The importance of mentorship and collaboration for scientific capacity-building and capacity-sharing: perspectives of African scientists

Long-term goals for capacity-building in Africa centres around building a self-sufficient scientific community, however there is a lack of research on the interactions that are needed to make up a thriving academic community or the steps needed to realise such a goal. Through interviews with researchers supported by a capacity-building initiative, we have characterised their interactions with other scientists and the impact that these have on capacity-building. This has revealed a wide range of interactions that have not been captured by traditional bibliometric studies of collaboration and shown that a substantial amount of intra-African collaboration is taking place. This collaboration allowed the researchers to share capacity with their colleagues and this could provide an alternative to, or supplement, traditional North-South capacity-building. We have shown that this capacity-sharing can enable capacity to spill over from capacitybuilding programmes to the broader scientific community. Furthermore, researchers are deliberately hastening this capacitysharing through training or mentoring others outside of their capacity-building initiative, including those from more resource-poor groups. To understand how capacity-building initiatives can harness the power of these interactions, we investigated how interactions between researchers originated, and found that collaborations tended to be formed around pre-existing networks, with researchers collaborating with previous colleagues, or contacts formed through their mentors or consortium activities. Capacity-building organisations could capitalise on this through actions such as expanding mentorship schemes but should also ensure that researchers are not limited to pre-established networks but have exposure to a changing and growing pool of expertise. As interactions continue to move online since the appearance of COVID-19 this will present opportunities for new interaction patterns to develop. This study highlights the need to develop new metrics for collaboration that will take into account these new modes of interaction and the full range of interactions that make up a scientific community

CP Violation in WγW\gamma and ZγZ\gamma Production

We study the capability of a $2 TeV$ $p\overline{p}$ collider with an integrated luminosity of $10 fb^{-1}$ to study CP violation in the processes p \bar{p} \ra W^\pm \gamma and p \bar{p} \ra Z \gamma. We assume the existence of new CP violating interactions beyond the standard model which we describe with an effective Lagrangian. We find that the study of CP-odd observables would allow this machine to place bounds on CP violating anomalous couplings similar to the bounds that the same machine can place on \cp conserving anomalous couplings. For example it could place the bound $|\tilde{\kappa}_\gamma|<0.1$ at the 95% confidence level.Comment: Standard LATEX with epsf, 9 p

How Big Can Anomalous W Couplings Be?

Conventional wisdom has it that anomalous gauge-boson self-couplings can be at most a percent or so in size. We test this wisdom by computing these couplings at one loop in a generic renormalizable model of new physics. (For technical reasons we consider the CP-violating couplings here, but our results apply more generally.) By surveying the parameter space we find that the largest couplings (several percent) are obtained when the new particles are at the weak scale. For heavy new physics we compare our findings with expectations based on an effective-lagrangian analysis. We find general patterns of induced couplings which robustly reflect the nature of the underlying physics. We build representative models for which the new physics could be first detected in the anomalous gauge couplings.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figures, (dvi file and figures combined into a uuencoded compressed file), (We correct an error in eq. 39 and its associated figure (9). No changes at all to the text.), McGill-93/40, UQAM-PHE-93/03, NEIPH-93-00

CDMS stands for Constrained Dark Matter Singlet

Motivated by the two candidate Dark Matter events observed by the CDMS experiment, we consider a Constrained Dark Matter Singlet (CDMS) model that, with no free parameters, predicts the DM mass and the DM direct cross section to be in the range weakly favored by CDMS.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

The Private Higgs

We introduce Higgs democracy in the Yukawa sector by constructing a model with a private Higgs and a dark scalar for each fermion thus addressing the large hierarchy among fermion masses. The model has interesting implications for the LHC, while the Standard Model phenomenology is recovered at low energies. We discuss some phenomenological implications such as FCNC, new Higgses at the TeV scale and dark matter candidates.Comment: 8 pages, no figures. Version published in Phys. Lett.

The Simplest Dark-Matter Model, CDMS II Results, and Higgs Detection at LHC

The direct-search experiment for dark matter performed by the CDMS II Collaboration has observed two candidate events. Although these events cannot be interpreted as significant evidence for the presence of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter (DM), the total CDMS II data have led to an improved upper-limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross-section. We study some implications of these results for the simplest WIMP DM model, the SM+D, which extends the standard model (SM) by the addition of a real SM-singlet scalar field dubbed darkon to play the role of the DM. We find that, although the CDMS II data rule out a sizable portion of parameter space of the model, a large part of the parameter space is still allowed. We obtain strong correlations among the darkon mass, darkon-nucleon cross-section, mass of the Higgs boson, and branching ratio of its invisible decay. We point out that measurements of the Higgs invisible branching-ratio at the LHC can lift some possible ambiguities in determining the darkon mass from direct DM searches.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; results updated with WMAP7 input, references added, conclusions unchanged, to match published versio

Training Load and Carbohydrate Periodization Practices of Elite Male Australian Football Players: Evidence of Fueling for the Work Required.

The authors aimed to quantify (a) the periodization of physical loading and daily carbohydrate (CHO) intake across an in-season weekly microcycle of Australian Football and (b) the quantity and source of CHO consumed during game play and training. Physical loading (via global positioning system technology) and daily CHO intake (via a combination of 24-hr recall, food diaries, and remote food photographic method) were assessed in 42 professional male players during two weekly microcycles comprising a home and away fixture. The players also reported the source and quantity of CHO consumed during all games (n = 22 games) and on the training session completed 4 days before each game (n = 22 sessions). The total distance was greater (p < .05) on game day (GD; 13 km) versus all training days. The total distance differed between training days, where GD-2 (8 km) was higher than GD-1, GD-3, and GD-4 (3.5, 0, and 7 km, respectively). The daily CHO intake was also different between training days, with reported intakes of 1.8, 1.4, 2.5, and 4.5 g/kg body mass on GD-4, GD-3, GD-2, and GD-1, respectively. The CHO intake was greater (p < .05) during games (59 ± 19 g) compared with training (1 ± 1 g), where in the former, 75% of the CHO consumed was from fluids as opposed to gels. Although the data suggest that Australian Football players practice elements of CHO periodization, the low absolute CHO intakes likely represent considerable underreporting in this population. Even when accounting for potential underreporting, the data also suggest Australian Football players underconsume CHO in relation to the physical demands of training and competition

Association between monosodium glutamate intake and sleep-disordered breathing among Chinese adults with normal body weight

ObjectiveTo assess whether monosodium glutamate (MSG) intake is associated with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB).MethodsData from 1227 Chinese subjects who participated in the Jiangsu Nutrition Study were analyzed. All the participants were examined at two time points (baseline in 2002 and follow-up in 2007). The MSG intake was assessed quantitatively in 2002 and a sleep questionnaire was used to assess snoring and to construct an SDB probability score in 2007. Those within the fifth quintile of the score (highest) were defined as having a high probability of SDB.ResultsThe MSG intake was positively associated with snoring and a high probability of SDB in participants who had a normal body weight but in those who were overweight. A comparison of the extreme quartiles of MSG intake in subjects with a body mass index lower than 23 kg/m² showed an odds ratio of 2.02 (95% confidence interval 1.02-4.00) for snoring and an odds ratio of 3.11 (95% confidence interval 1.10-8.84) for a high probability of SDB. There was a joint effect between MSG and overweight in relation to SDB.ConclusionThe intake of MSG may increase the risk of SDB in Chinese adults with a normal body weight.Zumin Shi, Gary A. Wittert, Baojun Yuan, Yue Dai, Tiffany K. Gill, Gang Hu, Robert Adams, Hui Zuo, Anne W. Taylo

Constraints on CP violating four-fermion interactions

It has been shown that CP violating electron-nucleon and nucleon-nucleon interactions can induce atomic electric dipole moments and are therefore constrained from experimental data. We show that using the experimental upper bounds on neutron and electron electric dipole moments, one can also obtain constraints, in some cases better ones, on these interactions. In addition stringent constraints can also be obtained for muon-quark and tauon-quark four-fermion CP violating interactions, which cannot be constrained from atomic electric dipole moment experiments.Comment: ps-file, 12page

Muscle Glycogen Utilisation during an Australian Rules Football Game.

PURPOSE: To better understand the carbohydrate (CHO) requirement of Australian Football (AF) match play by quantifying muscle glycogen utilisation during an in-season AF match. METHODS: After a 24 h CHO loading protocol of 8 g/kg and 2 g/kg in the pre-match meal, two elite male forward players had biopsies sampled from m. vastus lateralis before and after participation in a South Australian Football League game. Player A (87.2kg) consumed water only during match play whereas player B (87.6kg) consumed 88 g CHO via CHO gels. External load was quantified using global positioning system technology. RESULTS: Player A completed more minutes on the ground (115 vs. 98 min) and covered greater total distance (12.2 vs. 11.2 km) than Player B, though with similar high-speed running (837 vs. 1070 m) and sprinting (135 vs. 138 m), respectively. Muscle glycogen decreased by 66% in Player A (Pre-: 656, Post-: 223 mmol∙kg-1 dw) and 24% in Player B (Pre-: 544, Post-: 416 mmol∙kg-1 dw), respectively. CONCLUSION: Pre-match CHO loading elevated muscle glycogen concentrations (i.e. >500 mmol.kg-1 dw), the magnitude of which appears sufficient to meet the metabolic demands of elite AF match play. The glycogen cost of AF match play may be greater than soccer and rugby and CHO feeding may also spare muscle glycogen use. Further studies using larger sample sizes are now required to quantify the inter-individual variability of glycogen cost of match play (including muscle and fibre-type specific responses) as well examine potential metabolic and ergogenic effects of CHO feeding