Manufacturing homemade alcohol in the City of Tshwane, South Africa

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of home-based manufacturing of alcoholic beverages in townships/peri-urban households and to examine whether certain characteristics (such as household, demographics and drinking behaviour of participants who reported brewing of alcohol in their homes) predicted home brewing of alcohol. The study utilized data from South African arm of International Alcohol Control study conducted in the city of Tshwane. A household survey used multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling. Homemade alcohol was defined as participants who reported home-based alcohol brewing at their homes. Stata Version 14.0 was used for analyses. Nine percent of the sample reported brewing of alcohol in their households. Race, employment of the main income earners and number of eligible members in the household have predicted homebased alcohol brewing. The study raised important questions about the prevalence of home brewing of alcohol in the city of Tshwane as it might be a common practice in other cities. Keywords: Homemade alcohol, alcohol brewing, South Afric

Adiabatic and Isocurvature Perturbations for Multifield Generalized Einstein Models

Low energy effective field theories motivated by string theory will likely contain several scalar moduli fields which will be relevant to early Universe cosmology. Some of these fields are expected to couple with non-standard kinetic terms to gravity. In this paper, we study the splitting into adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations for a model with two scalar fields, one of which has a non-standard kinetic term in the Einstein-frame action. Such actions can arise, e.g., in the Pre-Big-Bang and Ekpyrotic scenarios. The presence of a non-standard kinetic term induces a new coupling between adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations which is non-vanishing when the potential for the matter fields is nonzero. This coupling is un-suppressed in the long wavelength limit and thus can lead to an important transfer of power from the entropy to the adiabatic mode on super-Hubble scales. We apply the formalism to the case of a previously found exact solution with an exponential potential and study the resulting mixing of adiabatic and isocurvature fluctuations in this example. We also discuss the possible relevance of the extra coupling in the perturbation equations for the process of generating an adiabatic component of the fluctuations spectrum from isocurvature perturbations without considering a later decay of the isocurvature component.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, one equation corrected, typos fixed, conclusions unchange

Gauged Inflation

We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is assumed to be $SU(N+1)$ with $N \gg 1$. Appealing to a thermodynamical treatment, the ground-state structure of the model is classically determined by a potential for the inflaton field (dynamical monopole condensate) which allows for nontrivially BPS saturated and thereby stable solutions. For $T<M_P$ this leads to decoupling of gravity from the inflaton dynamics. The ground state dynamics implies a heat capacity for the vacuum leading to inflation for temperatures comparable to the mass scale $M$ of the potential. The dynamics has an attractor property. In contrast to the usual slow-roll paradigm we have $m\gg H$ during inflation. As a consequence, density perturbations generated from the inflaton are irrelevant for the formation of large-scale structure, and the model has to be supplemented with an inflaton independent mechanism for the generation of spatial curvature perturbations. Within a small fraction of the Hubble time inflation is terminated by a transition of the theory to its center symmetric phase. The spontaneously broken $Z_{N+1}$ symmetry stabilizes relic vector bosons in the epochs following inflation. These heavy relics contribute to the cold dark matter of the universe and potentially originate the UHECRs beyond the GZK bound.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, subsection added, revision of text, to app. in PR

Alcohol taxes’ contribution to prices in high and middle-income countries : data from the International Alcohol Control Study

The paper draws on data from six participating countries of the International Alcohol Control Study to examine and evaluate their comparative prices and tax regimes. Both ad valorem and specific per unit of alcohol taxation systems are represented among the six countries. The prices differ widely between countries even though presented in terms of Purchasing Power Parity. The percentage of tax in the final price also varies widely but is much lower than the 75% goal set by the World Health Organization. There is a higher proportion of abstainers in middle-income countries and men drink much more alcohol than women

Inflation and Brane Gases

We investigate a new way of realizing a period of cosmological inflation in the context of brane gas cosmology. It is argued that a gas of co-dimension one branes, out of thermal equilibrium with the rest of the matter, has an equation of state which can - after stabilization of the dilaton - lead to power-law inflation of the bulk. The most promising implementation of this mechanism might be in Type IIB superstring theory, with inflation of the three large spatial dimensions triggered by ``stabilized embedded 2-branes''. Possible applications and problems with this proposal are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, uses REVTeX, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

The continuum of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in four rural communities in south africa: Prevalence and characteristics

Prevalence and characteristics of the continuum of diagnoses within fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) were researched in previously unstudied rural, agricultural, lower socioeconomic populations in South Africa (ZA)

The continuum of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in a community in South Africa: Prevalence and characteristics in a fifth sample

The prevalence and characteristics of the continuum of diagnoses within fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) were researched in a fifth sample in a South African community

Breastfeeding and maternal alcohol use: Prevalence and effects on child outcomes and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Determine any effects that maternal alcohol consumption during the breastfeeding period has on child outcomes

Out-of-equilibrium evolution of quantum fields in the hybrid model with quantum back reaction

The hybrid model with a scalar "inflaton" field coupled to a "Higgs" field with a broken symmetry potential is one of the promising models for inflation and (p)reheating after inflation. We consider the nonequilibrium evolution of the quantum fields of this model with quantum back reaction in the Hartree approximation, in particular the transition of the Higgs field from the metastable "false vacuum" to the broken symmetry phase. We have performed the renormalization of the equations of motion, of the gap equations and of the energy density, using dimensional regularization. We study the influence of the back reaction on the evolution of the classical fields and of the quantum fluctuations. We observe that back reaction plays an important role over a wide range of parameters. Some implications of our investigation for the preheating stage after cosmic inflation are presented.Comment: 35 pages, 16 eps figures, revtex4; v2: typos corrected and references added, accepted for publication in Physical Review