internationaux: - Le Centre africain de recherches sur bananiers et plantains (CARBAP) a présenté six exposés qui ont fait le tour des axes et programmes de recherche de cette institution; - Institut international d'agriculture tropicale (IITA) Dans ses exposés, l'IITA a mis l'accent sur la recherche participative, la lutte intégrée, l'amélioration variétale, et l'agronomie; - Réseau international pour l'amélioration de la banane et de la banane plantain (INIBAP). Les quatre programmes de l'INIBAP, à savoir la gestion des ressources génétiques des Musa, l'amélioration génétique des Musa, l'information/communication sur les Musa et les Réseaux régionaux de recherche sur Musa ont été brièvement décrits et ce qui est actuellement réalisé en Afrique dans le cadre de chacun d'entre eux. Les objectifs et le modus operandi de PROMUSA, le programme global d'amélioration des Musa a également été présenté; - L'Organisation des Nations unies pour l'agriculture et l'alimentation (FAO) forme une interface entre l'INIBAP et MUSACO en aidant à la collecte et l'échange d'information et au transfert des technologies. Les exposés des institutions ont été suivis de deux compte-rendus sur la formation à la gestion des vitroplants, et le voyage d'étude de quelques membres de MUSACO en Amérique latine. Formation en production et manipulation de matériel végétal

Renormalization of 4-Quark Operators and QCD-Sum Rules

We compute the renormalization mismatch displayed in 1--loop approximation by classically equivalent 4-quark operators and coming from different possible definitions of the $\gamma_5$ matrix in dimensional regularization. The result is then employed to study the effect of the various treatments of $\gamma_5$ upon the size of radiative corrections to 4-quark condensates in the QCD sum rules for $\rho$ and $A_1$ mesons. We find that a fully anticommuting $\gamma_5$ which automatically respects non-anomalous chiral Ward-Slavnov identities leads to considerably smaller corrections and reduces theoretical uncertainty in the QCD prediction for the $\tau$ hadronic decay rate.Comment: 8 pages, Latex A complete postscript file is available via anonymous ftp at ttpux2.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de (129.13.102.139) as /ttp93-26/ttp93-26.ps, Local preprint# TTP93-2

Spacetime Fermions in Light-cone Gauge Superstring Field Theory and Dimensional Regularization

We consider the dimensional regularization of the light-cone gauge type II superstring field theories in the NSR formalism. In the previous work, we have calculated the tree-level amplitudes with external lines in the (NS,NS) sector using the regularization and shown that the desired results are obtained without introducing contact term interactions. In this work, we study the tree-level amplitudes with external lines in the Ramond sector. In order to deal with them, we propose a worldsheet theory to be used instead of that for the naive dimensional regularization. With the worldsheet theory, we regularize and define the tree-level amplitudes by analytic continuation. We show that the results coincide with those of the first quantized formulation.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures; v2: more details of our manipulations in subsection 3.2 added, figures and references added; v3: clarifications adde