University of Pretoria

Beyond Supervision: Developing a Measure of Supervisory Support for Innovation and Creativity in Higher Education

Innovation and creativity have become strategic priorities for higher education institutions (HEIs), placing increasing emphasis on supervisory behaviours that foster innovative employee performance. Despite growing interest in innovation-supportive leadership, there is limited r...

Escherichia coli with penicillin-binding protein 3 insertions: implications for newer β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor combinations

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli with penicillin-binding protein 3 (PBP3) insertions appeared in the early 2000s and expanded during the 2010s. The YRIN and YRIK variants predominate globally, while other insertion types remain rare. These insertions frequently co-occur with carbapenema...

Evidence and insights on dryland nature-based solutions for climate adaptation in semi-arid Windhoek, Namibia

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are widely promoted for climate adaptation, yet remain largely grounded in temperate, water-abundant contexts. This study develops a systematic conceptualisation of dryland nature-based solutions (DNbS) through a qualitative case study of Windhoek, Na...

Predicting Enteric Methane Emissions from Crossbred Growing Bulls (Montbéliarde × Borgou) Under Semi-Intensive Production Systems

Accurate estimation of enteric methane emissions is important for improving greenhouse gas inventories and supporting mitigation strategies in tropical cattle production systems. This study aimed to develop empirical equations for predicting daily enteric methane emissions from g...

Schiff Base Derivatives of Benzothiazole and Benzamide as Promising Antimicrobial Agents: Integrated In Silico and In Vitro Evaluation

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a critical global health challenge, demanding new scaffolds with potent and broad‐spectrum activity. In this work, a library of Schiff‐base derivatives of benzothiazoles ( 2a–2f ) and benzamides ( 5a–5i ) was designed, synthesised via a micr...

Microalgal diversity changes as a bioindicator of aquatic metal pollution on the Central African Copperbelt

Intensification of mining has increased the vulnerability of stream ecosystems on the Central African Copperbelt (CACB) to metal pollution. This study assessed the response of microalgae to mining pollution as bioindicators of aquatic ecosystem health in the Upper Kafue River (UK...

A study protocol for co-designing risk communication strategies for hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing among priority populations in Johannesburg district, Gauteng, South Africa

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remains a major public health challenge globally and in South Africa, particularly among key populations such as people who inject drugs (PWID), men who have sex with men (MSM), and sex workers. Despite the availability of curative direct-acting...

Evaluating classification approaches for population affinity estimation in a contemporary South African CT-derived sample: an automatic landmarking-based approach

Population affinity estimation remains an important component of the biological profile, particularly in demographically complex populations such as South Africa, where morphological overlap exists among groups. This study evaluated the performance of geometric morphometric (GMM)...

Reciprocal Genome Projection Reveals Reference-Conditioned Functional Variation in Clinical Aspergillus Section Nigri Isolates

Closely related Aspergillus section Nigri species are difficult to resolve taxonomically, while short-read comparisons may be influenced by reference-genome choice. We applied reciprocal genome projection to 31 whole-genome sequencing libraries representing South African clinical...

Nurses’ Perceptions and Behaviors Regarding Climate Change and Health: A Correlational Study Aligned With Saudi Vision 2030

ABSTRACT Climate change is an escalating threat to population health, placing increasing pressure on healthcare systems. Nurses play a pivotal role in delivering climate‐resilient healthcare; however, evidence regarding their perceptions and climate‐related health behaviors in Sa...

Humans: Intertwined with life and the basic elements in the Anthropocene biosphere

Abstract The notion of people and nature as intertwined and embedded in the biosphere is gaining traction in contemporary scientific discourses. But what does it mean for a human being to be intertwined? Here, we explore this question through two lenses: looking at the human body...

A Robust Masked Painter Framework for Gene Selection in Binary Classification of High-Dimensional Functional Genomic Data

High-dimensional gene expression datasets in chemometric and biomedical research present significant challenges for machine learning because the number of genes greatly exceeds the number of available samples, increasing the risk of overfitting and reducing classification reliabi...

Whole genome sequencing of multidrug-resistant clinical Klebsiella Isolates from community acquired pneumonia patients at Adama Hospital Medical College, Ethiopia

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a leading Gram-negative pathogen causing severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), classically characterized by rapid lung necrosis, cavitary lesions, and production of thick, blood-tinged sputum. CAP is an acute lung infection that develops in a person...

Air Pollution and Heat Impacts on Respiratory Morbidity and Mortality Outcomes in Africa: A Systematic Review Towards a Meta-analysis

Abstract Purpose of the review This review synthesised evidence on associations between air pollution and respiratory morbidity in Africa. Following PRISMA guidelines, we systematically searched PubMed, ScienceDirect and Elicit for case-control studies published between 2015 and...

Talking climate, growing change: communication pathways and farmer adoption of resilient practices in Techiman, Ghana

Abstract Climate change poses significant challenges to smallholder agriculture in Ghana, threatening food security and rural livelihoods. Effective communication of climate-resilient agricultural practices is therefore critical to enhance farmers’ adaptive capacity. Using a desc...

Activity shapes large herbivores’ ecological influences

The ecological effects of large herbivores are shaped by their spatial and temporal patterns of activity (i.e. where, when and how intensely they use specific locations). When large herbivores' ecological influences are perceived to be undesirable, the traditional approach has be...

Coupling intensified push–pull technology with insect frass biofertilization improves land productivity, protein yield and carbon stocks

Abstract We evaluated agricultural innovations such as push-pull (PP), vegetable-integrated push-pull (VIPP), and black soldier fly frass fertilizer (BSFFF) for their transformative potential in rural smallholder agriculture. Using 12 cropping systems comprising two crops (maize...

Mean regression for (0, 1) responses via beta scale mixtures

Abstract To achieve greater flexibility for modelling heavy-tailed responses on the unit interval, a beta scale mixture (BSM) regression model is proposed. The conditional response is assigned a mean-parameterised beta distribution whose variability parameter is scaled by a mixin...

From policy debate to empirical evidence: a proof-of-concept bibliometric and LLM-assisted abstract-level content analysis of OTC hearing aid research before and after FDA regulation

Objective To characterise temporal patterns in over-the-counter (OTC) hearing-aid research before and after U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implementation of the OTC category (effective October 2022), using bibliometrics and large language model (LLM)–assisted abstract-le...

Investigating Triggers of Undrained Slope Instability Using Centrifuge Modeling

Abstract This study investigated mechanisms by which undrained slope instability in contractive sand slopes can be triggered. Using centrifuge modeling, eight experiments were conducted on fine sand slopes, with the first prepared in a dilative state and the remainder in a contra...