Displaced margins and misplaced equity: Challenges for South African higher education

This paper makes a single point: that the goal of institutional diversity falls short of the goal of equity in higher education. Put differently, while the margins for diversity have increasingly been displaced and dislocated, equity appears to be misplaced. I contend that through significantly increased access, the South African education system has made remarkable progress in achieving racial, ethnic and gender diversity in their student populations. Despite these achievements in diversity, however, equity, measured through the graduation rates of historically disadvantaged students, trails behind diversity achievements. At the risk of taking a parochial posture, my goal is use the challenges of the mature (American) and relatively immature higher systems (South African) to point to ‘lessons’ that may be locally valuable. I draw on selected quantitative data that illustrates the trends in diversity and equity. I use the challenges with respect to diversity and equity in the United States system as a foil against which to read the South African quantitative trends. In so doing I show that time and maturity, demonstrated through the highly reputed American system, may not fix issues of equity and that conscious and that the South African system requires active interventions to address these challenges. 

Equivariant Zariski Structures

A new class of noncommutative $k$-algebras (for $k$ an algebraically closed field) is defined and shown to contain some important examples of quantum groups. To each such algebra, a first order theory is assigned describing models of a suitable corresponding geometric space. Model-theoretic results for these geometric structures are established (uncountable categoricity, quantifier elimination to the level of existential formulas) and that an appropriate dimension theory exists, making them Zariski structures

A symbiotic glance at ehr complexities of signature microbiomic interventions : Infusing balance

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Short-term treatment outcomes of children starting antiretroviral therapy in the intensive care unit, general medical wards and outpatient HIV clinics at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa: A retrospective cohort study

Background: Many HIV-infected children are initiated on antiretroviral therapy (ART) during hospitalisation in South Africa (SA). No published data on these outcomes exist.Objectives: To assess the short-term outcomes of children initiated on ART in the intensive care unit (ICU), general medical wards (GMWs) and outpatient HIV clinics (OHCs) at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH), Cape Town, SA.Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of HIV-infected children aged <13 years commenced on first-line ART between January 2008 and December 2011. Outcomes included death, virological suppression and changes in CD4 count. Kaplan-Meier estimates, multivariate Cox proportional hazard ratios and logistic regression were used to estimate outcomes at 6 months.Results: One hundred and six children were commenced on ART in the ICU, 509 in the GMWs and 127 in the OHCs; 65.7% of all children were <12 months old. Of children qualifying for rapid ART initiation according to the 2013 national treatment guidelines, 182 (24.9%) started therapy within 7 days of diagnosis. Overall mortality was 6.4% (95% confidence interval (CI) 4.9 - 8.4). Of children remaining in care at RCWMCH, 51.0% achieved a CD4 percentage ≥25% and 62.3% a viral load ≤50 copies/mL 6 months after ART initiation. Mortality was higher in the ICU cohort (13.2%) than in the GMW and OHC cohorts (5.5% and 3.9%, respectively, log-rank p=0.004). Predictors of mortality included moderate underweight (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 2.4; 95% CI 1.1 - 5.2), severe underweight (aHR 3.2; 95% CI 1.6 - 6.5), absence of caregiver counselling sessions (aHR 2.9; 95% CI 1.4 - 6.0) and ART initiation in the ICU (aHR 2.6; 95% CI 1.4 - 4.9).Conclusion: These results highlight the importance of understanding the context in which children are initiated on ART, when comparing outcomes in different settings