OpenUCT is the open access institutional repository of the University of Cape Town (UCT). It preserves and makes UCT scholarly outputs digitally and freely available, including theses and dissertations, journal articles, book chapters, technical and research reports, as well as open educational resources.
Recent Submissions
Item
Open Access
The role of physiotherapy in sports medicine : perceptions of orthopaedic surgeons, sports physicians, biokinetics and physiotherapists
(1997) Sole, Gisela; Dr Lambert, Mike, Prof.Juritz, June
A survey was undertaken to assess the perception of orthopaedic surgeons, sports physicians, biokineticists and physiotherapists of the role of physiotherapists in sports medicine. Orthopaedic surgeons (n=24), sports physicians (n=171 ), biokineticists (n=39) and physiotherapists (n=226) who were members of the South African Sports Medicine Association in 1995 were included in the study population. The questionnaire consisted of 36 tasks, which were divided into eight sections. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of the tasks for physiotherapists and the competence at which these tasks were performed by physiotherapists on a six-point Likert scale. Means, medians and standard deviations were calculated for the importance and the competence of each task as perceived by each professional group. The response rate was 54. 7% (n=252). All tasks were perceived to be "important" by physiotherapists (n=146) (median>3). The section on "injury prevention and epidemiology" generally received lower ratings of competence by the physiotherapists than the other sections. The orthopaedic surgeons (n=12), sports physicians (n=68) and biokineticists (n=22) generally perceived the importance of the tasks and the competence at which they were performed by physiotherapists lower than the physiotherapists (p<0.05 with the Kruskall-Wallis test). The differences in perception were greatest in tasks which overlapped with the scope of practice of the specific professional groups (p<0.017 with the Mann Whitney-U test). Kendall tau correlations and canonical correlations between importance of the tasks for physiotherapists and competence at which these were performed· by physiotherapists were low. The areas of "emergency care", "rehabilitation", "injury prevention" and "research" need to receive more attention in the training of sports physiotherapists.
Item
Open Access
Angola's first competition regime: learning from experience – the importance of competition regulation in merger transactions – a reflection on the South African Competition Act and the lessons for the Angolan Competition Commission
(2019) Belchior, Lisbella Patricia Guimarães; Nkomo, Marumo; Van Wyk, Magdaleen
After being in a monopoly-controlled economy for decades, the Parliament of Angola finally recognised the necessity of institutionalising a Competition regime by enacting the Lei da Concorrência n.° 5/18, Angola's first Competition regime, which seeks to regulate Competition within the Angolan economy, and bring the country's economy in line with international best practices. In line with the Notice 2/2018 from the Angolan National Bank (BNA), commercial banks operating in Angola had until the end of the year 2018 to increase their share capital from 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion kwanzas ($35 million). This means that many banks that have a share capital below the new required minimum will have to consider alternatives, with mergers being one of them. The inclusion of this legislation in the Angolan legal system is significant as it comes at a time when the Angolan economy is expected to experience a number of corporate mergers, particularly in the banking sector. Since then, while there is still no sign of such corporate mergers taking place, the BNA has ordered the closure of two private banks, namely Banco Mais and Banco Postal on account of insufficient share capital, revoking the banking licences of the respective banks and declaring them bankrupt. In this paper, Angola's first Competition regime is examined by considering the merger evaluation process Competition authorities of Angola will now have to consider. Without losing sight of the reality that Angola is in a development phase, the paper relies on the relatively mature South African Competition regime as a significant point of reference to assess how the legislation will impact on corporate mergers in Angola. In the first chapter, the paper systematically discusses the development of Competition regimes in Canada, United States of America and South Africa. In chapter 2, the focus is placed on the merger evaluation process in Angola prior to the enactment of the Competition regime, before turning to the new merger process and examining some of the factors that have contributed to the development of the Competition Law in Angola. Emanating from this, chapter 3 continues with the discussion on the merger evaluation process, and provisions of the South African Competition Act, while contrasting it with the process the Angolan Competition authorities will have to follow. The chapter highlights the significance of public interest criteria in mergers, particularly in developing countries. Chapter 4 focuses on mergers, identifying specific challenges that horizontal and vertical mergers present to an economy, suggesting that, if not regulated effectively, horizontal mergers could lead to a situation where firms are ‘too big to fail', highlighting how firms often rely on mergers as a pretext to achieve a number of strategic objectives. The chapter discusses further key decisions taken by the South African Competition Tribunal and Commission as a point of reference. In addition, the chapter closes by evaluating the proposed changes to merger provisions contained in the South African Competition Amendment Bill. The paper ends in chapter 5 by concluding that notwithstanding the divergent legal systems and jurisdictions of Angola and South Africa, the latter's merger regulation process and approach is considerably advanced and better experienced than other developing states. Given that proper regulation contributes to effective economic growth, the Competition authorities of Angola stand to benefit from the experiences of South Africa, which offers some useful recommendations to the Angolan Competition authority.
Item
Open Access
In-Silico design and verification of an extracorporeal normothermic cardiac perfusion system for use during heart transplantation procedures
(2025) Van Den Berg, Ronald; Dr. Sivarasu, Sudesh
Heart transplantation relies on effective donor organ preservation to ensure successful graft viability. Since the first human heart transplant in 1967 by Christiaan Barnard, organ preservation techniques have evolved from static cold storage with cardioplegic arrest to continuous blood perfusion, which enhances metabolic support and extends viable ischemic time. This study explores the development of a system for continuous myocardial perfusion to improve donor heart preservation during transplantation. Using in-silico modelling and simulation, the study defines functional requirements for a proof-of-concept system capable of achieving physiologically relevant pressure and flow waveforms necessary for sustained coronary perfusion. A cardiovascular hemodynamic simulation environment was established by adapting lumped parameter models and integrating computed tomography angiograms, facilitating both in-silico and coupled in-vitro validation analyses. This enabled the development of a bench testing model that replicated physiologically relevant coronary perfusion dynamics. The bench testing model provided critical insights for refining in-silico simulations and optimising design parameters for improved myocardial perfusion. Validation was performed through vessel-specific flow rate comparisons with computational fluid dynamics simulations. Experimental results identified a time delay in relation to the identified set of functional and control parameters when achieving target physiological pressures, informing future system optimisation. Further findings allowed for the identification of relative flow proportion exiting through the Left Circumflex and Right Major Coronary arteries and was shown to behave as a second order time derivative with respect to the inflow waveform applied to a fabricated flow phantom during testing. Similarly, the proportion of flow exiting through the Left Anterior Descending and Ramus Intermedius arteries exhibited first order time derivative behaviour in relation to the inflow signal. The resultant outcomes of testing and analysis allowed for the tuning of an embedded pump control system yielding the optimised parameter control values for proportional, integral and derivative gain of 147.74, 2.57 and -4974.96 respectively. The findings of this study establish a framework for the development of an automated continuous myocardial perfusion system, contributing to enhanced donor heart preservation strategies for clinical transplantation. .
Item
Open Access
Spatial-temporal graph neural networks for weather prediction in South Africa
(2023) Davidson, Mohamed; Moodley, Deshendran
Spatial-temporal graph neural networks (ST-GNN) have been shown to be highly effective for flow prediction in dynamic systems but are under-explored for weather prediction applications. Additionally, current approaches for evalu- ating ST-GNN models do not take into account the robustness and stability of the trained models. This research compared and evaluated two ST-GNN mod- els, i.e. Graph WaveNet (GWN) and the Low-Rank Weighted Graph Neural Network (WGN), for weather prediction in South Africa. The results of these two ST-GNN models are compared to two basic temporal deep neural network architectures, i.e. the LSTM and the TCN, for temperature prediction across 21 weather stations in South Africa. A novel framework is presented in which to reliably evaluate model robustness and stability for weather prediction. This framework was used to perform rigorous experiments to evaluate the stability and robustness of the ST-GNN models for temperature prediction. The results show that the GWN model outperforms the other models across different predic- tion horizons with an average SMAPE score of 8.30%. Despite the GWN model outperforming the other models on average, the TCN model outperformed both ST-GNN models at particular weather stations. The results indicate that an ensemble approach consisting of ST-GNN models and basic temporal deep neu- ral network architectures would be the most effective approach for temperature prediction. Finally, the learnt adjacency matrices of the two ST-GNNs were analysed and compared to gain insights into the prominent spatial-temporal dependencies between weather stations..
Item
Open Access
A survey of the impact of agricultural legislation on common law principles with special reference to the following statutes
(1956) Giemre, William Rudolph
The increasing complexities of modern life have led to the promulgation of more and more legislation each year. However necessary such legislation may appear to be to regulate our daily lives, it is not, by any means, an unmixed blessing. Much of this legislation impinges on our common law principles which have regulated man 1s conduct for centuries past.