Stellenbosch University

From Effectiveness to Long‐Term Impact. Sustainability of a Frugal Managed Surgical Consultation Network in Low‐Income Settings: Evidence From Malawi

BACKGROUND: Digital technology holds transformative potential to address barriers to safe and timely surgical expertise and surgery in low-resource settings, where shortages of specialists, fragmented referral systems, and limited infrastructure remain significant challenges. In...

A fixed-pitch propeller design and performance evaluation tool for a free turbine, micro turboprop application

Abstract In recent times, the conversion of thrust-producing micro gas turbine (MGT) engines to a power-based, free turbine configuration has been increasingly investigated. In such applications, free turbine power loads often include electrical generation systems, turboshaft, an...

Diasporas and conflict transformation: Towards a new analytical framework

Diasporas are increasingly perceived as influential actors in contemporary conflicts as they directly or indirectly engage in peacebuilding and conflict resolution in their countries of origin and residence. Existing scholarship has well analysed what roles diasporas can play, ho...

Gut bacteria and their metabolites may influence our decisions, intelligence, cognition, and consciousness

The human gut hosts approximately 38 trillion bacteria, representing 400 to 500 species. Gut bacteria are in constant communication with the central nervous system (CNS) via the enteric nervous system (ENS), the peripheral nervous system (PNS), the autonomic nervous system (ANS),...

Pharmacokinetics of Efavirenz in Pregnancy and Postpartum with and Without First-line Tuberculosis Drugs: Results from IMPAACT P1026s

Efavirenz (EFV) pharmacokinetics (PK) may be influenced by both pregnancy-related physiological changes and concurrent treatment for drug-sensitive tuberculosis (DS-TB), and intensive 24-h EFV PK data during rifampin (RIF)/ isoniazid (INH) treatment in pregnant women living with...

Linking environmental variability to diatom assemblages in seasonal wetlands

Seasonal wetlands undergo recurrent inundation and contraction, creating strong hydrochemical variability and non–independent observations within pans. We tested whether this variability translated into diatom differentiation in five pans within each of two South African Ramsar w...

Interactions of land use and climate change disproportionately impact Lepidoptera of the five major insect orders

Abstract Land use and climate change are two major environmental pressures that interact to impact insect biodiversity. The wide ecological diversity, including life histories, among insects suggests that some groups will be more sensitive to these pressures than others, and it i...

Gender disparities in leadership of methodological research in health science

Objectives Gender disparities in methodological studies are largely unexplored. We aimed to examine gender representation between first and last authorship positions in methodological research in health science. Methods We searched for methodological articles as part of a large s...

Remaking place relations for social‐ecological restoration: Reflections on placemaking in South Africa

Abstract Ecological restoration is an ongoing relational process involving interconnected reciprocal social and biophysical interactions that shift and change over time and space. Conceptual literature proposes that placemaking can deepen and enhance the understanding and impleme...

‘We Have to Think Out of the Box They Put Us in’: A Collective Narrative Study of Refugee and Asylum Seeker Subjectivities in South Africa

ABSTRACT Forced displacement is often framed through dehumanising and pathologising narratives that portray refugees as passive victims or perceived threats, obscuring their agency and lived complexity. This qualitative research–intervention explores the everyday experiences of r...

Emergency operation for penetrating thoracic non-cardiac injuries: A 10-year review at a major trauma centre in South Africa

Background and aims: Penetrating thoracic injury is relatively common and is encountered in most trauma centres in South Africa. This study focuses exclusively on patients who required acute operative intervention following penetrating thoracic trauma for a non-cardiac injury. Me...

Exploring how AI coaching promotes emotional intelligence awareness of contact centre team leaders

Purpose Team leaders in high-pressure contact centres must balance operational demands with people management, requiring high emotional intelligence (EQ). While traditional coaching can support EQ development, it is often costly and inaccessible. Generative artificial intelligenc...

Long-range systems, (non)extensivity, and the rescaling of energies

Systems with long-range interactions have seen a surge of interest in the past decades. In the wake of this surge, the use of a system size-dependent rescaling, sometimes termed “Kac prescription,” of the long-range pair potential has seen widespread use. An ad hoc modification o...

Considering Agentic Engagement in Higher Education: A Scoping Review

Agentic engagement is an often-overlooked dimension of student engagement in higher education, despite its association with various positive academic outcomes. Therefore, the exploration and mapping of this concept may contribute to higher education scholarship on teaching and le...

Resolving the biome debate: ecological and palaeo‐data concur that the extensive tree‐limited grassy biomes of central and north‐western Madagascar are largely anthropogenic

ABSTRACT For millennia, human activities have transformed ecosystems globally. Determining which landscapes are predominantly anthropogenic is crucial to conservation and habitat restoration. Madagascar, a critically‐threatened biodiversity hotspot, is a prominent example. Curren...

Geographic and temporal associations between floral morphology and pollinators in Wachendorfia paniculata: a moving target

Geographic variation in floral dimensions has often been associated with co-variation in pollinator dimensions, giving rise to plant ecotypes that are finely matched to the morphology and sensory modalities of local pollinators. Wachendorfia paniculata is a geographically variabl...

Management and leadership competencies in Emergency Medicine specialist training: a review with implications for African programmes

Introduction Management and leadership are core competency domains in emergency medicine (EM) specialist training worldwide, yet they remain less clearly articulated and less consistently assessed than clinical skills, particularly in African and other low- and middle-income coun...

Caregivers’ experiences of caring for children living with HIV in a juvenile institution in Zimbabwe

This study explored caregivers’ experiences of caring for children living with HIV (CLHIV) in a juvenile institutional setting in Zimbabwe. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1977), a qualitative design was employed. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 c...

Teaching beyond technology: student ratings of TPACK-informed teaching in a Sino-British transnational entrepreneurship programme

Purpose Technology plays an increasingly important role in entrepreneurship education, particularly within transnational higher education where culturally diverse classrooms require effective alignment of disciplinary content, pedagogy, and digital technologies. Despite the growi...

Induction failure and early death in paediatric acute myeloid leukaemia in Uganda: a developing country experience

Dose-intensive therapy for paediatric acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) has improved outcomes in high-income countries (HICs); however, outcomes remain poor in resource-limited settings, where induction failure and early death continue to pose significant challenges. This study aimed...