Are South African doctoral qualifications educating the thinkers we need?

Significance: The recently completed national review of the doctoral qualifications offered by South African higher education institutions has provided important insights into the national landscape of doctoral education, and raised many questions. One key question is whether our doctoral qualifications educate our students to be the broad and critical thinkers needed to address current and future scientific and societal challenges. In the South African higher education context, we must ask ourselves whether we are providing the academic and intellectual depth required to enable our doctoral graduates to achieve the graduate attributes that we express as our national aspirations, and we need to consider new approaches to doctoral education

Are South African doctoral qualifications educating the thinkers we need?

SIGNIFICANCE : The recently completed national review of the doctoral qualifications offered by South African higher education institutions has provided important insights into the national landscape of doctoral education, and raised many questions. One key question is whether our doctoral qualifications educate our students to be the broad and critical thinkers needed to address current and future scientific and societal challenges. In the South African higher education context, we must ask ourselves whether we are providing the academic and intellectual depth required to enable our doctoral graduates to achieve the graduate attributes that we express as our national aspirations, and we need to consider new approaches to doctoral education.http://www.sajs.co.zahj2022BiochemistryGeneticsMicrobiology and Plant Patholog

Home-administered pre-surgical psychological intervention for knee osteoarthritis (HAPPiKNEES): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Knee replacement surgery reduces pain for many people with osteoarthritis (OA). However, surgical outcomes are partly dependent on patients’ moods, and those with depression or anxiety have worse outcomes. Approximately one-third of people with OA have mood problems. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a psychological therapy, is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for improving mood. However, evidence for the effectiveness of CBT before knee surgery in improving pain, mood, and quality of life following this surgery for people with knee OA is lacking. Methods/Design: This is a multi-centre, mixed-methods feasibility randomised controlled trial to compare treatment as usual (TAU) plus a brief CBT-based intervention with a TAU-only control, for people with knee OA. We will recruit 50 patients with knee OA, listed for knee replacement surgery, with high levels of distress (assessed using a mood questionnaire), and who consent to take part. Participants will be randomly allocated to receive TAU plus intervention or TAU. Up to 10 sessions of CBT will be offered on an individual basis by a psychologist. The assessments and interventions will be completed before surgery. Repeat assessments at 4 and 6 months after randomisation will be sent and received by post. Two patient-partners will conduct feedback interviews with some participants to assess what aspects of the intervention were helpful or unhelpful, the acceptability of randomisation, the experience of being in a control group, and the appropriateness of the measures used. Interviews will be audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using the framework approach. We will examine the feasibility and acceptability of patient-partners conducting the interviews by also interviewing the patient-partners. Discussion: Findings from this study will be used to design a definitive study that will examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the CBT intervention in improving patient outcomes following knee surgery

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe