Orthopaedic device innovation in South Africa: A study of patenting activity

We assessed knowledge development and exchange among actors who patent orthopaedic devices in South Africa over the period 2000–2015. A social network analysis was performed on bibliometric data using co-inventorship on patents as an indicator of collaboration between different organisations, with a focus on the spatial and sectoral contexts. Network metrics and innovation system indices are used to describe knowledge development and exchange. The results show that university, healthcare and industry organisations have primarily been responsible for increased patenting over time. The key actors were a set of industry actors – a national actor and its US partner – who have patented many devices jointly. National universities were found to make a small contribution, and science councils were found to be absent, despite the efforts in the changing innovation landscape to encourage publicly financed research organisations to protect their intellectual property. The collaboration networks were found to be sparse and disjointed, with many actors – largely from the private healthcare sector – patenting in isolation.Significance: The considerable number of patents filed by private sector clinicians in orthopaedic device innovation in their personal capacity is highlighted. Few patents emanate from national universities, and science council actors are largely absent, despite the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act to protect intellectual property emanating from public research organisations. Patenting networks are more fragmented than are scientific publication networks

The medical device development landscape in South Africa: Institutions, sectors and collaboration

A characterisation of the medical device development landscape in South Africa would be beneficial for future policy developments that encourage locally developed devices to address local healthcare needs. The landscape was explored through a bibliometric analysis (2000–2013) of relevant scientific papers using co-authorship as an indicator of collaboration. Collaborating institutions thus found were divided into four sectors: academia (A); healthcare (H); industry (I); and science and support (S). A collaboration network was drawn to show the links between the institutions and analysed using network analysis metrics. Centrality measures identified seven dominant local institutions from three sectors. Group densities were used to quantify the extent of collaboration: the A sector collaborated the most extensively both within and between sectors; local collaborations were more prevalent than international collaborations. Translational collaborations (AHI, HIS or AHIS) are considered to be pivotal in fostering medical device innovation that is both relevant and likely to be commercialised. Few such collaborations were found, suggesting room for increased collaboration of these types in South Africa

Focus areas of cardiovascular medical device research in South Africa

We investigated the focus of cardiovascular medical device research in South Africa over the 15-year period 2000 - 2014. Information drawn from journal articles was used for the analysis, with attention to articles describing a contribution to the development of a cardiovascular medical device, or a new application of an existing device. The findings suggest that research has focused on diagnostic and monitoring as well as prosthetic cardiovascular medical devices, with specific emphasis on vascular and valvular heart diseases

An investigation of multi-layer integrated passive structures for application as three-phase EMI filters

The advent of the integration of discrete passive components is a direct result of the drive towards the minimisation of power electronic converters and filters. To this end Integrated Power Passive Modules (IPPMs) have been utilised in the past. The IPPMs discussed in this dissertation refer to structures consisting of dielectric layers sandwiched between layers of conductive material. The use of these types of structures in various applications has been well documented. However, the applications have been single-phase in nature and the exact configuration of the IPPMs has been largely dependent on the designers’ past experience with the modules. The development of a synthesis procedure to identify the required configuration for any particular application would be of great benefit to designers. The foundation of such a synthesis procedure was laid through an exhaustive search of all possible configurations that can be realised with a three conductive layer IPPM. From this exhaustive search a number of general trends, between the configurations and their associated frequency response, were observed. Furthermore, a number of principles underlying the functionality of the configurations were highlighted during the course of the exhaustive search. The validity of some of these results was experimentally investigated through the design and implementation of an integrated EMI filter. The EMI filter considered in this study differed from integrated EMI filters, previously reported on, through the fact that the filter considered herein was to be implemented in a three-phase application. To this end a set of configurations that realise low pass filters were identified from the results of the exhaustive search. The application of these configurations was expanded from single-phase to three-phase by mapping the configurations onto a building block component used to realise the three-phase application. Simulations of these three-phase filters were used to analyse the filter performance. From this analysis a subset of configurations were identified as displaying the best performance characteristics. The configurations within this subset were further analysed using the results of the exhaustive search. In so doing two configurations were isolated for use in a practical realisation of the three-phase filters. The physical design and construction of the integrated three-phase filters, as well as the test bench, was considered. The performance of the filters was investigated through comparative measurements of common mode and differential mode currents, in the test bench, in the presence and absence of the filters. From this investigation significant reduction in the conducted EMI noise was seen through the introduction of the filters into the system.Dr. I. W. Hofsaje

Orthopaedic device innovation in South Africa: A study of patenting activity

We assessed knowledge development and exchange among actors who patent orthopaedic devices in South Africa over the period 2000–2015. A social network analysis was performed on bibliometric data using co-inventorship on patents as an indicator of collaboration between different organisations, with a focus on the spatial and sectoral contexts. Network metrics and innovation system indices are used to describe knowledge development and exchange. The results show that university, healthcare and industry organisations have primarily been responsible for increased patenting over time. The key actors were a set of industry actors – a national actor and its US partner – who have patented many devices jointly. National universities were found to make a small contribution, and science councils were found to be absent, despite the efforts in the changing innovation landscape to encourage publicly financed research organisations to protect their intellectual property. The collaboration networks were found to be sparse and disjointed, with many actors – largely from the private healthcare sector – patenting in isolation.Significance: The considerable number of patents filed by private sector clinicians in orthopaedic device innovation in their personal capacity is highlighted. Few patents emanate from national universities, and science council actors are largely absent, despite the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act to protect intellectual property emanating from public research organisations. Patenting networks are more fragmented than are scientific publication networks. Open data set: https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.14417246.v

Collaboration and citation impact: Trends in health sciences research at the University of Cape Town

Against a background of substantial growth in publication output in health sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) over the past two decades, we examined the relationship between collaboration with domestic and foreign institutions and resulting citations of co-published work. We report on trends in authorship and citation impact for health sciences research at UCT across three 3-year periods: 1999–2001, 2006–2008 and 2013–2015. We examined numbers of collaborative publications with domestic and foreign co-authors; the status of collaboration with other African countries; the location of the ‘drivers’ of the research (with ‘drivers’ indicated by first or last authorship); and expected and observed citation counts – used as an indicator of impact – over time. We found that the relative citation rate of the set of UCT health sciences publications has increased; the set of 1999–2001 publications was less frequently cited than expected for the journals in which the publications appear, while the 2006–2008 and 2013–2015 sets were cited more frequently than expected. Relative citation rates were greater for papers for which UCT shared international co-authorship than for papers with UCT-only or domestic co-authorship. Our findings confirm reports in the literature of higher citation of internationally co-authored publications. We additionally found that the publications with the highest relative citation rates were driven by authors from foreign institutions. Significance: Methods are presented for extracting, measuring, analysing and representing the citation impact of collaborative research. The relative citation rate of health sciences publications produced by UCT has increased and copublication with international authors has increased. The findings confirm reports in the literature of higher citation of publications co-authored with international collaborators. An apparent influence of foreign drivers on citation impact, holds risk for South African science