16 results match your criteria: "University of the Free State (UFS)[Affiliation]"

Cooperatives are organisations owned and operated by individuals or groups that come together for mutual benefit including pooling of resources for the purchase of inputs and marketing of products. Marketing of milk is through dairy cooperatives where the milk collection centres are mandated to help integrating smallholder farmers into competitive markets. The study investigated governance structures of five smallholder dairy schemes purposively selected based on their agroecological regions in Zimbabwe.

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Curbing land degradation and mitigating climate change in mountainous regions: a systemic review.

Environ Monit Assess

January 2023

School of Environmental Geography, University of the Free State (UFS), Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, 9866, South Africa.

Human population is envisaged to continue to grow, with a tremendous contribution to land degradation and climate change. Climate change and land degradation are intertwined, thus tackling climate change means mitigating land degradation. Climate change is a worldwide problem that affects lives and livelihoods; henceforth, mitigating measures are urgently required.

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Impact of Three Different Processing Techniques on the Strength and Structure of Juvenile Ovine Pulmonary Homografts.

Polymers (Basel)

July 2022

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State (UFS), P.O. Box 339 (Internal Box G32), Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa.

Homografts are routinely stored by cryopreservation; however, donor cells and remnants contribute to immunogenicity. Although decellularization strategies can address immunogenicity, additional fixation might be required to maintain strength. This study investigated the effect of cryopreservation, decellularization, and decellularization with additional glutaraldhyde fixation on the strength and structure of ovine pulmonary homografts harvested 48 h post-mortem.

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Advantages of decellularized bovine pericardial scaffolds compared to glutaraldehyde fixed bovine pericardial patches demonstrated in a 180-day implant ovine study.

Cell Tissue Bank

December 2022

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State (UFS), (Internal Box G32), P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa.

Glutaraldehyde (GA)-fixed bovine pericardial patches remain the cardiovascular industry standard despite reports of degradation, thickening, inflammation, calcification and lack of tissue remodelling. Decellularization provides the opportunity to attenuate some of these immune-mediated processes. This study compared the mechanical and morphological integrity of bovine pericardium that is GA-fixated (Glycar® patches) or decellularized (BPS), using a proprietary protocol, following implantation in an ovine model.

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We report the crystal structure of the copper-containing nitrite reductase (NirK) from the Gram-negative bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011 (Sm), together with complex structural alignment and docking studies with both non-cognate and the physiologically related pseudoazurins, SmPaz1 and SmPaz2, respectively. S. meliloti is a rhizobacterium used for the formulation of Medicago sativa bionoculants, and SmNirK plays a key role in this symbiosis through the denitrification pathway.

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Homograft availability and durability remain big challenges. Increasing the post-mortem ischaemic harvesting time beyond 24 h increases the potential donor pool. Cryopreservation, routinely used to preserve homografts, damages the extracellular matrix (ECM), contributing to valve degeneration.

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Adequate intake of iodine is important during pregnancy because of its essential role in foetal growth and neurodevelopment. Data on iodine status of South African pregnant women are scarce, and the salt reduction policy implemented in 2016 may decrease iodine intake of South Africans. This cross-sectional study assessed the iodine status of pregnant women residing in urban Johannesburg, South Africa.

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The sequential effects of a multifactorial detergent based decellularization process on bovine pericardium.

Biomed Phys Eng Express

September 2020

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State (UFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Decellularization is a promising method for obtaining extracellular matrix scaffolds (ECM) to be used as replacement material in reconstructive procedures. The effectiveness of decellularization and the alterations to the ECM vary, depending on several factors, including the tissue source, composition and density. With an optimized decellularization process, decellularized scaffolds can preserve the spatial and temporal ECM microenvironment, which play an integral role in modulating cell migration, proliferation and differentiation.

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Synergy in a detergent combination results in superior decellularized bovine pericardial extracellular matrix scaffolds.

J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater

August 2020

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State (UFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Decellularization involves removal of cellular material from tissue which results in a scaffold material consisting of only the extra cellular matrix (ECM). The effect of each individual decellularizing detergent on the final ECM scaffold and how that may differ from the combined use of these detergents is currently a gap in decellularization methodologies. This study evaluates the hypothesis that a synergistic effect exists when commonly used decellularization detergents are combined.

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Perceptions of and support for national health insurance in South Africa's public and private healthcare sectors.

Pan Afr Med J

January 2019

Population Health, Health Systems and Innovation (PHHSI) Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Pretoria, South Africa.

Introduction: For the purpose of effective implementation of a National Health Insurance (NHI) policy it is necessary to have an understanding of the awareness and perceptions of and support for such policy among clients using the healthcare system.

Methods: The South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey asked household heads a series of questions on healthcare utilisation and access and collected information on knowledge and perceptions of and support for national health insurance. Comparisons are drawn between private sector healthcare users with medical aid and public sector healthcare users without medical aid, using descriptive and regression analysis.

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Cadaver donation: structural integrity of pulmonary homografts harvested 48 h post mortem in the juvenile ovine model.

Cell Tissue Bank

December 2018

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Free State (UFS), P.O. Box 339, (Internal Box G32), Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa.

Cryopreserved pulmonary homograft (CPH) implantation remains the gold standard for reconstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT). Harvesting homografts < 24-h post mortem is the international norm, thereby largely excluding cadaveric donors. This study examines the structural integrity and stability of ovine pulmonary homografts harvested after a 48-h post mortem period, cryopreserved and then implanted for up to 180 days.

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Background: Occupational exposure to tuberculosis (TB) constitutes a major health risk for healthcare workers (HCWs). The HIV epidemic equally affects the workforce because of the mutually reinforcing epidemiology of HIV and TB. Stigmas associated with HIV and TB have become so intricately entangled that they stop some HCWs from seeking care in a context where serious shortages in human resources for health besiege public health facilities.

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Virginity Requirement Versus Sexually-Active Young People: What Girls and Boys Think About Virginity in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Arch Sex Behav

April 2018

Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, Faculty of Top Management, University of the Free State - UFS, DF Malherbe House, Graduandi Lane, PO Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, Republic of South Africa.

This article aims to explore Congolese male and female high school students' cultural attitudes concerning virginity. The study employed a qualitative approach to collect data from 56 boys and girls aged 16-20 years old. Eight focus group discussions and 40 individual interviews were conducted among participants from two urban and two rural high schools in South Kivu province.

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Forensic application of DNA barcoding for identification of illegally traded African pangolin scales.

Genome

March 2017

a National Zoological Gardens of South Africa (NZG), P.O. Box 754, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.

The escalating growth in illegal wildlife trade and anthropogenic habitat changes threaten the survival of pangolin species worldwide. All eight extant species have experienced drastic population size reductions globally with a high extinction risk in Asia. Consequently, forensic services have become critical for law enforcement, with a need for standardised and validated genetic methods for reliable identifications.

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Background: Health workers are at high risk of acquiring infectious diseases at work, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) with critical health human resource deficiencies and limited implementation of occupational health and infection control measures. Amidst increasing interest in international partnerships to address such issues, how best to develop such collaborations is being actively debated. In 2006, a partnership developed between occupational health and infection control experts in Canada and institutions in South Africa (including an institute with a national mandate to conduct research and provide guidance to protect health workers from infectious diseases and promote improved working conditions).

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This study investigated cryopreserved pulmonary homograft (CPA) structural integrity after prolonged cold ischemic harvesting times in a juvenile sheep model. Three groups with different post-mortem cold ischemic harvesting times were studied, i.e.

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