Remembered or Dismembered, Deified or Defied? The Challenges of African Heroines in Contemporary History

The development of any society depends on the overall contribution of its entire populace. These include: men, women, elderly and the youths, but specifically both genders, male and female. Unfortunately, while the African society have always honoured and subsequently immortalised the males after their demise as heroes, such gestures are scarcely extended to the females heroines. With focus on Nigeria, this paper traces the history of women who have contributed and even sacrificed their lives from the pre- colonial to contemporary period, and examined how the state has given back to them after their demise. The study relies on archival materials, extant literature and media reports. The study reveals that Nigeria has not done enough to dignify these heroines as compared to their male counterparts. Recommendations were made based on these findings. One of which was that, for the sake of posterity and equity, the Nigerian female heroines should enjoy similar honours, like their male counterparts.Keywords: Women, Heroines, Honours, Gender, Aba Women Riot, Ebol

Angular size measurements of carbon Miras and S-type stars

In our continuing investigation of highly evolved stars, we report new interferometric angular diameter observations of 5 carbon and 4 S-type Mira variable stars, and 4 non-Mira S stars. From the data, effective temperatures and linear radii are calculated. We compare the values of these parameters obtained for stars discussed in this paper with the same parameters for oxygen-rich giants/supergiants, oxygen-rich Mira variables, and non-Mira carbon stars presented in Dyck et al. (1996a, AJ, 111, 1705), van Belle et al. (1996, AJ, 112, 2147), and Dyck et al. (1996b, AJ, 112, 294), respectively. There are two principal findings from a synthesis of these studies. First, the non-Mira variables of each chemical class are consistently hotter and smaller than their Mira-variable counterparts. Second, the S stars lie between the oxygen-rich and the carbon-rich stars in both effective temperature and linear radius, for both the Mira-type and non-Mira stars

Asymptotic Giant Branch Variables in the Galaxy and the Local Group

AGB variables, particularly the large amplitude Mira type, are a vital step on the distance scale ladder. They will prove particularly important in the era of space telescopes and extremely large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics, which will be optimized for infrared observing. Our current understanding of the distances to these stars is reviewed with particular emphasis on improvements that came from Hipparcos as well as on recent work on Local Group galaxies. In addition to providing the essential calibration for extragalactic distances Gaia may also provide unprecedented insight into the poorly understood mass-loss process itself.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science. From a presentation at the conference "The Fundamental Cosmic Distance Scale: State of the Art and Gaia Perspective, Naples May 2011. 8 Pages, 9 Figure

A Study of the \eta \pi^{0} Spectrum and Search for a J^{PC} = 1^{-+} Exotic Meson

A partial wave analysis (PWA) of the of the $\eta \pi ^0$ system (where $\eta \to \gamma \gamma$) produced in the charge exchange reaction $\pi ^-p\to \eta \pi ^0n$ at an incident momentum of 18 GeV$/c$ is presented as a function of ${\eta \pi ^0}$ invariant mass, $m_{\eta\pi^0}$, and momentum transfer squared, $t_{\pi^{-}\to\eta\pi}$, from the incident $\pi^-$ to the outgoing ${\eta\pi ^0}$ system. $S$, $P$ and $D$ waves were included in the PWA. The $a_0(980)$ and $a_2(1320)$ states are clearly observed in the overall ${\eta\pi ^0}$ effective mass distribution as well as in the amplitudes associated with $S$ wave and $D$ waves respectively after partial wave decomposition. The observed distributions in moments (averages of spherical harmonics) were compared to the results from the PWA and the two are consistent. The distribution in $t_{\pi^{-}\to\eta\pi}$ for individual $D$ waves associated with natural and unnatural parity exchange in the $t$-channel are consistent with Regge phenomenology. Of particular interest in this study is the $P$ wave since this leads to an exotic $J^{PC}=1^{-+}$ for the $\eta \pi$ system. A $P$ wave is present in the data, however attempts to describe the mass dependence of the amplitude and phase motion with respect to the $D$ wave as a Breit-Wigner resonance are problematic. This has implications regarding the existence of a reported exotic $J^{PC} = 1^{-+}$ meson decaying into $\eta \pi^0$ with a mass near 1.4 GeV$/c^2$.Comment: 19 pages, 29 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Study of the radiative decay ϕ→ηγ\phi \to \eta \gamma with CMD-2 detector

Using the $1.9 pb^{-1}$ of data collected with the CMD-2 detector at VEPP-2M the decay mode $\phi \to \eta \gamma$, $\eta \to \pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$ has been studied. The obtained branching ratio is B($\phi \to \eta \gamma) = (1.18 \pm 0.03 \pm 0.06)$.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, LaTex2e, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Study of KS KL Coupled Decays and KL -Be Interactions with the CMD-2 Detector at VEPP-2M Collider

The integrated luminosity about 4000 inverse nanobarn of around phi meson mass ( 5 millions of phi mesons) has been collected with the CMD-2 detector at the VEPP-2M collider. A latest analysis of the KS KL coupled decays based on 30 % of available data is presented in this paper. The KS KL pairs from phi meson decays were reconstructed in the drift chamber when both kaons decayed into two charged particles. From a sample of 1423 coupled decays a selection of candidates to the CP violating KL into pi+ pi- decay was performed. CP violating decays were not identified because of the domination of events with a KL regenerating at the Be beam pipe into KS and a background from KL semileptonic decays. The regeneration cross section of 110 MeV/c KL mesons was found to be 53 +- 17 mb in agreement with theoretical expectations. The angular distribution of KS mesons after regeneration and the total cross section of KL for Be have been measured.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Observation of KS0K_S^0 semileptonic decays with CMD-2 detector

The decay $K_S^0 \to \pi e \nu$ has been observed by the CMD-2 detector at the e^+e^- collider VEPP-2M at Novosibirsk. Of 6 million produced $K_L^0K_S^0$ pairs, $75 \pm 13$ events of the $K_S^0 \to \pi e \nu$ decay were selected. The corresponding branching ratio is $B(K_S^0 \to \pi e \nu)=(7.2 \pm 1.4)\times10^{-4}$. This result is consistent with the evaluation of $B(K_S^0 \to \pi e \nu)$ from the $K_L^0$ semileptonic rate and $K_S^0$ lifetime assuming $\Delta S=\Delta Q$ .Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, LaTex2e. Submitted to Phys.Lett.

Measurement of omega meson parameters in pi^+pi^-pi^0 decay mode with CMD-2

About 11 200 e^+e^- -> omega -> pi^+pi^-pi^0 events selected in the center of mass energy range from 760 to 810 MeV were used for the measurement of the \omega meson parameters. The following results have been obtained: sigma _{0}=(1457 \pm 23 \pm 19)nb, m_{\omega}=(782.71 \pm 0.07 \pm 0.04) MeV/c^{2}, \Gamma_{\omega}=(8.68 \pm 0.23 \pm 0.10) MeV, \Gamma_{e^+e^-}\cdot Br (\omega -> pi^+pi^-pi^0)= (0.528 \pm 0.012 \pm 0.007) \cdot 10^{-3} MeV.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Identification of pathways to high-level vancomycin resistance in Clostridioides difficile that incur high fitness costs in key pathogenicity traits

Clostridioides difficile is an important human pathogen, for which there are very limited treatment options, primarily the glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin. In recent years, vancomycin resistance has emerged as a serious problem in several gram-positive pathogens, but high-level resistance has yet to be reported for C. difficile, although it is not known if this is due to constraints upon resistance evolution in this species. Here, we show that resistance to vancomycin can evolve rapidly under ramping selection but is accompanied by fitness costs and pleiotropic trade-offs, including sporulation defects that would be expected to severely impact transmission. We identified 2 distinct pathways to resistance, both of which are predicted to result in changes to the muropeptide terminal D-Ala-D-Ala that is the primary target of vancomycin. One of these pathways involves a previously uncharacterised D,D-carboxypeptidase, expression of which is controlled by a dedicated two-component signal transduction system. Our findings suggest that while C. difficile is capable of evolving high-level vancomycin resistance, this outcome may be limited clinically due to pleiotropic effects on key pathogenicity traits. Moreover, our data identify potential mutational routes to resistance that should be considered in genomic surveillance

Study of the process e+e- to pi+pi-pi+pi-pi0 with CMD-2 detector

The process e+e- to pi+ pi- pi+ pi- pi0 has been studied in the center of mass energy range 1280 -- 1380 MeV using 3.0 1/pb of data collected with the CMD-2 detector in Novosibirsk. Analysis shows that the cross section of the five pion production is dominated by the contributions of the eta pi+pi- and omega pi+pi- intermediate states.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure. Submitted to Phys. Lett.