An investigation into sleep patterns and the effect of time of day on performance in youth swimmers

The purpose of this study was to investigate sleep patterns in competitive youth swimmers and to establish any time-of-day effect on physiological and psychological variables linked to swimming performance. Twelve swimmers (14.8 ± 2.1 years) underwent physiological and psychological tests in morning and evening and completed sleep diaries over a 2-week period. There was a non-significant effect between morning and evening swimming performance for 800 m (p = 0.068) and 50 m (p = 0.306). Handgrip strength was significantly greater in evening (p = 0.007), back and leg strength were significantly greater in morning (p = 0.013). There was no time-of-day effect for jump height (p = 0.756). The profile of mood states indicated significantly higher anger (p = 0.012) and vigour (p = 0.000) in the morning. Swimming performance was not significantly affected by time of day; however, physiological variables showed varied results. Multiple factors could be influencing results including training time and mood state so should be monitored closely by coaches

Supersymmetric quantum mechanics and the Korteweg-de Vries hierarchy

The connection between supersymmetric quantum mechanics and the Korteweg- de Vries (KdV) equation is discussed, with particular emphasis on the KdV conservation laws. It is shown that supersymmetric quantum mechanics aids in the derivation of the conservation laws, and gives some insight into the Miura transformation that converts the KdV equation into the modified KdV equation. The construction of the $\tau$-function by means of supersymmetric quantum mechanics is discussed.Comment: 16 pages, latex, EFI 93/2

No. 3: Linking Migration, HIV/AIDS and Urban Food Security in Southern and Eastern Africa

This publication seeks to establish a background for understanding the complex and dynamic linkages between urbanization, migration, HIV/AIDS and urban food security in Southern and Eastern Africa (SEA). As urbanization accelerates, direct food transfers from rural areas are increasing as poor urban households seek to reduce their vulnerability to high food prices and a cash-intensive urban existence. At the same time, urban households or individual migrants remit money back to households in rural areas both inside and outside the country of employment. A significant proportion of remittances are used for consumption purposes, including the purchase of food. These processes are underwritten by various forms of rural-urban, cross-border and circulatory migration. Migration has clearly facilitated the rapid spread of HIV in the SEA region over the last two decades. For a number of reasons, migrants and other mobile people are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. The epidemic, in turn, is leading to new forms of migration, including children’s migration and return migration of PLWHAs (People Living with HIV and AIDS) to rural areas. Not only does this lead to a decline in remittances but it places a greater burden on rural households. Rural food production for urban household members may also be negatively affected by the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural producers. In the context of HIV/AIDS, migrants themselves may be unable to pursue other food security avenues, including urban agriculture. As HIV/AIDS creates both short term and long term intergenerational impacts within the framework of its long wave epidemiological pattern, the development context is changing considerably. In order to formulate appropriate policy responses, it is therefore imperative to understand the complex linkages and transfers of people and commodities which characterize the “new social economy of migration” in the SEA. At the same time, it is important to understand the inter-related connections between migration and HIV/AIDS for two basic reasons. First, migrants are a particularly vulnerable group, both to HIV infection and to resultant food insecurity. Second, a disease which eats away at the fabric of the new social economy of migration will severely test the ability of urban and rural areas to provide a secure food supply for their populations, both at the aggregate and household levels. It is against this backdrop that this publication documents the key dimensions of the complex connections between urbanization, migration, HIV/AIDS and food security. There is an existing and growing literature on some of these connections; between migration and HIV/AIDS, for example, and between HIV/AIDS and rural food security. However, the linkages between HIV/AIDS and urban food security are less well-established. In addition, attempts to link both HIV/AIDS and urban food security simultaneously with migration are only now being considered, and this project is the first to examine these dynamics at the regional level. That task is rendered more challenging by the fact that migration itself has been undergoing rapid changes in form over the last decade. The publication is divided into three sections. It is designed to lay the foundation for further discussion and the articulation of a targeted action research agenda which addresses both the knowledge gaps and the policy and programming needs of the region in this field of development. This paper begins by reviewing the literature on urbanization and migration in SEA, showing how rapid urbanization is not eliminating migration but intensifying its scope and scale. The section also provides an overview of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in SEA and seeks to establish the reciprocal connections in the HIV/AIDS and migration nexus. Finally, the section reviews current evidence on the determinants of food security in urban areas. The second chapter focuses on the links between migration and HIV/AIDS, migration and food security, and HIV/AIDS and food security. Research on these sets of linkage is proceeding apace although much more is known about the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural than urban food security. The third chapter draws together these sets of relationships and outlines the key knowledge gaps and emerging research questions for the region. Although the research literature is not yet developed in this regard, various conceptual models have been devised to help understand these relationships. Although some of these models focus on rural food security and some on urban, this paper argues that the distinction is artificial, and that migration is the “missing link” between the urban and the rural. Migration links the rural and the urban social economies and emphasizes the point that urban food security cannot be isolated from rural food security and vice-versa. Finally, the paper proposes some next steps in developing a fully fledged and policy-relevant research agenda

Accomplishments of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, 2000-2010

Details the investments and impact of a funder collaborative focused on higher education in nine African countries, and each foundation's contribution. Discusses enduring improvements, increased resources, value added, and additional foundation efforts

The moduli problem of Lobb and Zentner and the coloured sl(N) graph invariant

Motivated by a possible connection between the SU(N) instanton knot Floer homology of Kronheimer and Mrowka and sl(N) Khovanov-Rozansky homology, Lobb and Zentner recently introduced a moduli problem associated to colourings of trivalent graphs of the kind considered by Murakami, Ohtsuki and Yamada in their state-sum interpretation of the quantum sl(N) knot polynomial. For graphs with two colours, they showed this moduli space can be thought of as a representation variety, and that its Euler characteristic is equal to the sl(N) polynomial of the graph evaluated at 1. We extend their results to graphs with arbitrary colourings by irreducible anti-symmetric representations of sl(N)