Measuring gender norms about relationships in early adolescence : results from the global early adolescent study

Introduction: Gender norms are increasingly recognized as drivers of health and wellbeing. While early adolescence constitutes a critical window of development, there is limited understanding about how adolescents perceive gender relations across different cultural settings. This study used a mixed-method approach, grounded in the voices of young people around the world, to construct and test a cross-cultural scale assessing the perceptions of gender norms regulating romantic relationships between boys and girls in early adolescence. Methods: The study draws on the Global Early Adolescent study (GEAS), a study focusing on gender norms and health related outcomes over the course of adolescence in urban poor settings worldwide. In-depth interviews were first conducted among approximately 200 adolescents between 10-14 years in seven sites across 4 continents to identify common scripts guiding romantic relations in early adolescence. These scripts were then transformed into a multidimensional scale. The scale was tested among 120 adolescents in each of 14 GEAS sites, followed by a second pilot among 75 adolescents in six sites. We evaluated the psychometric criteria of each subscale using principal component analysis, and parallel analysis, followed by exploratory factor analysis to guide the selection of a more parsimonious set of items. Results: Results suggested a two-factor structure, consisting of an "adolescent romantic expectations" subscale and a "Sexual Double Standard" subscale. Both subscales yielded high internal validity in each site, with polychoric Cronbach alpha values above 0.70 with the exception of Kinshasa for the adolescent romantic expectations scale (0.64) and Hanoi for the sexual double standard scale (0.61). Conclusion: This study reveals common perceptions of gendered norms about romantic engagement in early adolescence, normative for both sexes, but socially valued for boys while devaluated for girls. The findings illustrate that social hierarchies of power in romantic relationships form early in adolescence, regardless of cultural setting

Anti-inflammatory activities of dichloromethane-methanolic leaf and stem bark extracts of Ximenia americana in mice models

Introduction: Ximenia americana is a highly branched shrub mainly found in tropics of Asia, Africa, New Zealand, Central and South America among others. In most parts of Africa, X. americana is used in folklore to treat various disorders such as oedema, pain, fever, helminthiasis, diarrhea and burns among others. There is no published data on anti-inflammatory activities of organic extracts of X. americana. It is against this background that this research was carried out. The study tested for the anti-inflammatory activities of dichloromethane-methanolic (DCM-MeOH) leaf and stem bark extracts of X. americana in rats.Methods: The plant materials were collected from Mbeere North sub-county, Embu county, Kenya. Methanol and dichloromethane in the ratio of 1:1 was used to extract the active compounds. Five to 6 weeks old Swiss Albino mice were employed for the anti-inflammatory studies. Animals were divided into 6 groups of 5 rats each: normal, negative, reference and three experimental groups (50, 100 and 150 mg/kg body weight). Inflammation was induced experimentally using carrageenan. The experimental groups were treated with predetermined dose quantities of prepared extracts. Diclofenac was used as the reference drug. Data was analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results: The extracts from the leaves reduced hind paw circumference by between 0.91 and 16.90 while the stem bark extracts reduced hind paw circumference by between 5.84 and 29.00. Diclofenac reduced right hind paw circumference by 1.32-29.60. Qualitative phytochemical screening showed presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, saponins, cardiac glycosides, phenolics and terpenoids in the extract.Conclusion: The study established that the DCM-MeOH leaf and stem bark extracts of X. americana is effective in management of inflammation and therefore it can be explored as a possible bio-resource in the development of herbal medicines

Hysteresis of Backflow Imprinted in Collimated Jets

We report two different types of backflow from jets by performing 2D special relativistic hydrodynamical simulations. One is anti-parallel and quasi-straight to the main jet (quasi-straight backflow), and the other is bent path of the backflow (bent backflow). We find that the former appears when the head advance speed is comparable to or higher than the local sound speed at the hotspot while the latter appears when the head advance speed is slower than the sound speed bat the hotspot. Bent backflow collides with the unshocked jet and laterally squeezes the jet. At the same time, a pair of new oblique shocks are formed at the tip of the jet and new bent fast backflows are generated via these oblique shocks. The hysteresis of backflow collisions is thus imprinted in the jet as a node and anti-node structure. This process also promotes broadening of the jet cross sectional area and it also causes a decrease in the head advance velocity. This hydrodynamic process may be tested by observations of compact young jets.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

The effects of maize planting density and weeding regimes on light and water use

Light and water are among essential resources required for production of photosynthates in plants. A study on the effects of weeding regimes and maize planting density on light and water use was conducted during the 2001/2 short and 2002 long rain seasons at Muguga in - the central highlands of Kenya. Weeding regimes were: weed free (W1), weedy (W2), herbicide (W3) and hand weeding twice (W4). Maize planting densities were 9 (D1) and 18 plants m-2 (D2) intercropped with Phaseolus vulgaris (beans). The experiment was laid as randomized complete block design replicated four times and repeated twice. All plots were thinned to 4 plants m-2 at tasseling stage (96 DAE) and thinnings quantified as forage. Soil moisture content (SMC), photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception, evapo-transpiration (ET crop), water use efficiency (WUE), and harvest index (HI), were determined. Percent PAR was higher in D2 than in D1 before thinning but higher in D1 than in D2 after thinning in both seasons. PAR interception was highest in W2 but similar in W1, W3 and W4 in both seasons. SMC was significantly lower in W2 but similar in W1, W3 and W4. D2 had lower SMC than D1 in season two. Weeding regime significantly influenced ET crop, while planting density and weeding regime significantly influenced WUE and HI. D2 maximizes water and light use for forage production but results to increased intra-specific plant competition for water and light severely before thinning (96 DAE) that reduce grain yield in dual purpose maize, relative to D1

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Supersymmetric virtual effects in heavy quark pair production at LHC

We consider the production of heavy ($b,t$) quark pairs at proton colliders in the theoretical framework of the MSSM. Under the assumption of a "moderately" light SUSY scenario, we first compute the leading logarithmic MSSM contributions at one loop for the elementary processes of production from a quark and from a gluon pair in the 1 TeV c.m. energy region. We show that in the initial gluon pair case (dominant in the chosen situation at LHC energies) the electroweak and the strong SUSY contributions concur to produce an enhanced effect whose relative value in the cross sections could reach the twenty percent size for large $\tan\beta$ values in the realistic proton-proton LHC process.Comment: 19 pages and 8 figures; version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Multiple Parton Interactions, top--antitop and W+4j production at the LHC

The expected rate for Multiple Parton Interactions (MPI) at the LHC is large. This requires an estimate of their impact on all measurement foreseen at the LHC while opening unprecendented opportunities for a detailed study of these phenomena. In this paper we examine the MPI background to top-antitop production, in the semileptonic channel, in the early phase of data taking when the full power of $b$--tagging will not be available. The MPI background turns out to be small but non negligible, of the order of 20% of the background provided by W+4j production through a Single Parton Interaction. We then analyze the possibility of studying Multiple Parton Interactions in the W+4j channel, a far more complicated setting than the reactions examined at lower energies. The MPI contribution turns out to be dominated by final states with two energetic jets which balance in transverse momentum, and it appears possible, thanks to the good angular resolution of ATLAS and CMS, to separate the Multiple Parton Interactions contribution from Single Parton Interaction processes. The large cross section for two jet production suggests that also Triple Parton Interactions (TPI) could provide a non negligible contribution. Our preliminary analysis suggests that it might be indeed possible to investigate TPI at the LHC.Comment: Typos fixed. Published in JHE

Multi-Parton Interactions at the LHC

We review the recent progress in the theoretical description and experimental observation of multiple parton interactions. Subjects covered include experimental measurements of minimum bias interactions and of the underlying event, models of soft physics implemented in Monte Carlo generators, developments in the theoretical description of multiple parton interactions and phenomenological studies of double parton scattering. This article stems from contributions presented at the Helmholtz Alliance workshop on "Multi-Parton Interactions at the LHC", DESY Hamburg, 13-15 September 2010.Comment: 68 page