University Of Cape Town Research Articles

Editorial introductions.

Current Opinion in Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery was launched in 1993. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The fields of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery are divided into 11 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Jo PattersonJo PattersonDr Jo Patterson is a Professor of Speech and Language Therapist and Associate Head of Research at the University of Liverpool and The Liverpool Head and Neck Centre. Her research portfolio includes proof of concept work, cohort studies, feasibility studies, multi-centre randomized control trials and the development and evaluation of complex interventions. She is committed to involving patients and keeping them central to research and service development. In 2016, she received a Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy Fellowship in recognition of her contribution towards the advancement of the profession, both as an academic and a practicing Speech and Language Therapist. As their specialist advisor, she represents the organisation on a number of committees and councils, contributing towards policy and strategic direction. She has extensively developed research capacity for Speech and Language Therapists nationally through grant and fellowship applications and provision of MSc and PhD supervision, teaching and mentorship. She continues to balance her time between clinical and academic practice. H Fiona RobinsonH Fiona RobinsonMiss Fiona Robinson qualified as a Speech Therapist from Birmingham Polytechnic, UK in 1980, and in 2004, she was awarded Master of Science (Merit) (Advanced practice – Voice) from the University of Newcastle, UK, with study into the efficacy of voice therapy for vocal fold paralysis. In 2006, in recognition of her contribution to the speech and language therapy profession in the UK, Miss Robinson was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT). She has completed a post-graduate certificate in Medical Education at the University of Nottingham, UK with a particular interest in the development of E-learning. Her clinical interests include the diagnosis and rehabilitation of speech and swallowing disorders related to head and neck cancer, including surgical voice restoration, and the management of dysphonia. Currently she is working within the National Health Service (NHS) and is Director of SVS Associates, a company which runs skills training for speech and language therapists. Johannes FaganJohannes FaganDr Johan Fagan is Professor and Chairman of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He has authored 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. A major interest has been to advance head and neck surgery in Africa and the Developing World. To this end he self-publishes two free open access textbooks, “The Open Access Atlas of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Operative Surgery” and the “Open Access Guide to Audiology and Hearing Aids”.

Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa-Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine.

We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925-1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers' cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area with the same surnames as the deceased. The restitution and redress process prioritises the descendant families' memories, wishes and desire to understand the situation, and learn more about their ancestors. The descendant families have described the process as helping them to reconnect with their ancestors. A richer appreciation of their ancestors' lives, gained in part from scientific analyses, culminating with reburial, is hoped to aid the descendant families and wider community in [re-]connecting with their heritage and culture, and contribute to restorative justice, reconciliation and healing while confronting a traumatic historical moment. While these nine individuals were exhumed as specimens, they will be reburied as people.

Regional Open Science Dialogue in Southern Africa

The Regional Open Science Dialogue in Southern Africa workshop hosted by TCC Africa, Public Library of Science (PLOS), Association of African Universities (AAU), Africa Open Science Platform (AOSP), University of Pretoria, and University of Capetown.

Abidjan '99: A Journey through Disbelief

Abidjan '99A Journey through Disbelief Sanya Osha (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Looking for relief and new possibilities, a lecturer at the University of Ibadan travels to Cape Town, but the route is anything but direct. BY 1999 the massive exodus out of Nigeria had attained a crescendo. In that auspicious year, the military handed over power to civilians after decades of military rule. The citizenry was weary from being browbeaten for years by military adventurists. In the 1980s the brain drain commenced, emptying industry, academia, and medicine of the finest minds. I belonged to a writers' collective nominally headed by the irreplaceable Harry Garuba, a poet and popular lecturer at the University of Ibadan, who decamped to the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa to take up a teaching post in 1998. Harry eventually made a considerable impact as a distinguished professor of African studies and English literature at the University of Cape Town. The civilian dispensation in Nigeria did not assuage societal fears regarding possible military coups d'état, civil strife, and general uncertainty. But my professional circumstances, on the surface, looked good. I had taken up a lectureship at the University of Ibadan where I had initially met Garuba. Immediately, I was bombarded with work and expectations. It was difficult to breathe regularly. There was a haste and frenzy about everything on campus. Obviously, the sense of national malaise and unease filtered into all spheres of life, including my own little corner of the world. I needed some kind of relief, and an opportunity to visit Cape Town, South Africa, for an academic conference cropped up. It was to be my first visit to Nelson Mandela's country, which during the time held aloft the African flame. Perhaps Cape Town would change my perspective on things, open up possibilities undreamed of. There was desperation even in those early days of human flight to the South African Eldorado. The South African High Commission then located at southwest Ikoyi, Lagos, was teeming with applicants and all sorts of desperados. People were tense and edgy, as if they were fleeing a war zone. I saw a slightly corpulent celebrity evangelist, Uma Ukpai, looking like a corrupt senator in resplendent flowing robes of azure and silver embroidery. The trendy automobile that brought him swerved dramatically to a halt, deposited him like a feudal despot, as he polished his manicured fingernails and picked his teeth. He was quite a sight. What a charmed existence, all in the name of God. Ukpai did not expect to endure the hurly-burly of acquiring a South African visa. He had minions working on his behalf. The visa application process was further complicated by the fact that South Africa was hosting an international sports event, which meant that a deluge of athletes, sport administrators, political hangers-on, and groupies suddenly all needed their visas on short notice. Those of us who weren't part of that crowd were duly relegated. I traveled a number of times from Ibadan to Lagos, hoping to pick up my visa, and each time was told it wasn't ready. On the day I was to travel, it still wasn't ready. I had given up hope on embarking on my first South African journey. I was exhausted and disillusioned by the constant to-ing and fro-ing without success. I stood dripping with sweat among the last batch of visa hopefuls outside the gates of the embassy underneath the blazing sun. The gates swung shut, as if for the final time, and then a few minutes later opened [End Page 21] again. An embassy official, a stout lady, called out my name. I was immobile, lost in quiet despair and despondency. Then she called out my name again, and I snapped out of my reverie, incredulous at the unexpected turn of events. Was it still possible to travel? I had to meander through unpredictable traffic jams in order to reach the congested airport at Ikeja. My mad dash for the airport had to happen during the rush hour, with all kinds of workers and commuters heading back home after a possibly joyless day. How was I...

Crafting Medical Education Differently: An Innovative Pedagogical Approach to Enhance Deep Learning in Obstetrics and Gynaecology

In this article we explore an innovative pedagogical approach initiated during the COVID-19 lockdown period to support student learning in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Student isolation and the lack of exposure to clinical cases during this period brought many challenges to the teaching platform. However, the global disruption enabled an ontological opening for imaginative and creative experimentation, an aspect of teaching rarely brought into medical training. We take up the unusual work of a clinician educator and others to describe the process of developing novel video recordings for undergraduate medical students. These videos, used as pedagogical tools, enabled new ways of engaging with core curricular needs in this discipline: for the teacher, new ways of producing teaching materials, and for the students, new ways of learning medical content. The videos drew on a range of creative modes including drawing and acting, to augment student learning. As authors, we suggest that the collision of the clinical content and the performative delivery in the videos fostered deep learning and made the curricular material alive and engaging. The existence of the videos enables a sustainable blended learning approach moving forward. The uploading of the videos as Open Educational Resources onto a YouTube channel and a public website now also contribute to teaching resources extending beyond institutional boundaries.

ECR Spotlight – Stacey Shield and Naoya Muramatsu

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology during our centenary year, but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Stacey Shield and Naoya Muramatsu are authors on ‘ Chasing the cheetah: how field biomechanics has evolved to keep up with the fastest land animal’, published in JEB. Stacey is a Lecturer, and Naoya a PhD student, in the lab of Amir Patel at University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa, investigating the mechanics and control of high-speed legged manoeuvrability.

Pathways to water resilient South African cities – from mono-functional to multi-functional stormwater infrastructure

In light of rapid population growth and climate-change pressures on water resources, there is an urgent need in many African cities to shift to more resilient, decentralised, nature-based approaches. In response, the City of Cape Town's Water Strategy document proposes various alternative water supply sources. One is Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) using the Cape Flats Aquifer (CFA). Overlying the CFA are a significant number of stormwater ponds that were originally designed solely to prevent flooding. These ponds could be retrofitted to infiltrate stormwater run-off, recharging the aquifer and serving a water treatment function using nature-based approaches. Many of these mono-functional ponds are in neighbourhoods that are socio-economically disadvantaged through former apartheid spatial planning. These ponds are frequently litter-filled, used for dumping rubble and, on occasion, occupied with informal housing. It is in this context that the conversion of engineered single-purpose stormwater ponds into multi-functional space is proposed using a demonstration site in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. The ‘Pathways to water resilient South African cities (PaWS)’ project is a collaboration between the Future Water Institute at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of Copenhagen (UCPH), funded through DANIDA. This research is revealing how maximum benefit could be derived from these water management systems by adopting low-cost, easy to install blue-green interventions that rely on nature-based approaches. The findings from the research have relevance across Southern Africa where several large cities have existing stormwater ponds designed for flood control or as passive open green spaces. It offers valuable strategies for how these single-purpose ponds can be transformed into multifunctional blue-green spaces in ways that build resilience while addressing the environmental injustice that is a legacy of South Africa's ‘green apartheid’.

Sjoerd Harder: a true ambassador of main group chemistry

Sjoerd Harder (pronounced: sh oo r d, not Sjörd, as most of the German colleagues tend to say and write …!) was born on March 17, 1963, in Grootegast, The Netherlands. Growing up in a village in West Friesland, close to Groningen and the North Sea, probably explains why Sjoerd developed a very strong connection to nature and a passion for sailing, hiking, travelling, seafood but especially good food in general, beer (lekker biertje …), wine and whiskey or distilled drinks in general. In 1981, Sjoerd moved to the centre of the Netherlands to study Chemistry and Physics at the University of Utrecht. He completed his Master's degree in Chemistry with a thesis in organometallic chemistry (Dr. Jaap Boersma) and a thesis in crystallography (Prof. Dr. Jan Kroon and Dr. Jan Kanters) in 1986 with cum laude, which refers to the top 5 % of the candidates in the Dutch academic system. A key moment in his life, which certainly influenced his later highly successful career, was when joining the group of Prof. Dr. Lambert Brandsma, a wizard of organic chemistry – especially using alkali metal organics. Sjoerd defended his thesis entitled “A study on the structure and reactivity of aryllithium compounds with an α- or β-heteroatom” again with cum laude and in 1991 he moved to the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany as a postdoctoral fellow with a scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. In the group of Prof. Dr. Paul von Ragué Schleyer, Sjoerd was introduced to ab initio calculations. In 1992, with a NATO-Fellowship of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in his pocket, he subsequently moved to the University of California at Berkeley (USA) for a second postdoc with Prof. Dr. Andrew Streitwieser, working on heterobimetallic superbases. In 1993, Sjoerd decided to move back to Germany to join the group of Prof. Dr. Hans-Herbert Brintzinger at the University of Konstanz. This postdoctoral period was supported by a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation and two fellowships from the European Union (Human Capital & Mobility and Marie Curie). While still in Konstanz, Sjoerd began his habilitation in inorganic and organometallic chemistry, which he successfully completed in 1998. Sjoerd stayed in Konstanz as a lecturer, where he also met his wonderful wife from Ireland, and enjoyed several intermezzi as a guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) before he became C3 Professor of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2004. After five years in Essen, Sjoerd wanted to move on. He declined a W3 position for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Konstanz and, instead, accepted in 2010 the chair of Molecular Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. However, after only two years, Sjoerd decided to move again back to Germany and accepted a chair position in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, where he has been since 2012. Sjoerd has a passion for main group chemistry. He is particularly well known for his inspiring work on Group 1 and Group 2 chemistry. His seminal papers on “The Simplest Metallocene Sandwich: The Lithocene Anion“ (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1994, 22, 1744) and on “Rational Design of a Well-Defined Soluble Calcium Hydride Complex” (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 2006, 45, 3474) and, related to that, “Early Main-Group Metal Catalysts for the Hydrogenation of Alkenes with H2” (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 9434) were truly exceptional and ground breaking. In recent years, his work has been extended to the activation of aromatic systems and strong C−H bonds by main group metal cocktails, the synthesis and reactivity of low-valent main group metal complexes and sustainable catalytic processes with main group metals. Sjoerd's exceptional scientific productivity is reflected in numerous quality publications, books and conference contributions. For his pioneering work in the field of s-block metal chemistry, in particular alkaline earth metal catalysis, Sjoerd received in 2017 the Schlenk Lecture Award of the University of Tübingen and BASF. This was followed by the Main Group Chemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020. Sjoerd is also known for being an exceptional teacher (especially when it comes to doing experiments …), an enthusiastic lecturer, a very good advisor and a supportive mentor. Apart from being a seasoned researcher, Sjoerd is a warm, humorous and reliable colleague. It was a joy to work with him and we have fond memories of the friday night “Feierabend” beers and the many personal encounters. Thank you for your long-lasting friendship and congratulations on your 60th birthday. We wish you all the best and look forward to many more years of fascinating chemistry emerging from your laboratories. Stephan Schulz Christian Müller The authors declare no conflict of interest.

5612560 A MONITORING AND EVALUATION FRAMEWORK AND ASSOCIATED TOOLS FOR THE SICKLEINAFRICA CONSORTIUM

1Victoria Nembaware, 1Paidamoyo Bodzo, 2Malula Nkanyemka, 2Irene Minja, 2Julie Makani, 3Nicola Mulder, 1,4Ambroise Wonkam on behalf of the SickleInAfrica Consortium 1Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pathology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa 2Sickle Cell Programme, Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences 3Computational Biology Division, Faculty of Health Sciences, Anzio Road, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa 1,4McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and Department of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Background: The SickleInAfrica consortium aims facilitate research in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) and the subsequent translation of this research into healthcare and health outcomes. SickleInAfrica is made up of three initiatives: Sickle Africa Data Coordinating Center (SADaCC) and the Sickle Pan-African Research Consortium (SPARCO), which has a clinical coordinating center (CCC) in Tanzania and SPARCO research sites based in seven countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia. To achieve its goals SickleInAfrica is creating a multi-country registry of over 30,000 SCD patients amongst other activities which include: skills development, development of standards of care, maintenance of a SCD Ontology, strengthening of infrastructure and addressing pertinent ethical, legal and social issues. A key challenge is the monitoring and evaluation of activities across the consortium in a consistent manner. Method: To maximize efforts and increase the likelihood of impact of this consortium we developed a consortium-wide outcome-based monitoring and evaluation plan which is informed by existing frameworks and lessons from existing consortia and research projects. In addition, we conducted stakeholder consultation during consortium meetings which were used to continually adjust the system. Most of the framework was imbedded into the consortium website to allow for seamless data collection. Results: We present SickleInAfrica activities and outline the corresponding monitoring and evaluation framework, associated indicators, dashboard and tools which are accessible via the SickleInAfrica website. The proposed framework was designed to be adaptable by other consortia and research initiatives. Summary and Conclusion: To facilitate large-scale monitoring and evaluation of consortium activities, we propose a framework which is mostly web-based. Once stable, such a framework and associated tools will be made available for use by similar initiatives. Reference 1. Makani et al, Lancet Haematol. 2020; 7(2):e98-e9

Issue Information

Cover LegendDr Sawsan Yassin engages a patient at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital during her sub‐specialty training under the African Paediatric Fellowship Programme, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Photo credit: African Paediatric Fellowship Program www.apfp.uct.ac.za. See Gray, p 399.image

Reading Guillory's Cultural Capital in South Africa

Abstract This article opens with the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Cape Town, when a student poured feces on a statue of Cecil Rhodes. This moment exemplifies the ambivalent relationship between symbolic politics and demands for institutional transformation in postapartheid South Africa. The essay considers two sites of tension: the appropriation of this antiapartheid, decolonial rhetoric outside of South Africa (as in the Rhodes Must Fall campaigns at the University of Oxford) and the borrowing of US discourses of racial identity in South African universities. In both cases, specific social and political contexts and their attendant challenges tend to disappear. In South African universities, this has the effect of occluding class, class inequality, and class struggle. To address the South African context, the essay suggests that the writing of Antonio Gramsci, whose work spans literature as cultural production and practical political mobilization, might provide a more useful politics of reading and writing.

Investigating Empirical evidence on the Epidemiology, Diagnosis and Bibliometric analysis of the 100 topmost cited publications on Tuberculosis Disease

Tuberculosis (TB) disease remains a growing threat in public health globally. This study explored the epidemiology, diagnosis, management, and bibliometric analysis of the top 100 most cited articles on TB. The study adopted a narrative review and bibliometric analysis to explore publications on TB disease. Publications in the Web of Science were retrieved to provide extensive selection process. The present study of top 100 articles which are mostly cited are reported between 1969 to 2018. Reported documents were published in 37 journals, and a total of 1058 authors contributed with 10.5 authors per document, and 12 countries contributed, with most of TB research originating from the US (N=51) articles. We found 1058 occasional authors, and of these, 971 authors (0.003%) presented only three articles, followed by 11 authors (0.010%) and 18 authors (0.017%), respectively. About (n=34) research was published in General & Internal Medicine and Science & Technology. New England Journal of Medicine with 14 was top journal. The lead research institution was the University of Cape Town. The significant correlations were found between the number of citations and documents per year (r=0.9579, p<0.0001), countries (r=0.9570, p<0.0001), article per journal (r=0.8721, p<0.0001), and authors (r=0.4601, p<0.0001), and documents per Institution (r=0.6159, p<0.0001). A new insight into TB scientific production was through social network. The evidence from this study provides a template for understanding the epidemiology of TB and the trends in research. It also exposes the hotspot of research along with research gaps for future studies.

Catalysis as a driver for sustainable technologies in Africa – A perspective by the Catalysis Institute at the University of Cape Town

One of the biggest global challenges we are facing today is the provision of affordable, green, and sustainable energy to a growing population. Enshrined in multiple United Nation Sustainable Development Goals – Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy; Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and Goal 13: Climate Action – as well as at the core of the Paris Agreement, it is our task as scientists and engineers to develop innovative technologies that satisfy society's needs while pivoting away from the use of fossil resources. This is a mammoth task with an ambitious timeline. The global development of the industrial sector as we know it is solely based on the exploitation of energy-rich fossil fuels that remain cost-competitive today. However, a gradual change from a market driven to a policy-driven transition allows alternative technologies to make inroads and find applications. One of the most prominently discussed approaches is the Power-to-X (PtX) process envelope. It describes a series of catalytic conversions using only renewable energy, water and captured CO2 to produce green hydrogen, liquid hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. Especially for sectors that are difficult or impossible to decarbonise, such processes that effectively defossilising the production of energy and goods, represent an important solution.The Catalysis Institute at the University of Cape Town (herein/after referred to as the Catalysis Institute) builds on decades of experience in the individual catalytic processes combined in the PtX concept. In collaboration with our global partners, we are therefore able to develop technologies for the full value chain, considering interdependencies and develop solutions for the African and indeed global society.

Taxation formula for tobacco in Sri Lanka

Article 06 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco control emphasizes the importance of implementing effective tax and price policies for Tobacco products. To fight against the Tobacco epidemic WHO has introduced the MPOWER package which R stands for raising taxes on Tobacco. According to WHO standards, 70% of the excise tax from the retail price will contribute to an effective Tobacco tax indexation policy. National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol organized Tobacco Taxation and Illicit Trade virtual workshop with the collaboration of WHO FCTC Knowledge Hub on Tobacco Taxation, Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products, University of Cape Town. The developed Tobacco tax indexation formula of the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol was modified by including exogenous factor with the guidance of experts of WHO FCTC Secretariat Knowledge Hub on tobacco taxation. Tobacco tax simulation modeling can be used to predict how much tobacco consumption will decrease, and government revenue will increase if there is a change in the tobacco excise tax structure and an increase in the level of taxation. Preliminary evidence from the TETSiM model predicts that a 91.6 to 124.6 billion increase in tobacco excise taxation from the current 2022 to 2026 would lead to a 1.1 % drop in consumption and approximately 101.8 to 136.9 billion increases in government revenue. The finding of the modeling of Tobacco taxes with the TETSiM model will lead to an increase in Tobacco tax revenue and decrease Tobacco consumption in Sri Lanka.

Collaborative Conversations: Celebrating Twenty-One Years of the Mothertongue Project Eds. Alex Halligey and Sara Matchett

Reviewed by: Collaborative Conversations: Celebrating Twenty-One Years of the Mothertongue Project ed. by Alex Halligey and Sara Matchett Loren Kruger Collaborative Conversations: Celebrating Twenty-One Years of the Mothertongue Project EDS. ALEX HALLIGEY AND SARA MATCHETT Modjaji Books, 2021. 255 pp. ISBN 9781928433163 paper. Promulgated in 1996, South Africa's democratic constitution is distinguished by its inclusion of social rights, including housing, healthcare, and environmental protection—in sum, its defense of well-being—alongside individual rights to equality before the law, regardless of ethnic affiliation, gender, or sexual orientation. Less well-known, but also introduced in 1996, the first democratic White Paper on Arts and Culture extended the remit for well-being to include access to and participation in the arts as a fundamental prerequisite for democracy. Together, these documents have inspired a generation of practitioners who combine art and activism, care and creation, dramaturgy and democratic participation. They argue that this embodied synthesis of work and play has the power to sustain, heal, and delight South Africans, even under conditions of endemic poverty, violence against women, gender minorities, and children and economic and other forms of inequity. The Mothertongue Project (MTP) is not the only organization that has responded to the constitutional aspiration to well-being, but it is unusual in that it was founded by women. While MTP's current associates include men, it has consistently focused on the performance and representation—in social as well as artistic realms—of women, or womxn, which some collaborators prefer as a way to include gender-queer people who identify with women, and all who, despite the gender equity mandated by the constitution, remain subject to patriarchal violence. Despite having to tackle formidable obstacles, the MTP has much to celebrate after twenty-one years of working to knit together the frayed connections between performance art and social activism. True to the organization's practice across the divisions marked by the terms mentioned above, this book offers "collaborative conversations" that honor different kinds of formal and informal expertise and lived experience in embodied practices of creation and care [End Page 188] in what MTP cofounder Sara Matchett calls "curating care" (180). In the spirit of collaboration, each chapter begins with excerpts of conversations that took place during the workshops that shaped this book. They are accompanied by vivid color photographs of key performances, equally colorful drawings that represent work in progress, or key themes such as the practices of healing psychological and physical wounds. The first and last performances that receive detailed attention in the book are avowedly artistic pieces by MTP cofounder Rehane Abrahams, which have played at international festivals and speak to texts and themes familiar to readers around the world. In addition to training at the University of Cape Town, Abrahams draws on family history as the descendant in part of KhoeSan, the portmanteau name identifying South Africa's first peoples, and in part of South Asian Muslims enslaved by the Dutch East India Company. What the Water Gave Me (2000) explored the role of mothers as keepers of family lore as well as the feminine forces associated with water in India and Africa. Although the piece was initially called Mothertongue to acknowledge the loss of native languages suffered by enslaved people and their creation of new languages such as Afrikaans, Mothertongue later came to name the organization that emerged from this first of many collaborations. In her most recent work discussed in the book, Womb of Fire, created for the 2018 International Festival of Theatre in Kerala (South India), Abrahams wove family history into a reinterpretation of the womb of fire that birthed Draupadi in the North Indian epic Mahabharatha and, by extension of the violence that has accompanied black and brown women in South Africa, figured in performance by Groot Katrien, an enslaved woman brought to the Cape in the seventeenth century from Dutch "possession" Batavia. Although Abrahams and Matchett might have addressed the friction between this epic of North Indian dominance and stories such as the Ramayana that capture the South Indian and Indonesian origins of many enslaved people at the Cape, and speak to the context of performance in Kerala, their dialogue and accompanying...

Entrustable professional activities in postgraduate general surgery training: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionThe competency-based medical education (CBME) movement continues to gain momentum in postgraduate physician training, resulting in increasing interest among surgical training programmes on how to implement it effectively. Entrustable professional...

Developing indicators for monitoring and evaluating the primary healthcare approach in health sciences education at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, using a Delphi technique

Background. The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), University of Cape Town (UCT) adopted the primary healthcare (PHC) approach as its lead theme for teaching, research and clinical service in 1994. A PHC working group was set up in 2017 to build consensus on indicators to monitor and evaluate the PHC approach in health sciences education in the FHS, UCT.Objective. To develop a set of indicators through a Delphi technique for monitoring and evaluating the PHC approach in health sciences curricula in the FHS, UCT. Methods. A national multidisciplinary Delphi panel was presented with 61 indicators of social accountability from the international Training for Health Equity Network (THEnet) for scoring in round 1. Nineteen PHC indicators, derived from a mnemonic used in the FHS, UCT for teaching core PHC principles, were added in round 2 to the 20 highest ranked THEnet indicators from round 1, on recommendation of the panel. Scoring criteria used were relevance (in both rounds), feasibility/measurability (round 1 only) and application of the PHC indicators to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and assessment (round 2 only). Results. Of the 39 indicators presented in the second round, 11 had an overall relevance score >85% based on the responses of 16 of 20 panellists (80% response rate). These 11 indicators have been grouped by learner needs (safety of learners – 88%, teaching is appropriate to learners’ needs and context – 86%); healthcare user needs (continuity of care – 94%, holistic understanding of healthcare – 88%, respecting human rights – 88%, providing accessible care to all – 88%, providing care that is acceptable to users and their families – 87%, providing evidence-based care – 87%); and community needs (promoting health through health education – 88%, education programme reflects communities’ needs – 86%, teaching embodies social accountability – 86%). Conclusion. The selected indicators reflect priorities relevant to the FHS, UCT and are measurable and applicable to undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. They provided the basis for a case study of teaching the PHC approach to our undergraduate students.

Health Equity in Sickle Cell Research and Access to Therapy

Health Equity in Sickle Cell Research and Access to Therapy

Knowledge domain and emerging trends in HIV-MTB co-infection from 2017 to 2022: A scientometric analysis based on VOSviewer and CiteSpace.

Co-infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals is one of the leading causes of death. Also, research on HIV and MTB (HIV-MTB) co-infection was found to have a downward trend. In this work, we performed the knowledge domain analysis and visualized the current research progress and emerging trends in HIV-MTB co-infection between 2017 and 2022 by using VOSviewer and CiteSpace. The relevant literatures in this article were collected in the Web of Science (WoS) database. VOSviewer and CiteSpace bibliometric software were applied to perform the analysis and visualization of scientific productivity and frontier. Among all the countries, USA was dominant in the field, followed by South Africa, and England. Among all the institutions, the University of Cape Town (South Africa) had more extensive collaborations with other research institutions. The Int J Tuberc Lung Dis was regarded as the foremost productive journal. Survival and mortality analysis, pathogenesis, epidemiological studies, diagnostic methods, prognosis improvement of quality of life, clinical studies and multiple infections (especially co-infection with COVID-19) resulted in the knowledge bases for HIV-MTB co-infection. The clinical research on HIV-MTB co-infection has gradually shifted from randomized controlled trials to open-label trials, while the cognition of HIV-TB has gradually shifted from cytokines to genetic polymorphisms. This scientometric study used quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct a comprehensive review of research on HIV-MTB co-infection published over the past 5 years, providing some useful references to further the study of HIV-MTB co-infection.

Unpacking the Possibilities of a Vernacular Language Archive

The Five Hundred Year Archive is a research project of the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative based at the University of Cape Town. In an effort to stimulate greater engagement with the deep southern African past, the project has created a corpus of vernacular resources ranging from the earliest available to 1910. It includes productions by an array of African intellectuals in a host of African languages. The vernacular corpus, with its rich metadata, constitutes an extended language and conceptual archive. It is useful to historians, but may also offer research possibilities in other fields, particularly if used in conjunction with contemporary computational methods.