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Prof Lizette de Wet, pioneer in the field of Human Computer Interaction

10 February 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Stephen Collett

“I consider obtaining my PhD while balancing my work, my marriage, and two young daughters (who did not sleep through before reaching age four!) as one of my biggest achievements,” says Prof Lizette de Wet, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Many firsts

Her achievements in the field include much more than the PhD referred to. On 11 February, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UFS celebrates her for pioneering the human-computer interaction (HCI) research environment, specifically the evaluation of usability and user experience in diverse application areas, where she has experienced and established many firsts.

Prof De Wet was one of the first students to complete a master’s degree in this discipline at UNISA (1994). She says the external examiner for her master’s was from the University of York in the UK, as expertise in South Africa was still lacking at the time.

In the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the UFS, she established the HCI research area. This involved undertaking research projects in the discipline and developing curricula for a second-year module, an honours module, and a master’s module.

“The second-year module was also one of two modules on campus to first use iPads in class to assist in a blended learning approach,” she says.

Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.– Prof Lizette de Wet

A woman’s contribution

Prof De Wet believes that in the research field of HCI, the focus is on the user and his/her overall user experience (including emotions, feelings, and competence) when using computers. “Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.”

Whether the human being writing the code is male or female, does not matter. Prof De Wet is of the opinion that there is no gender distinction between what women and men could achieve in the field of Computer Science and Informatics.

“Although the students are still predominantly male, in the past few years more and more female students have enrolled for our postgraduate studies and completed it successfully, some of them with exceptional marks. In South-Africa, many women are making their mark in this discipline by being heads of departments at universities or in the private sector, by chairing national and international conferences, and by publishing ground-breaking research,” she adds.

Success with virtual reality

Over the past few years, Prof De Wet has concentrated on using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and virtual reality in her research. By the end of 2020, she had successfully supervised 11 master’s students and four PhD students, with one of the master’s students delivering ground-breaking research using virtual reality in the training of nursing students.

She elaborates: “The prototype involved virtually examining and evaluating a patient (with a foreign object lodged in a lung) in a virtual ward while wearing an Oculus Rift headset. The evaluation results were extremely positive and will be continued as a PhD study to investigate how to attempt to relieve motion sickness in an immersive virtual clinical simulation.”

Starting out as someone who never had the opportunity to lay her eyes on a computer during her school years, Prof De Wet is of the opinion that in South Africa – being a Third World country – there are numerous opportunities to make computers accessible to rural communities, and even to the large senior population who did not grow up with technology and might fear it.

With her passion for the profession, she not only delivers pioneering work, but also trains professionals in computer sciences who will contribute to a better tomorrow.

News Archive

Fight against Ebola virus requires more research

2014-10-22

Dr Abdon Atangana
Photo: Ifa Tshishonge

Dr Abdon Atangana, a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), wrote an article related to the Ebola virus: Modelling the Ebola haemorrhagic fever with the beta-derivative: Deathly infection disease in West African countries.

“The filoviruses belong to a virus family named filoviridae. This virus can cause unembellished haemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman monkeys. In literature, only two members of this virus family have been mentioned, namely the Marburg virus and the Ebola virus. However, so far only five species of the Ebola virus have been identified, including: Ivory Coast, Sudan, Zaire, Reston and Bundibugyo.

“Among these families, the Ebola virus is the only member of the Zaire Ebola virus species and also the most dangerous, being responsible for the largest number of outbreaks.

“Ebola is an unusual, but fatal virus that causes bleeding inside and outside the body. As the virus spreads through the body, it damages the immune system and organs. Ultimately, it causes the blood-clotting levels in cells to drop. This leads to severe, uncontrollable bleeding.

Since all physical problems can be modelled via mathematical equation, Dr Atangana aimed in his research (the paper was published in BioMed Research International with impact factor 2.701) to analyse the spread of this deadly disease using mathematical equations. We shall propose a model underpinning the spread of this disease in a given Sub-Saharan African country,” he said.

The mathematical equations are used to predict the future behaviour of the disease, especially the spread of the disease among the targeted population. These mathematical equations are called differential equation and are only using the concept of rate of change over time.

However, there is several definitions for derivative, and the choice of the derivative used for such a model is very important, because the more accurate the model, the better results will be obtained. The classical derivative describes the change of rate, but it is an approximation of the real velocity of the object under study. The beta derivative is the modification of the classical derivative that takes into account the time scale and also has a new parameter that can be considered as the fractional order.

“I have used the beta derivative to model the spread of the fatal disease called Ebola, which has killed many people in the West African countries, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, since December 2013,” he said.

The constructed mathematical equations were called Atangana’s Beta Ebola System of Equations (ABESE). “We did the investigation of the stable endemic points and presented the Eigen-Values using the Jacobian method. The homotopy decomposition method was used to solve the resulted system of equations. The convergence of the method was presented and some numerical simulations were done for different values of beta.

“The simulations showed that our model is more realistic for all betas less than 0.5. The model revealed that, if there were no recovery precaution for a given population in a West African country, the entire population of that country would all die in a very short period of time, even if the total number of the infected population is very small. In simple terms, the prediction revealed a fast spread of the virus among the targeted population. These results can be used to educate and inform people about the rapid spread of the deadly disease,” he said.

The spread of Ebola among people only occurs through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a person after symptoms have developed. Body fluid that may contain the Ebola virus includes saliva, mucus, vomit, faeces, sweat, tears, breast milk, urine and semen. Entry points include the nose, mouth, eyes, open wounds, cuts and abrasions. Note should be taken that contact with objects contaminated by the virus, particularly needles and syringes, may also transmit the infection.

“Based on the predictions in this paper, we are calling on more research regarding this disease; in particular, we are calling on researchers to pay attention to finding an efficient cure or more effective prevention, to reduce the risk of contamination,” Dr Atangana said.

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