Wits African research excellence in materials, migration
- Wits University
Wits University hosts two African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in materials and migration respectively.
Wits University hosts two African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in materials and migration respectively.
Professor Lesley Cornish leads the CoE in Materials, Energy and Nanotechnology (ARUA COE MEN) and Associate Professor Jo Vearey heads up the ARUA CoE in Mobility and Migration (ARUA COE M&M).
Supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund, the centres were launched jointly on 15 November 2018 at Wits University.
Excellence in Materials, Energy and Nanotechonology
At a workshop preceding the launch, partner institutions from the Universities of Ghana, Pretoria, and Nairobi explored research directions for ARUA CoE MEN. The overall theme is the development of materials and new technologies to benefit Africa – both infrastructure and human development – and to compete globally. Co-supervision of postgraduate students to enhance the potential for multi-disciplinary research is a feature of the centre, as it outreach to school learners.
Prof. Lesley Cornish, director of the ARUA CoE MEN said, “We submitted one proposal on 30 April 30th and there is another to complete by the end of July. But we went to a N8-ARUA Workshop in Ghana in May," says Prof. Lesley Cornish, director of the ARUA CoE MEN, who , and then next week, I will be going to an ACUNS [Academic Council on the United Nations System] Workshop in Stellenbosch in SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals]."
The ARUA CoE MEN enables an Africa response to Sustainable Development Goals, specifically:
Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, with projects that are aimed at improving medical implants; Goal 4: Quality Education, by better equipping graduates; and Goals 5 and 10 respectively: Gender Equality and Reduced Inequalities, by expanding access to anyone interested in materials science.
Wits professor, Alex Quandt is deputy director of the CoE.
Making strides in Mobility and Migration
Prof. Jo Vearey is the director of the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits. The ARUA CoE M&M invites doctoral students to participate in the Mobility and Sociality in Africa’s Emerging Urban research programme. This initiative is a scholarly response to unprecedented levels of urbanisation and mobility driven by conflict, ambition, and respatialising economies. It is intended to develop African-based contributions to theories of human mobility and transforming modes of social engagement, authority, representation, and expression.
The African Research Universities Alliance
The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) was inaugurated in Dakar in March 2015, bringing together 16 of the region’s leading universities. It is a network of universities from different countries and different historical backgrounds but with a common vision. Thirteen thematic areas for collaboration were identified at the ARUA inaugural conference in April 2017:
Climate change
Food security
Non-communicable diseases
Materials development and nanotechnology (Wits University now hosts the ARUA CoE MEN)
Energy
Water conservation
Mobility and migration (Wits University now hosts the ARUA CoE M&M)
Poverty and inequality
Unemployment and skills development
Notions of identity
Good governance
Post-conflict societies, and
Urbanisation and habitable cities.
At the inaugural ARUA conference, Prof. Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University and a member of the ARUA Executive Committee, said: “The Migrations and Mobility theme is a great example of a universal issue that requires research at multiple levels, and which is best addressed by cosmopolitan teams within different socio-economic, political and historical contexts. A dynamic research project in this area has already been launched through funding from the Mellon Foundation.”
UKRI, ARUA, and the Sustainable Development Goals
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. ARUA and UKRI joined forces to use their collective knowledge, skills and regional expertise to tackle global challenges such as extreme poverty and disease, fragile states and displacement, gender inequalities and food insecurity.
This new partnership, formally agreed in October 2018, sees ARUA and UKRI work together over the next three years to build pan Africa-UK research collaborations across all disciplines, to mobilise excellence, and forge equitable partnerships with co-creation at their heart.
This partnership is part of UKRI’s ongoing efforts through the Global Challenges Research Fund to build robust research systems across developing countries. The partnership research programme has two key strands: Capacity building, for which the UKRI provides up to £8M; and research excellence, through which support is provided for for up to six joint research projects that address aspects of the SDGs.
Our homegrown research crosses borders in Curios.ty, the 7th issue of Wits' research magazine, as we explore the concept of #Ekhaya (isiZulu for ‘home’).
The concept of ‘home’ is as subjective as it is tangible. Our homegrown research crosses borders in #Ekhaya and it explores the physical spaces we inhabit, where we feel we belong, where we are from and what we identify with, including the physical/psychological space we may return to – or reject.
Highlights include:
Homes of the future (Page 8) and An eye on assistive tech at home (page 12): Our homes of the future may be hyper-connected pods; and we’ll use brain-connected computer interfaces to control our environments with our eyes.
This land is my land (Page 18): The general elections in 2019 served as a platform for land redress to be discussed, promised and instilled in the collective consciousness of South Africans. Is land ownership the silver bullet to address inequality in a country that so many call home?
Coming home to South Africa (Page 28) and Home is where the heart is (Page 42): Migration and immigration are unpacked in these two stories, that asks: When does a house become a home? How long do you have to stay in a country to be afforded the same rights as those born locally? How has the migrant labour system shaped family life in South Africa?
At home in your skin (Page 30): For a million bucks, would you change your gender? Meet B Camminga, postdoctoral student at Wits, who poses the gender question to their* students as a way to get directly to the heart of how skewed the modern world is towards the binary of ‘he’ and ‘she’. [*The pronoun ‘they’ is used to describe people who ‘identify as neither male nor female’].
This issue also features research-based stories about the places humans first called home, how housing quality has changed in sub-Saharan Africa, and how we share spaces through back yarding and with the homeless.
ABOUT CURIOS.TY
Curiosity is a print and digital magazine that aims to make the research at Wits University accessible to multiple publics. Available on the Wits website here: http://www.wits.ac.za/curiosity/
Unique SA academic and government partnership to advance universal health care
- Wits University
The Universities Consortium and the Department of Health will launch a Universal Health Care project on June 6, which will test contracting mechanisms.
The National Department of Health (NDOH) through a closed bid invited universities with health sciences faculties to bid on testing contracting mechanisms in the public health sector.
The tender invited universities to support National Health Insurance (NIH) reforms by providing administrative and technical support and health care services through contracting health care professionals. The project runs over three years in all nine provinces.
In response to this tender, six universities agreed to collaborate and formed the Universities Consortium (UC), comprising:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (project lead)
Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University
University of Fort Hare
University of Pretoria
Nelson Mandela University
University of the Free State
The UC contracted the Wits Health Consortium (Pty) Ltd (WHC) as project manager to provide financial and administrative support for the roll-out of the project.
“We are excited about this venture, which will contribute to a cultural change in universities and to societal reform,” says Dan Mosia who leads the Project Management Unit in the WHC.
The potential for collaborative support, learning and cross-pollination within the Consortium is considerable. Economies of scale concerning ideas, concept, planning and implementation are all possible and the strength of the operating model is enhanced through a university consortium approach to planning and implementation.
The framework ensures a level of independence of partners within the consortium and enables the innovation and responsiveness critical to a partner university meeting the objectives locally in each district.
The operating model of the Universities Consortium ensures the placement of health professionals in Academic Primary Care Complexes where the consortium is a strategic partner for the purchasing of services. To align with the objectives of the National Health Insurance Bill 2018, the model envisages the Academic Primary Care Complex as a contracting unit to promote sustainable, equitable, appropriate, efficient and effective public funding for the purchasing of healthcare services.
The use of health care professionals will be optimised to meet demand. Contracting options will provide for engagement on public facilities (centering on ideal clinics) and private providers. The model balances the need for standardisation where necessary (e.g., information management) to customization according to the local context.
Overall the model will improve service (including the use of training and an academic platform to do so), as well as generate the research and data to inform the rollout of a NHI. The model is to be supported by a patient management system, scheduling, monitoring and practice administration capability. Universities Consortium have collective experience in managing such systems and processes effectively and efficiently.
Wits enters the quantum computing universe with IBM Q
- Wits University
IBM expands its quantum computing program with Wits as its first partner in Africa on the IBM Q Network.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced the expansion of its quantum computing efforts to Africa in a new collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) in South Africa. Wits University is the first African partner on the IBM Q Network and will be the gateway for academics across South Africa and to the 15 universities who are part of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA).
“This is the latest outcome of the joint partnership between IBM Research and Wits, which started in 2016 when IBM opened its second lab in Africa at the Wits University’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg. To expand the IBM Q Network to include Wits will drive innovation in frontier-technologies and benefit African-based researchers, academics and students who now have access to decades of quantum computing capabilities at the click of a button,” said Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Wits Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs.
Quantum computing promises to be able to solve certain problems – such as chemical simulations and types of optimization – that will be beyond the practical reach of classical machines. IBM first made quantum computers available to the public in May 2016 through its IBM Q Experience quantum cloud service and has doubled the power of its quantum computers annually since 2017.
IBM also established the IBM Q Network™, a community of Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working with IBM to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications for business and science.
Researchers at Wits will investigate the use of quantum computing and machine learning in the fields of cosmology and molecular biology with a specific focus on HIV drug discovery. The teams will also jointly study quantum teleportation, a field pioneered by IBM Fellow Charles Bennett.
“For Africa to remain competitive for the coming decades we must get the next generation of students quantum ready,” said Dr. Solomon Assefa, Vice President, Emerging Market Solutions and Director, IBM Research - Africa.
As part of the partnership between IBM and Wits, scholars from 15 universities ARUA universities including: Addis Ababa University; University of Ghana; University of Nairobi; University of Lagos; University of Ibadan; Obafemi Awolowo University lle-Ife; University of Rwanda; University Cheikh Anta Diop; University of Cape Town; University of Kwa-Zulu Natal; University of Pretoria; Rhodes University; University of Stellenbosch; University of Dar es Salaam and Makerere University, will have the opportunity to apply for access to IBM Q's most-advanced quantum computing systems and software for teaching quantum information science and exploring early applications. To gain access to the IBM Q quantum cloud service, ARUA scholars will be required to submit quality research proposals to a scientific committee of Wits and IBM experts for approval.
“Having access to IBM Q is pivotal for Wits University’s cross-disciplinary research program and allows our researchers in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and in the broad natural sciences, including in laser technology, quantum optics and molecular design, to leverage the next level of discovery research. It’s envisioned that the first results from this collaboration will be forthcoming in the next two years,” said Vilakazi.
Qiskit Camp
IBM's recently unveiled IBM Q System One, is the world's first integrated universal approximate quantum computing system designed for scientific and commercial use.
IBM's most advanced universal quantum computing systems available through the IBM Q Experience platform. More than 10 million experiments have run on the IBM Q Experience and users have published over 160 third-party research papers. Also, developers can work with Qiskit, a full-stack, open-source quantum software development kit, to create and run quantum computing programs.
To further increase skills development, IBM Q is hosting an invite-only Qiskit Camp in South Africa this December for 200 quantum researchers and computer scientists where they will learn in an immersive environment and receive hands-on training.
IBM Q is an industry-first initiative to build commercial universal quantum systems for business and science applications. For more information about IBM's quantum computing efforts, please visit www.ibm.com/ibmq. IBM Q Network™ and IBM Q™ are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
Wits University is as a leading university, ranking first or second in Africa in all major global rankings, is transforming society and impacting positively on humanity through its commitment to academic and research excellence, and social justice. Whilst training scholars to explore frontier discovery research and innovation in science, technologies such as artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning, Wits is always mindful of how it will impact humanity, the future of our work and how we live, and our morals, ethics and values.
The African Research Universities Alliance, inaugurated in Dakar in March 2015, brings together 16 of the region’s leading universities from different countries and different historical backgrounds, in a network with a common vision: to expand and enhance significantly the quality of research done in Africa by African researchers. This new network, from inception, was intended to be different from any other regional university networks. The difference was to come largely from the approach to be employed, namely bringing together a number of peer African institutions that were willing to work together by pooling their own limited resources, with a view to generating a critical mass that could more effectively support their limited, but growing numbers of researchers. Underlying this was the conviction that they could thereby leverage this effectively for additional resources from outside.
With rapid progress over the last couple of decades we are entering a new era of computing and Africa needs to act now.
Classical computing has served society incredibly well. It gave us the Internet and cashless commerce. It sent humans to the moon, put robots on Mars and smartphones in our pockets. But many of the world’s biggest mysteries and potentially greatest opportunities remain beyond the grasp of classical computers forever.
To continue the pace of progress, we need to augment the classical approach with a completely new paradigm, one that follows its own set of rules. It’s called quantum computing.
Quantum Computing is a radically new way of performing computer calculations. For certain problems, it is exponentially faster than classical computers. To understand what exponentially faster means it helps to bear in mind that even a classical computer made up of all the electrons in the universe could not match a Quantum computer.
This is made possible by controlling and manipulating the electrons under very specialised conditions (including under extremely cold conditions, close to absolute zero, -273.15 C). This quantum mechanical control includes three essential concepts: superposition, exponential combinations and measurement.
Quantum computers are built on the principles of quantum mechanics, the complex and fascinating laws of nature at the microscopic level. These laws have always been there but their weirdness can only be harnessed under extremely delicate conditions outside of which the strange effects remain mostly hidden from view.
By harnessing such natural behaviour, quantum computers can run new types of algorithms to potentially solve previously “unsolvable” problems in optimisation, chemistry and machine learning.
With rapid progress over the last couple of decades we are entering a new era of computing and Africa needs to act now. We need to educate, we need to skill up and we need to brainstorm around the most pressing African use-cases.
Why quantum computing is important for Africa
It is widely believed amongst scientists that Africa is the cradle of humankind. Humans first appeared between around 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, but only left Africa around 70,000 years ago (to select the largest of multiple waves of migrations).
During these periods and up to the present day, genetic diversity has been increasing, with the net result that Africans still have more diversity than the rest of the world combined. Such diversity is a treasure chest of genetic information. This includes the ability to more easily infer the role of different genes (by averaging over more varieties) and also discovering natural immunities to diseases.
Furthermore, in the age of personalised genetic medicine, solutions for one population group don't necessarily help another. This all points to the need for us Africans to mine the jewels of our own genetic heritage using the latest techniques for genetics and drug discovery. Quantum computing promises to open exciting new avenues of research in this area.
Our genetic heritage is only one surprising natural resource that Africa has -- another is the clarity of our night skies at high altitudes. This won Southern African countries the prestige of being selected to host the future world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
African and global scientists who come to Africa to use the SKA should participate in the processing and interpretation of SKA data on African soil, with all the local spin-off benefits coming to Africa. Indeed, this is part of the reason for having local supercomputing facilities on the continent. Quantum computing also promises to solve physics simulation and pattern discovery problems relevant to the SKA that complement the power of the classical supercomputers. The quantum computing expertise that must be fostered to fulfill the goal of beneficiating the raw data would also have local spin-off benefits for Africa.
The last African-specific reason justifying investment in quantum computing is the future security implications. Quantum computers have the long-time horizon potential to crack certain types of encryption we use to safeguard transactions. There are classical solutions to being Quantum-safe and it would be prudent if Africa had local expertise. Such advice would steer the middle path between complacency and unwarranted hype and alarm.
Africa’s Got Talent
Sometimes the question is posed, that while the vision to diversify and nurture local expertise may be well founded, do we have the raw talent? Fortunately, in South Africa we have a history of innovation in quantum physics to draw upon (for example, the Nobel prize for the invention of the CAT scan) and even recent surprising successes in the already mentioned supercomputing field, which is strongly intertwined with quantum computing. Over a recent four-year period, the South African Supercomputing teams were three-time world champions in the International Supercomputing Competition.
One of the most promising indicators that Africans should move quickly and invest in nurturing the skills around the burgeoning field of quantum computing is that there is already a long history of academic activity in South Africa. For example, the Chris Engelbrecht Summer School in Theoretical Physics has had as its main theme, Quantum related fields, since the 1980's and there are well established research groups, including those led by: Professor Andrew Forbes, Wits University; Professor Francesco Petruccione, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Professor Hermann Uys, Stellenbosch University.
This is what gave IBM and Wits the confidence to bring quantum computing to Africa, to enable African researchers to keep abreast with cutting edge developments in this extremely promising technological field. And by leveraging the African Research Universities Alliance and its additional 15 university members we can be bold and optimistic.
To jumpstart the learning and community building process IBM Q is hosting an invite-only Qiskit Camp in South Africa this December for 200 quantum researchers and computer scientists where they will learn in an immersive environment and receive hands-on training.
In summary, my fellow Africans, let's get quantum ready.
Wits University recently became the first African partner on the IBM Q Network and will be the gateway for academics across South Africa and to the 15 universities who are part of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA).
Dr Ismail Akhalwaya is a Research Scientist at IBM Research, Quantum
Dr Solomon Assefa is the Vice President | IBM Research: Africa & Emerging Market Solutions encompassing the South African and Kenyan labs
Professor Zeblon Vilakazi is Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs at the University of the Witwatersrand
Wits researchers contribute to global insights around gender and health
- Beth Amato
Wits researchers have contributed to a Lancet series on gender equality, norms and health, which was launched on 10 June 2019.
Norris and Richter gleaned findings from the seminal Birth to Twenty Plus longitudinal study* and showed that internalisation of gender norms and their influence on health-related behaviours are powerful during adolescence. Specifically, they examined how parental and peer pressure contribute to gendered health beliefs and behaviour, notably around weight and body image.
The South African case study’s contribution
The South African case study is a significant addition to the study on how gender norms impact the health of women and men across life stages, health sectors and world regions. Globally, it is revealed that gender norms are complex and intersect with social factors to impact health over the life course. Early gender-normative influences by parents and peers can have multiple and differing health consequences for boys and girls. Transgressing gender roles or not conforming to gender stereotypes are particularly harmful to health.
Global case studies, such as Richter’s and Norris’s, provide practical opportunities to gain novel insights into links between gender norms and a wide range of health outcomes - beyond the focus on sexual and reproductive health, violence, and HIV. In addition, the variety of analytic tools, including geo-spatial mapping, are innovative applications to existing survey-based data.
“Collaborative and global data that reflect society not only as it is, but as we hope it to be, are critical for monitoring progress on the sustainable development goals,” said Norris. In addition, the overlay of different types of data could use external factors such as climate change and economic shocks to identify locations of gender-based discrimination.
Richter noted that future research could involve machine learning algorithms and natural language processing could offer novel approaches to eliminating gender-related biases codes in large existing datasets.
Richter, Norris and their colleagues around the world recommend the designing of public health programmes and policies that are locally relevant and globally active. These would be central to achieving both gender equality and health. Progress can be accelerated through improved qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis, and interpretation that accounts for the pervasive role of gender norms in shaping human health and wellbeing.
The Lancet series on gender equality, norms and health has been several years in the making. “Rather than seeing the publication as an endpoint, we believe this is when the work of broad dissemination, broader engagement and ownership and impact begins,” adds lead researcher Gary Darmstadt. "It is indeed on our collective shoulders to ensure that the work is translated into local, national and global programming with and for those who are most marginalised."
A need to recognise and transform restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities
The Series on Gender Equality, Norms, and Health is a collection of five papers, led by Darmstadt and colleagues, that provides new analysis and insights into the impact of gender inequalities and norms on health, and the opportunities that exist within health systems, programmes, policies, and research to transform gender norms and inequalities.
The need for more action and accountability on gender equality is clear: introduction of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Universal Health Coverage goals demand greater attention to the social determinants of health, including gender, for the purpose of enabling all people to reach their full human potential.
The systemic neglect of gender norms and inequalities in programme design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation undermines the health of everyone - women and girls, boys and men, and gender minorities. This Series aims to inform the global health community of the critical need and effective actions to recognise and transform restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities, and their intersections with other social inequalities—including those related to age, race/ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status—in all they do.
*The Birth to Twenty Plus study (Bt20+) is the largest and longest running study of children's health and development in Africa, and one of the few large-scale longitudinal studies in the world. Between March and June, following Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990, 3273 were enrolled into a long-term birth cohort study in which it was planned to follow them (and their families) for at least the first decade of their lives. This was extended and continues today.
ECHO finds no substantial difference in HIV risk among DMPA-IM, copper IUD, and LNG implant users
- Wits University
The Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes study compared HIV acquisition risk among women given the injection, intrauterine device, or implant.
This pivotal clinical trial to address a long-standing question about the relationship between hormonal contraceptive use and the risk of HIV acquisition has found no substantial difference in HIV risk among 7,829 African women who were randomly assigned to use one of three highly effective methods of contraception.
ECHO study aims to help women make informed choices about contraception
Designed to provide high-quality evidence to help women at high risk of HIV make informed choices about contraception, the Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) Study compared the risk of HIV acquisition among women randomised to the progestin-only depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate, given by intramuscular injection (DMPA-IM); a non-hormonal copper intrauterine device (copper IUD); and a progestin-based implant containing the hormone levonorgestrel (LNG implant).
The results of this randomised clinical trial, which was conducted by a research consortium led by FHI 360, the University of Washington, Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) and the World Health Organization (WHO), were announced on 13 June 2019, at the South African AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, and published simultaneously in The Lancet.
No substantial difference in HIV risk with three effective contraceptive methods; unacceptably high HIV incidence irrespective of contraceptive method
"After decades of uncertainty, we finally have high-quality scientific evidence about the potential relationship between three different types of contraceptives and the risk of HIV from a rigorous randomised clinical trial," says Professor Helen Rees, Executive Director of the Wits RHI and a member of the five-person ECHO Management Committee (MC) that leads the ECHO Study.
"The results of this study are reassuring, but our findings are also sobering, because they confirm unacceptably high HIV incidence among young African women irrespective of which contraceptive method they were assigned to," adds Reece, who also serves as Personal Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
The cumulative evidence from observational studies conducted over 30 years has suggested that use of hormonal contraception — particularly DMPA-IM — may increase women’s risk of HIV acquisition by 40 to 50 percent. But uncertainty remained, because the available data were subject to the biases associated with observational studies. Few studies had examined whether hormonal implants or IUDs affected users’ risk of HIV acquisition.
Filling these gaps in the research is critical given the widespread use of DMPA-IM [Depo-Provera injectable contraception] in countries where HIV prevalence is high among women, explains Dr Nelly Mugo, Head of the Sexual, Reproductive, Adolescent and Child Health Research Programme at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, and an MC member.
"In southern and East Africa, many women face the double jeopardy of high HIV prevalence and high maternal and infant mortality from unintended pregnancy," says Dr Mugo, who is also a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. "Tens of millions of women in the region rely on DMPA-IM, which is often the most commonly used modern method of contraception in local family planning clinics."
ECHO Study findings: "The trial did not find a substantial difference in HIV risk among the methods evaluated: no method showed a 50 percent increase in HIV risk compared to the other two."
The ECHO Study began in December 2015, enrolling and following 7,829 sexually active, HIV-negative women ages 16 to 35 years across 12 clinical trial sites in Eswatini, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Although women were randomly assigned to use one of the three methods, they could choose to switch methods or stop using contraception at any time.
The study achieved high standards of quality in clinical research: retention was 93.6 percent through to the final study visit and participants used their assigned contraceptive methods for 91.9 percent of follow-up time. The participants were sexually active women desiring reliable contraception who were recruited for no risk factors other than living in an area with high HIV prevalence. They received individualised counselling, condoms and other HIV prevention services during every study visit. Nevertheless, HIV incidence was high: 397 HIV infections occurred, or 3.81 percent per year.
The trial was designed to detect a 50 percent increase in new HIV infections for each of the three contraceptive methods compared to each other method. ECHO did not include a control group, because it would have been unethical to give participants who were seeking effective contraceptive a placebo or no method. Therefore, the study sought to answer the more relevant question for women: the comparative risks and benefits of several contraceptive options.
Of the 397 HIV infections that occurred, 143 were among women in the DMPA-IM group, 138 were in the copper IUD group and 116 were in the LNG implant group; HIV incidence per year by group was 4.19 percent, 3.94 percent and 3.31 percent, respectively. The trial did not find a substantial difference in HIV risk among the methods evaluated: no method showed a 50 percent increase in HIV risk compared to the other two. All three study methods had high contraceptive effectiveness, with pregnancy rates of about 1 percent or less per year in analyses that excluded time off method. Only 7 percent of women experienced complications or side effects resulting in method discontinuation.
"We believe that these results support continued — and improved — access to all of the study contraceptive methods," says Dr Timothy Mastro, Chief Science Officer at FHI 360 in Durham, NC, USA, and an ECHO MC member. "Our collective experience shows that with adequate resources, provider training and support, and consistent supplies, these contraceptive methods can be provided safely and effectively at clinics in southern and East Africa. We hope that the ECHO results will be used to expand, not restrict, women’s options for contraception."
Need to integrate contraception with HIV prevention
"The alarmingly high HIV incidence among study participants highlights the need for more aggressive efforts to prevent HIV and for integration of HIV prevention, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), into contraceptive services," adds Dr Jared Baeten, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Public Health and an ECHO MC member. "Our results can help contraceptive providers and policy makers deliver high-quality, integrated, rights-based care. Even more important, the results can help women make informed choices about how to protect themselves from HIV and unintended pregnancy, but only if they have the information they need and the means to act on it."
The published results will be shared with WHO’s Guideline Development Group, which WHO will convene at the end of July 2019. This group will consider the most recent research on contraception and HIV risk, including the ECHO trial results, and determine whether any changes are needed to WHO’s Medical Eligibility Criteria, which serve as global guidance on contraceptive use. Recommendations will be issued by the end of August 2019.
The secret of platinum deposits revealed by novel field observations in the Bushveld Complex
- Wits University
Research from the Wits School of Geoscience shows how platinum deposits form in the Bushveld Complex of South Africa.
Most of the world’s economically-viable platinum deposits occur as ‘reefs’ in layered intrusions – thin layers of silicate rocks that contain sulphides enriched in platinum group elements which are so vital for the sustainable development of modern human society.
There are two competing ideas of how platinum deposits formed: the first involves gravity-induced settling of crystals on the chamber floor, while the second idea implies that the crystals grow in situ, directly on the floor of the magmatic chamber.
Through examining the Merensky Reef of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, which hosts the lion’s share of the world’s platinum and other noble metals, Dr Sofya Chistyakova from the School of Geosciences of the University of the Witwatersrand and her collaborators have established that the crystals grow in situ, with its high platinum status being attained while all its minerals were crystallising along the cooling margins of the magma chamber. Their research was published in a paper in Scientific Reports.
One of the remarkable features of the Bushveld Complex is that at the time when the Merensky Reef was forming, some portions of its chamber floor were highly irregular due to circular depressions (potholes). Such potholes with the Merensky Reef are best exposed in underground exposures of platinum mines.
“Our key discovery is that the entire Merensky Reef package in these potholes may develop as a ‘rind’ covering all the chamber floor depressions and culminations, even where these are vertical or overhanging” says Chistyakova.
This finding points to no possibility for the Merensky Reef to be formed by crystal settling on the chamber floor because sinking crystals cannot penetrate the solid rocks that form the pothole’s overhangs. This strongly supports the concept that the silicate minerals and sulphides of platinum deposits grow directly at the floor of magmatic chambers.
“This is the most fundamental conclusion of our work and it can probably be applied to platinum deposits in other layered intrusions as well as potentially extended to other types of magmatic deposits, for example, chromite and Fe-Ti-V magnetite ores in mafic-ultramafic complexes” says Chistyakova.
Traditional newsrooms continue to weaken
- Wits Journalism
Wits Journalism releases the State of the Newsroom 2018 report.
For the first time this year, the report also includes a set of indicators on the state of the news media, as well as some opinion pieces on key issues.
A core theme is how the 'industrial age' of journalism is shrinking, says editor and lead researcher, Alan Finlay, lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Wits: “While something of what we know of as ‘the media’ will remain, a lot now feels unsettled. Will our media landscape look the same in 10 year’s time? What will remain, and what will change, what will shatter, and what will disappear entirely? We have called this issue of the report 'structured/unstructured' to try and capture this uncertainty.”
This State of the Newsroom points to real shifts in the industry that suggest an on-going weakening of what is seen as the traditional newsroom. Newspaper circulation is still on its downward spiral, with a few titles looking as if they might not make it. Parallel to this, retrenchments in both broadcast and print remain a feature in 2018.
One of the contributors, Associate Professor Glenda Daniels from the Wits Department of Media Studies, shares some of her research into job losses in the industry, showing how unsupported journalists are when they lose their jobs. They are often treated shoddily by employers, while unions have little influence outside of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). Meanwhile, the freelancers’ association Safrea needs to reinvent itself to respond properly to the new reality of unemployed journalists who need a voice, she argues.
Another contributor, Anton Harber, Adjunct Professor of Journalism at Wits, suggests that fewer media houses are doing the hard work of investigative journalism, if contributions to the Taco Kuiper Awards are anything to go by. Donors are now supporting some of the most important journalism happening in South Africa – the investigative work of amaBhungane, and other projects such as GroundUp and the long-standing Health-e News.
With the pressure on fewer journalists to do more to make the news, contributor Finlay’s article on journalist safety and vulnerability is a call for editors to take more time and thought in planning assignments, to properly consider the risks journalists face both in the newsroom and on the beat.
The annual report is an attempt to be academically rigorous, while also being accessible to a wider public.
Dung beetles get wind
- Wits University
Dung beetles use different directional sensors to achieve the highest possible navigational precision in different conditions.
The discovery of the dung beetles’ wind compass and how it complements the sun compass was made by an international research team comprising biologists from Sweden and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) in South Africa.
“This is the first study that shows how an animal’s biological compass can integrate different directional sensors, in this case wind and sun, in a flexible way. This enables the highest possible precision at all times,” says Marie Dacke, professor of Sensory Biology at Lund University and leader of the research team.
When it is cloudy, or when the sun is higher than 75 degrees above the horizon in the middle of the day, dung beetles are unable to use the sun as a directional guide. A couple of hours later, when the sun is a little lower, they turn off the wind compass and again rely on the sun to navigate.
In the new study, researchers investigated dung beetles both in the field and in the laboratory. Using fans, to create and manipulate wind direction, they examined how wind direction affects the insects’ directional awareness. This was also done with the sun, by artificially changing its position with a mirror.
The experiment showed that when the sun is at a low or medium elevation in the sky, the dung beetles change direction by 180 degrees if the sun’s position is changed by 180 degrees. However, the dung beetles were not affected when the researchers changed the wind direction by 180 degrees when the sun was at these elevations.
Conversely, when the sun was high, the situation reversed. The insects responded by switching to select the wind as a navigational tool, changing their course as the direction of the wind was changed by 180 degrees.
The results show that directional information can be transferred from the wind compass to the sun compass and vice versa. In this way, the dung beetles can continue on in one direction when one of the compasses becomes less reliable.
“The insects’ brains are definitely not pre-programmed to always follow the same set of actions. On the contrary, we can show that such small brains work according to very dynamic principles that adapt to the conditions prevailing at a given moment,” says Dacke.
The researchers had previously shown that, during the night, some dung beetles orientate by the Milky Way and polarised moonlight while rolling their dung balls in a straight line. Combined with the results from the new study, they show that the insects’ compass works at all times of the day or night and probably under almost any conditions.
“The beetles have a fall-back system of compass cues that they can switch between, dependent on which one is providing the most reliable information for orientation,” says Marcus Byrne, a professor at Wits University, who has collaborated with Dacke for almost 20 years on dung beetle orientation.
“Now we will go on to study whether the beetles can also use the wind at night. Another aspect we are curious about is what guides them when there is no wind and it’s cloudy,” says Dacke.
The aim of the research is to fully understand how very small brains handle large amounts of information in order to make a relevant decision: is it appropriate to turn left or right, or continue straight on?
Byrne illustrates this point, saying “choosing the most important job at any given moment is a task most computers struggle with, which we all know about from the frustration of attempting to send an email while our machine checks its virus protection”.
Dacke believes that the results will be of direct benefit within a few years, in areas like robot development and artificial intelligence (AI). Just like dung beetles, robots must take large amounts of information into consideration in order to direct their next action.
“Developments in AI are happening at breath-taking speed and part of my research is directly aimed at creating a model of how networks function to integrate information in a smart way,” she says.
The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
SA students win world supercomputing competition once again
- Wits University
Wits students are part of South African team to take first prize at the International Supercomputing Conference.
Third-year information engineering students, Anita de Mello Koch and Kaamilah Desai from the Wits School of Electrical and Information Engineering, are part of the six-member team that participated in the 2019 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) in Frankfurt, Germany, last week.
This is the fourth time a South African team has won the International Student Cluster Competition at the ISC High Performance conference. The undergraduate team also included four students from the University of Cape Town – Stephan Schröder, Dillon Heald, Jehan Singh and Clara Stassen.
The SA team, made up of 50% men and 50% women, walked away with the highest overall score against teams, among others, from the USA, UK, China, Taiwan, Spain, Switzerland, Estonia and Singapore.
The ISC’ International Student Cluster Competition is regarded as the premier international high-performance computing student competition. South Africa won the competition on debut in 2013 and repeated the feat in 2014 and 2016, coming second in 2015 and 2017. The South African team is one of few that consist entirely of undergraduate students, and of different students each year.
“It is great that South Africa do so well in this competition and that we can show we are at the forefront of this technology. You are not necessarily exposed to supercomputing in your studies and this is a great way to get introduced to the field. It was also amazing to attend the conference where we learnt a lot from the greatest minds in supercomputing,” says De Mello Koch.
"I am tremendously proud of Anita and Kaamilah. Their achievement shows that our students are able to compete with the best in the world at the cutting edge of information technology," says Professor Estelle Trengove, Head of School: School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits University.
Supervised by team advisors and computer engineers David Macleod and Matthew Cawood of the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), the SA team took first place with the highest overall score for all the benchmarks they were given. Macleod, CHPC’s Advanced Computer Engineering Lab, said in a statement the team’s winning formula is to have dedicated students and sponsors. “Our sponsors are excellent and allowed the team to choose equipment without restriction or compromise. In turn the students put in a lot of time and effort before the competition and arrived at the competition well prepared.”
The Department of Science and Technology said in a statement that this “competition is one way that proves that South Africa will be able to fully participate in this new technological era and assist citizens to live better”.
“The skills that South Africa is building in supercomputing will help the country deal with the disruptive technologies that the fourth industrial revolution is promising,” said Dr Daniel Adams, Acting Deputy Director-General for Research Development and Support at the DST.
PechaKucha ‘chitchat’ format illustrates School of Arts research
- Wits University
The Wits School of Arts (WSOA) inaugural Postgraduate Research Day was a confluence of arts research and creativity.
The Research Day, hosted by the Arts Research Africa (ARA) project in WSOA, showcased the research of master’s and PhD students in the School. Twenty-six students delivered presentations at the Research Day on 4 May 2019, in the demanding 20x20 PechaKucha format, which requires students to present their research creatively in a way that captivates and engages the audience.
PechaKucha (Japanese for ‘chitchat’) is a concise and fast-paced presentation format devised by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in Tokyo in 2003. The format allows presenters to show 20 images for 20 seconds while simultaneously discussing the images for no longer than 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
Zanele Madiba, ARA project coordinator, said, “we experimented with the PechaKucha format to prompt our postgraduates to learn how to present their ideas quickly and effectively, using a combination of their own personal speaking style supported by images.”
Judges at the event, Avril Joffe, Head of Cultural Policy and Management, WSOA; Dr Samuel Ravengai, Head of Theatre and Performance, WSOA; and Dr Marietjie Pauw, Mellon Foundation postdoc, Stellenbosch University hailed the creativity displayed at the Research Day.
Bettina Malcomess (Film Studies) won Best PhD Presentation and a cash prize of R3000 for her striking research presentation on the interconnections between visual technologies and the colonial imaginary of space and time, which draws from her deep archival investigations in South Africa and the UK. Karima Effendi (Film and TV) won R2000 for the best master’s presentation on her research for a film essay exploring the relationship between the construction of apartheid 'publics' by the visual symbols of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, and the potential for the creation of ‘counter-publics’ in the present day. Anézia Asse (Heritage Studies) won the Audience Award – the most popular presentation as voted by the audience – for presentation on her research into the changing relationships between communities and treasure-hunting syndicates, and the wealth of undersea artefacts around the island of Mozambique. She received a cash prize of R1000.
Madiba says that the event served as a platform for students to present their research to other students, researchers and creatives.
“Our postgraduates tend to work alone in a very isolated fashion with only their supervisor for feedback. We wanted our postgraduates in the Wits School of Arts to start thinking of themselves as part of the Wits research community. The Research Day provided them with an opportunity to network with each other and find points of research collaboration.”
The experiment showed that when the sun is at a low or medium elevation in the sky, the dung beetles change direction by 180 degrees if the sun’s position is changed by 180 degrees. However, the dung beetles were not affected when the researchers changed the wind direction by 180 degrees when the sun was at these elevations.
