Objectives The study reports on the effectiveness of a ball-milled nanosized titanium dioxide composite (EB@TiO2) for DH management in comparison with commercial desensitizing paste with and without saliva. Materials and Methods  Forty-nine dentine specimens were prepared from extracted bovine anterior teeth. Twenty-one of the specimens were brushed with three desensitizing toothpaste for 7 days, namely: Group 1; EB@TiO2, Group 2; Colgate Pro-relief; and Group 3; Sensodyne repair (n = 7). Twenty-four specimens were brushed with the toothpaste for 7 days and stored in artificial saliva (control) after brushing. Each specimen was subsequently posttreated in citric acid solution to test its stability in acidic condition. Field scanning electron microscope was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the dentine tubules occlusion. The biocompatibility of the composite was tested using BHK21 cell line. Statistical Analysis One-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the percentage occluded area ratio values for all specimens (α = 0.05). Independent t-test was further used to evaluate the occlusion differences with saliva and without saliva. Results and Conclusions The number of dentine tubules decreased significantly after 7 days of brushing. Overall, the occlusion observe for EB@TiO2 were significantly better than for Colgate Pro-relief and Sensodyne repair (p < 0.05). BHK21 assay suggested that composite had no significant effect on the BHK21 cell line. This study demonstrated that the composite effectively occluded open dentine tubules within 7 days of brushing.

The high student attrition at the masters' and doctorate levels requires universities to be customer-oriented, and flexible in their capacity to deliver higher value to mature students whose needs and expectations are high. Therefore, this study aims to assess student experience and service delivery levels that academic departments provide postgraduate students at public universities in KwaZulu-Natal. An empirical study was conducted amongst masters’ and doctorate students at a university of technology, a traditional university, and a comprehensive university. The study involved a survey questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale and included seven service delivery dimensions which respondents were to rank accordingly. Data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics and the factors that emerged from factor analysis were tested for reliability and validity by conducting Cronbach's alpha. The results show that postgraduate students are university customers and therefore expect courtesy and professionalism in the delivery of postgraduate programmes. The results further suggest that retention capabilities exist for the traditional university compared to the other types of universities. Students seem to be moderately satisfied with the quality of academic services offered by universities. Service delivery experience among students appears to vary across universities. Universities should take cognisance of the gaps and attempt to be more customer-oriented to ensure the needs and expectations of graduate students are met. The findings of the study may serve as guidelines for a follow-up qualitative study to establish the specific areas where students were not satisfied.

The South African Higher Education (HE) sector has faced scrutiny in recent years because of its low participation and high attrition rates. In an attempt to address this, institutions have introduced additional programmes such as Extended Curriculum Programmes (ECPs). In this study, we followed an interpretive research paradigm to explore students' experiences and perceptions of the somatology ECP at the Durban University of Technology DUT). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 individual students out of the 69 graduates of the somatology ECP. The participants believe that social integration and reduced academic workload over an extended period contributed to their academic performance. The participants felt that support subjects such as writing skills and computer literacy and the work done by staff and mentors of the ECP facilitated their academic success. The findings from the study suggest that the somatology ECP was successful, too, in the social integration of students while preparing them for success.

Since the beginning of democracy in South Africa post 1994, the debate in South African Higher Education has progressed from, initially, increasing disadvantaged student access to higher education to improving student success and improving throughout rates and high attrition amongst the previously disadvantaged students. In order to increase access of students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds and improve success in higher education, institutions have introduced additional programmes such as Extended Curriculum Programmes (ECP). The ECP is an alternative curriculum structure that creates the space needed to equip underprepared students with skills to assist them to succeed in higher education. The Somatology programme at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) introduced the ECP in 2005. However, there is limited published research on the impact of the ECP in the Somatology programme since its inception. Using a mixed convergent parallel design, and following a post-positivist paradigm, this dissertation aimed to assess the impact of the Somatology ECP on students’ throughput, success and dropout rates and to understand the general satisfaction of the students placed in the ECP with being placed in the ECP. In order to establish quantitative data, a retrospective analysis of the student records of all students that had been registered at the Somatology programme at the Durban University of Technology for the period 2005 to 2013 was sourced from DUT’s Institutional Management Information System (MIS). The throughput and dropout rates were analysed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and t-test. The data obtained is valid as access to the MIS system is restricted and only authorised DUT staff have access to MIS data. In contrast, the qualitative phase prospectively focus on students who graduated from the Somatology programme via the ECP. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 15 participants who were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data generated was analysed using thematic content analysis. The quantitative analysis found that there was a marked improvement in the throughput rate of students who enrolled via the ECP programme. However, no significant difference was recorded in the throughput (P>0.05) and dropout rates (P>0.05) of the ECP when compared with the mainstream cohort (P>0.05) over the period under study. In addition, the overall success rate of the ECP cohort were comparable to that of the mainstream (P>0.05) showing that the interventions delivered on the ECP were successful for students entering the Somatology programme considered underprepared for higher education. In probing the factors that had influenced the improved throughput rate, a key finding from the qualitative analyses was that participating students attributed their ultimate success to the additional interventions given in the ECP. The ECP students felt they were at an advantage when it came to assessments compared to mainstream. In light of the study findings, this dissertation found that the Somatology ECP was a successful programme as there was an improvement in the academic success of the students in terms of their throughput and dropout rates of the cohort studied.