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The genetics of psychiatric disorders

Genetics

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at how a team of BU researchers are uncovering the genetics of psychiatric disorders.

While it has long been recognised that genetics – alongside environmental factors – play a role in developing psychiatric disorders, the function of individual genes is still largely unknown. But an international, multi-disciplinary team led by Bournemouth University’s Dr Kevin McGhee is aiming to uncover just that – using fruit flies to isolate and examine the genes involved in the development of schizophrenia, with the hope of improving knowledge and treatments for the condition.

“In psychiatric genetics, a lot of time and money has been invested in large, genomewide studies to find the genes that are involved,” said Dr McGhee, a Senior Lecturer in Health Sciences at Bournemouth University (BU). “Now, we want to find out what the functions of those genes are. If you can do that, the ultimate impact is that you can then design better treatments.” Dr McGhee is the principal investigator of the year-long project, working alongside colleagues from the National University of Ireland, Galway and University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Students are also playing a part in the Bournemouth University funded project, with a number of dissertation students trained to carry out lab-based examinations of the fruit flies. They will isolate and switch off genes that human data has previously indicated play a role in schizophrenia, before examining the effect on the flies’ nerve cells at different life stages.

“If we can prove that it works and can be applied to human psychiatric genetics, then it helps create a cheap and easy functional model that is beneficial to everyone,” explained Dr McGhee. “I believe what we find out from these genetic studies will help infer what is going on biologically, and that will ultimately lead to better treatment.”

Another strand of the research will help kickstart the use of psychiatric genetic counselling in the UK. Genetic counselling – where patients and relatives are given advice and support around the probability of developing
an inherited disorder – has long been used to assess the risks around conditions like Down’s Syndrome and certain cancers.

A psychiatric genetic counselling workshop – the first of its kind – is being held by the research team. It will explore how best to translate the increasing knowledge about the genetics of psychiatric disorders into educational and counselling-based interventions to improve outcomes for patients and their families.

“Genetic counselling will probably expand over the next ten or 20 years and we want to put BU at the forefront, as a UK leader in the field,” said Dr McGhee, adding that the workshop has already attracted interest from around the world. “I think people having that education and training to be able to explain and support people through diagnosis will lead to better treatments and help reduce that sense of stigma and guilt around
psychiatric disorders.”

Open access publishing is another way in which Dr McGhee believes that the wider public can benefit and learn from research projects. “Impact is really important for research and open access really helps to achieve that – as anyone can see it, whether they are students, doctors, charities, policy makers, whoever,” he said. “I think, hopefully, another impact of this work will be to better show where we are with this research, which again goes back to open access – helping people to see that there are hundreds of markers and hundreds of genes and they each have a very small effect.

“Ultimately, we want to educate the  healthcare professionals, policy makers and eventually the public – the patients and families who suffer from psychiatric diseases –
so that they are better informed.”

Derks EM, Vorstman JA, Ripke S, Kahn RS; Schizophrenia Psychiatric Genomic Consortium, Ophoff RA., 2012. Investigation of the genetic association between quantitative measures of psychosis and schizophrenia: a polygenic risk score analysis. PLoS One

This article appeared in the 2015 Bournemouth Research Chronicle. Download a copy of the magazine, or view the articles online.

Dr McGee is currently working on the HEIF funded project Psychiatric Genetic Counselling . The project is looking at improving UK psychiatric services by expanding local and regional healthcare professionals’ understanding of the role genetics plays in mental illness. Through Psychiatric Genetic Counselling they’re looking at empowering mental health sufferers and their families.

NVivo workshop and surgery – 23 March

Centre for Excellence in Learning, PG research

As part of the Graduate School’s Research Development Programme 2016/17, Jacqueline Priego from CEL will be delivering an NVivo workshop. Details below:

Date: 23 March 2017

Time: 14.00 – 17.00

Venue: S103

Bookings via myBU *

Audience: This workshop is suitable for PGRs with some knowledge of qualitative analysis approaches.

Intended learning outcomes. By the end of this workshop you should be able to:

• Confidently identify the main elements of the NVivo interface

• Open and create new NVivo projects

• Prepare and modify documents

• Create codes and code documents

• Rearrange the coding system

• Perform simple retrieval of coded documents

• Use annotation and linking tools.

If you are already using NVivo for your research, you might like to drop in for the last half an hour of the session, when an open surgery will be held.

Jacqueline Priego has been delivering CAQDAS workshops and training postgraduate students and researchers on qualitative analysis since 2010. She is also available for queries relating to MAXQDA and QDAMiner (not supported at BU).

*Spaces are limited due to room capacity – please book through myBU to avoid disappointment.

Conserving wildlife and tropical habitats in Indonesia

Mandy-Indonesia4-Copy-1100x500

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at the how researchers are working to conserve wildlife and tropical habitats in Indonesia.

In rainforests and tropical forests all across the world, deforestation, human activities and climate change are having a huge impact on both vulnerable eco-systems and the wildlife that depend on them for survival. For the last few years, researchers and students at Bournemouth University have been working in the remote forests of North Sumatra to find out what these changes mean on the ground.

LEAP (Landscape Ecology and Primatology) is led by Associate Professor Amanda Korstjens and Professor Ross Hill from BU’s Department of Life & Environmental Sciences (LES). They are supported by a number of postgraduate students.

In the tropical forests of northern Indonesia lies the Sikundur monitoring site, run by the Sumatran Orang-utan Conservation Programme (SOCP) which for several months of the year, is home to BU staff and students. From here, the team carry out research to understand changes in the forest and how this affects species such as orang-utans, siamangs, gibbons, Thomas’s langur monkeys and elephants.

Dr Amanda Korstjens explains the project: “It’s all about disturbances to the forest – both from humans and climate change – and how that affects the forest structure and carbon stock. We’re also exploring how different primates and elephants use the forest, depending on its structure and vegetation and how they respond to changes in their habitat.

“For example, if humans cut down hard wood trees, which are often the taller trees that siamangs, gibbons and Thomas’s langurs prefer for safe sleeping places, how does this affect their chances of survival? How does the extraction of mature fruiting trees affect primate densities? We’re looking at endangered primates that tend to live in very specific areas. They’re likely to be disproportionately affected by changes to their environment.”

Professor Ross Hill says: “We’re working in an amazing area of Indonesia, the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, which is the last place where you can still find Sumatran orang-utans, rhinos, elephants and tigers together. Changes to the environment and human activity, such as road building or the development of palm oil plantations, can have a huge effect on declining species.”

The project site is set up as a student learning platform, where PhD and Master’s research students spend several months carrying out their fieldwork. Some undergraduate students have had the opportunity to spend a short amount of time in the region, giving them an insight into future conservation careers. The elephant project has also included project work by three Indonesian Master’s students.

“It’s great for our undergraduates to get their first experiences of living and working in the tropics. It can be quite a daunting prospect to go alone, so travelling together as a group makes it much more manageable,” explains Dr Korstjens. “Our PhD students and postdoctoral researcher work on a variety of projects, using cutting edge technology including airborne laser scanning to assess the forest structure, as well as photography from drones.

“These data sets are very important as they enable us to see how the forest and vegetation are changing. One of the aims of our project is to find ways of gathering these data at a much lower cost, which is made easier by rapid changes in technology. As an example, we hope to be able to use photographic data from drones to measure carbon stocks rather than having to send people out into the forest to measure trees individually; the latter can be hugely expensive.”

These developments in technology are not only helping the advancement of science and research methods, but are also being used by local organisations in the area to monitor poachers and forest loss. Several now have their own drones, which enable them to keep watch over vast areas of forest and mean that eventually they may also be able to use the methods being developed by the LEAP team, especially by BU’s postdoctoral researcher Dr Cici Alexander as part of her European funded Marie SkŁodowska-Curie project.

The data gathered by Bournemouth University’s researchers is being fed back to local conservation organisations, such as the Leuser Conservation Forum (FKL), HAkA, and the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme of the YEL-PanEco consortium, BKSDA, and activists, including Rudi Putra, and Dr Nursahara (from the University of North Sumatra) and Dr Abdullah (from the Syiah Kuala University in Aceh). They are then able to use the results to change the way that conservation takes place in the area. It’s an ideal partnership as research teams are able to contribute their knowledge, while local people are able to make a difference in practice.

“We provide them with the data they need to be able to properly and effectively protect the forest and the animals,” explains Dr Korstjens, “They are involved in the management of the site and of the parks. They talk to the government and other local organisations in a way that we simply wouldn’t be able to.

“As an example, we’ve shown that there is a link between primate densities and forest structure. Old growth forests are likely to have a higher proportion of gibbons and siamang. We are measuring differences in temperature at different heights in trees located in more open and more dense forests and will be linking this to the behaviour and movement of orang-utans, gibbons and siamangs.”

One of the PhD students involved in the study, Chris Marsh, has shown that temperatures can differ by up to 10oC between locations. An increase in temperature is particularly noticeable when trees have been cut down, as the remaining trees are more exposed and become hotter. By demonstrating the link between the two, the team hope that local organisations will be able to make a difference to conservation and logging practices.

For more information, visit the project website: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/brc-go-leap.

This story featured in the 2017 Bournemouth Research Chronicle, which can be read in full here.

FHSS and ADRC Seminar ‘Using Technologies for Safer Walking: A Participative Inquiry’ Dr Brannelly (Uni of Soton)

You are cordially invited to the next Faculty of Health and Social Science (FHSS) and Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) joint seminar:

Using Technologies for Safer Walking: A Participative Inquiry

Dr Petula (Tula) Brannelly

Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton

21st June 2017 1-1.50pm

R301, Royal London House, Lansdowne Campus

This research project examines the use of GPS and other technologies that people with dementia and their families use to help with wayfinding and location. In this presentation, discussion will focus on data from police officers involved in missing person investigations, people with dementia and their families using the technologies; and the experiences of people using the technologies gathered using an ethnographic go-along interview approach, where a researcher goes out walking with the person using the technology. Tula will draw attention to the ethics of care approach to technology use for people with dementia and their families. Project website www.southampton.ac.uk/dementia-rights 

 

All staff and students welcome.

 

Biography

Dr Brannelly joined the University of Southampton as a Senior Research Fellow in November 2015 to work with Ruth Bartlett on the Using GPS with Care project funded by the Alzheimer’s Society. It is an interdisciplinary participatory project centralising the experiences of people with dementia and their families. From 2006 – 2015 Tula was a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Massey University in New Zealand, and before that a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Tula completed her PhD, ‘Citizenship and care for people with dementia’ at Birmingham in 2004. Prior to that Tula worked in mental health nursing roles with older people.

Tula’s interest in the ethics of care has sustained relationships with colleagues from the Universities of Brighton, Professor Marian Barnes and Dr Lizzie Ward, and Birmingham, Dr Nicki Ward, resulting in an edited collection to be published in October 2015, Ethics of Care, Critical Advances in International Perspectives, Policy Press. Whilst at Massey University in New Zealand, citizenship shaped by impacts of colonisation led Tula to consider ethics of care and collective cultures and to work with Maori. Tula has researched and published with Dr Amohia Boulton to understand more about the place of care in indigenous culture. PhD supervision has included Dr Stacey Wilson (Crisis intervention, Dean’s List) and Dr Sione Vaka (Tongan constructions of mental health; Sione is the first Tongan mental health nurse with a PhD, Health Research Council funded). Tula has also researched care workers and ethics at a dementia unit, completed a qualitative study of mental health service user activist priorities for change in mental health services (in NZ and UK), and evaluated the impact of antidiscrimination training on student nurses.

 

UKRO News

UKRO logoThrough BU’s subscription to UKRO, we have been advised of the following news items, which represent a ‘mere taster’ of all the updates provided by UKRO to their members.

 

To make full use of BU’s subscription to this service, why not register now?

  • Science With And For Society (SWAFS) Brokerage Event Presentations and Video are now available on the UKRO website.
  • The public consultation on the mid-term evaluation of the Erasmus+ programme is now open
  • The RISE Coordinators’ Day FAQ and Presentations are now available on the UKRO website
  • The White Paper – Future of Europe: Reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025 has been published by the European Commission
  • Improve your public engagement using the EU Guide to Science Communication
  • eHealth Week 2017 will have the theme Data for Health: the key to personalised sustainable care – Register for this event in Malta, 10-12 May.
  • Draft documentation for Secure Societies future calls is available to UKRO subscribers.

Please note: You will need to sign in or register as a BU staff member to access many of these items, as part of BU’s UKRO subscription. Links have only been given to resources in the public domain.

If considering applying to EU calls, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International, to access further support.

Innovation in sport: breaking through the white-water

Shelley3-1100x500It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking how we’re breaking down the barriers in kayaking for women.Kayaking originated as a method of hunting on rough seas for Arctic Inuit tribes. It was later popularised in the UK by Scottish sportsman John MacGregor, known as Rob Roy, who wrote about his many voyages in a canoe more than 150 years ago, before his death in Bournemouth in 1892.The sport has, ever since, exhibited a more male-dominated history, with only 18% of UK kayakers being female in 2013, according to figures from Sport England.An early career researcher at BU is researching the design of kayaks, focussing on understanding how anthropometric enhancements, such as seating height within the craft, can affect the performance and paddling efficiency of white-water kayaks for women. Shelley Ellis, an academic and Lecturer in Biomechanics and Performance Analysis, became interested in the subject as she saw the challenges facing women in kayaking first-hand.

“My research looks specifically at kayak sitting height – it’s about trying to identify whether adapting sitting height in a white-water kayak can make our paddle strokes more efficient. It’s really borne out of my personal background as a kayaker and the challenges I’ve faced,” explains Shelley.

Having been around the kayaking community for some time, Shelley had heard many coaches suggest that seating height should be raised in order to improve performance, but discovered that there was no follow-up guidance about how much to raise the seat by. It tends to be based on trial and error, rather than taking into account an athlete’s height, body shape and size.

“Because historically kayaks have been predominantly designed with male participants in mind and we can’t change that or make the kayak different at this point in time, we have to make what we have more accessible to all users,” says Shelley, “We already know that by altering sitting height it will effect a chain of contact points within the kayak, however we don’t know how high it has to be to improve efficiency overall.”

Women tend to have a shorter torso length and shorter arms, which gives them a smaller lever to paddle the boat through water. If the sitting height is changed, then this means women have a different torso height, enabling them to have better leverage when paddling.

“My research is all about making sport, in this instance kayaking, more accessible to female participants. The number of women taking part in kayaking is considerably lower than men, although the female population in kayaking is growing much faster than males.

“It’s really about breaking down those barriers on the basis that equipment wasn’t originally designed for women – sport should be accessible for everyone and can be with our scientific knowledge. If we’re able to say that based on height and arm span, for example, we are able to calculate an altered seat height to enable a kayaker to be more efficient, this can help them to progress to the next level of their sport.

“If you look back to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, there are many names of female athletes that come to mind, from Jessica Ennis-Hill and Laura Trott to Sarah Storey and Ellie Simmonds, these now well-known names are helping to change perceptions of what is and isn’t achievable. But these successes didn’t happen by accident – alongside incredible athletes, a lot of science and research has taken place and this has also helped to understand how equipment should be setup for each athlete.

With these role models, even more people are likely to get involved in sport. As all of kayaking’s history has come from a male background, what we now need is for manufacturers to catch up to the fact that it is becoming more popular for women.

“We’re very lucky in the way that we think at BU – we’ve got a lot of academics here who feel that research is important but are also keen to make it relevant and useful. We want to make sure that our research will be used by people and through engaging people with that process, we can ensure that it has a further reach in the long run.

“I’m supported by a local kayaking business, South Coast Canoes, who give me access to participants and a place to share my research directly with the kayaking population in the form of workshops and talks. It really motivates me to solve this ‘challenge’ that female kayakers face as there are people telling me that this research is important, and that they need the answers to move forward in the sport.”

This story featured in the 2017 Bournemouth Research Chronicle, which can be read in full here.

14:Live Presents- Festival Fear of Missing Out (FoMO): What is it and how can you manage it?

PG research, Student Engagement

14live

Come along on Tuesday 21 March at 2-3pm on Floor 5, Student Centre on Talbot Campus for the March edition of 14:Live.

Spring is fast approaching and festival season is just around the corner. Over the next few months you will be subjected to intense marketing campaigns from festival promoters, such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, who will be telling you not to miss out on this year’s music festivals.

Many of your friends will be sharing their excitement about going to these festivals on social media. Social media has heightened the sensation that everyone but us appears to be having fun and many people have become more sensitive to FoMO appeals.

In this 14:Live, Dr Miguel Moital will discuss the psychology of ‘Fear of Missing Out’. What emotions come with FoMO? What marketing tricks are used to heighten FoMO? How can these emotions be managed?

With drinks and snacks provided, this will be a session you won’t want to miss!

All staff and students are welcome!

Inaugural lecture: Performing hip replacements in space

Digital screen

Established in 2015, Bournemouth University’s Orthopaedic Research Institute (BUORI) is at the forefront of developing virtual reality training and robots that will allow surgeons to perform hip replacements in this world and beyond.

As part of his inaugural lecture, Professor Robert Middleton, Head of BUORI, will share his research into developing virtual reality training for surgeons, which allows them to practice in the space in front of them – or even in space!

After the lecture, you’ll have the chance to see some of the state-of-the-art training equipment being used by BUORI and even try your hand at virtual surgery.

Professor Middleton joined Bournemouth University in 2015, while continuing to practise as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and working as the Director of Trauma at Poole Hospital.  His extensive clinical experience helps to inform his research and the direction of Bournemouth University’s Orthopaedic Research Institute (BUORI).

Bournemouth University’s inaugural lecture series aims to celebrate new professorial appointments and the depth and breadth of research produced by the university.  For further information on the inaugural lecture series, please visit www.bournemouth.ac.uk/public-lecture-series

About the event

To book your free ticket, click here.

Venue: Executive Business Centre, Holdenhurst Road.

Date: Wednesday 12 April.

Time: 6:30pm for a 7pm lecture start.

Refreshments will be provided at the event.

For more information about the event, please contact Rachel Bowen at rbowen@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Busting three myths around elite sports performance

Image 20170309 21026 1pomdoe
Montserrat Alejandre/Shutterstock

Professor Tim Rees writes for The Conversation. For more information about writing for The Conversation, contact rbowen@bournemouth.ac.uk or newsdesk@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Creating high performance sportspeople is something like alchemy, and comes with the same baggage of half-thoughts, assumptions and quasi-quackery. But the research has moved on, and we can put to bed three powerful myths about building the ultimate athlete. The Conversation

The first of these myths is linked to the idea that “practice makes perfect”. This message has been passed down through generations as a fact and there is now much popular wisdom and misinformation, derived from a belief in a simplified number: 10,000 hours. But can it really be that easy? There is no question sportspeople must practice a lot to get to the top. But how much is enough? And can we all be world class with sufficient practice?

The 10,000 hours “rule” came out of work by a psychologist at Florida State University, Anders Ericsson. Popularised in books such as Bounce by Matthew Syed, and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, it has led to the belief that if you put in this amount of deliberate and focused practice you can reach elite levels of performance.

Relentless.
Blend Images/Shutterstock

Golden chance

But rather than needing 10,000 hours, there is now evidence that as few as 4,400 hours of deliberate practice may be sufficient to claim a gold medal in hockey, 4,500 hours to reach a top-tier European national football side, and just 4,000 hours to reach the highest levels in basketball and netball. Good news, then, for those with busy lives but a hankering for Olympic success.

Ericsson himself has emphasised that he did not intend a “rule” to be drawn from his research. He does though for the most part believe that practice is more important than genetics but would no doubt agree that to make it as a rower or basketball player, way above average height and limb length are a clear advantage.

And there is also intriguing evidence that genetics may more generally influence one’s suitability for endurance versus power events. Genetics may underpin key performance factors such as explosive strength, speed of movement, running speed, reaction time, flexibility and balance.

Therefore, although we can’t predict the world’s best athletes based on genetics, combinations of gene variants are likely to act in concert to influence the sport in which athletes are most likely to successfully compete. It is at that point that practice comes into play.

Developing a theme

The second myth is that you must be in a sport’s development programme from an early age to make it. Here I’d offer a cautionary tale to parents who feel pressured to drag their offspring all over the country to attend development squads, fearing this is the only route to the top.

The sporting landscape is littered with those who have relocated in pursuit of success never to fulfil their early promise, while at the same time halting opportunities for the development of other key attributes necessary for performance and life.

Although most world class sportspeople have been involved in athlete support programmes at some stage, the evidence suggests a very non-linear path to the top. There is frequent selection and de-selection from squads, rather than linear progression within athlete support programmes. But here’s the conundrum: while most talent identification systems use current junior performance as the main criterion for selection to a development programme, junior success does not reliably predict long-term senior success.

Prepare for hurdles.
Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock

Longitudinal studies with large samples of athletes across numerous sports have shown that the younger the first recruitment to a support programme, the younger the exit from the programme, and the higher the level of senior success, the later the age of first recruitment on to programmes.

In other words, the world’s best performers are recruited to support programmes significantly later than their less able counterparts. It’s important to stress then that early athlete support programmes are not the sole route to the development of talent. And furthermore, the world’s best sportspeople tend not to have progressed exclusively within one sport, but have practised multiple sports during childhood and adolescence.

In fact, the probability of attaining the highest level in sport is likely enhanced by the coupling of a large volume of intensive, organised specific training in the main sport with appreciable amounts of organised training and competitions in other sports.

Role models

The third myth is the concept of the happy, successful, champion that we should admire. The world’s best athletes are extraordinary, and we rightly marvel at their prowess and bask in their glory. Holding them up as role models to create a sporting and physical activity legacy is laudable.

What pushes people to fight for the top step on the podium?
Aizzul A Majid/Shutterstock

But with 307 golds available at Rio 2016 for a world population of 7.4 billion, Olympic champions are, by definition, abnormal. In fact, there is now growing recognition that the intense resilience, determination, and will to win of the world’s best performers can be driven by something altogether different from happiness. The cartoon strip Dilbert facetiously observed: “I would think that a willingness to practice the same thing for 10,000 hours is a mental disorder.” At the very least, it takes a certain mindset to cope and flourish in the harsh world of elite sport.

In fact, there is emerging evidence that this deep-seated need to win at all costs may be driven by early developmental adversity and obstacles, which leave an indelible mark on the sportsperson. Thus, although this level of determination and commitment is something we might rightly be in awe of, to think we could or should emulate it is unrealistic, unnecessary, and potentially damaging.

The route to the top in sport isn’t as simple as accrued hours or neat pathways. It likely entails many ups and downs both within and outside sport. We should beware a tendency to over-simplify past success, and in doing so, leave the door open to a renewed appreciation for the myriad ways in which elite level can be reached.

Tim Rees, Professor in Sport, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Edutainment 2017 – an international conference to be held in BU

conferences

The Department of Creative Technology, SciTech, is organizing 11th international conference on E-learning and Games (Edutainment), 26th ~ 28th June, 2017, at EBC, BU. Accepted papers will be published in book form in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. Authors of selected best papers will be invited to submit extended versions to be considered for publication in one of 4 journals. The conference covers broad topics, including education, online learning, game, animation, computer graphics, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), etc. More details here: http://www.edutainment2017.org.

  • Full paper submission deadline: 19th March 2017
  • Short paper (4 pages) submission deadline: 9th Apr 2017

In conjunction with the conference is also the 3rd Workshop for EU IRSES project on Next Generation Computer Animation Techniques, organized by NCCA. More details here: http://www.edutainment2017.org/workshops.

Energy: developing reliable renewable energy sources

BRC-Zulfiqar-energy-6-1024x500

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at how BU researchers are working to develop reliable and renewable energy sources.

As the world’s population continues to grow, so does our consumption of natural resources. Many of these resources are non-renewable, so research into renewable sources of energy is vital. Research led by BU’s Professor Zulfiqar Khan is tackling this issue through reducing corrosion, improving heat transfer and fluid dynamics, and using nano coatings to enhance surface effiencies in renewable energy systems.

The European Union’s (EU’s) Renewable Energy Directive states that the EU should be producing 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020; a challenging target for any country. Professor Khan’s research is a direct response to this initiative and to the challenge of finding sustainable and renewable ways of meeting our future energy needs. His research is supported by a team of PhD students, many of whom are fully or part funded by industry and international HEI partners.

One of his major areas of focus is developing solar thermal technology, solar energy is available abundantly due to its nature. “Currently, we are very reliant on Solar Photovoltaic for our solar panels, but we do not have a large supply of the materials used, so using it won’t be sustainable over a long period,” explains Prof Khan. “I am developing means of using readily available and sustainable materials to be applied in flat plate solar thermal systems through a combination of thermofluids with nano additives and efficient thermal storage, which will help meet our future energy needs. I am also looking at ways to move away from standalone panels to integrating them within standard building practices.”

Professor Khan explains the different components in the system: “There are four parts to this system. One part focuses upon generating heat for colder climates, while within warmer climates it focuses on generating electricity. The third part of the project looks at thermo-fluids, with the aim of improving the efficiency of fluids within the solar energy system. The final part will be the integration of heat storage and recovery system from waste.”

At the moment Professor Khan and his team of PhD students and Post Docs are testing the system for generating electricity in warmer climates. Funding from industry has allowed Professor Khan and his team to set up labs in Poole, which include a scale model of the solar thermal system – an invaluable tool for testing. The first two phases of heat generation in cold climates and generating electricity in warmer climates have been successfully commissioned. The third and fourth phase of optimisation of thermo-fluids and heat storage are in progress.

The very nature of the programme and its complexity means that an interdisciplinary approach is vital. Professor Khan’s research combines materials sciences (nano coatings), mechanical engineering (heat transfer and thermodynamics), and electrochemistry (corrosion). “It is the combination of several subjects and disciplines which guarantees the delivery of objectives of this very challenging and exciting programme, which will put BU in particular and the UK in general on the international map as a leader in developing clean energy technologies,” says Professor Khan. “This is why we shouldn’t shy away from other disciplines as it can bring huge benefits and opportunities to research which will give it originality, significance and reach.”

The research and its interdisciplinary nature has the potential to make a significant difference to society as it presents a solution to one of the biggest challenges now facing us – how to meet our current and future energy needs. “I think we can learn to do without many things, but without energy, life as we know it would not be the same,” says Professor Khan. “With our current levels of consumption and the non-renewable sources we are using, our energy sources won’t last forever. If we look to the future, our energy reserves used at our current rates will last us perhaps another 50 – 60 years for oil and gas, and coal another 100 years. What are we going to do when that runs out?”

You can read Professor Khan’s most recent publication on Thermodynamic modelling and analysis of a solar organic Rankine cycle employing thermofluids here

You can find more of Professor Khan’s publications on his staff profile.

The team would like to thank UK and International industry as well as HEI partners for providing funding and resources to enable their research to take place.

Bournemouth University students to present their research in Parliament

student research

Bournemouth University students, Georgia Robertson and Jordan Ezra, will be presenting their research in Westminster as part of the annual ‘Posters in Parliament’ event.  Around 40 undergraduates from universities all over the UK will be presenting their research to politicians, policy makers and fellow students.

As a country, we face a number of big challenges – energy provision, health and wellbeing, as well as issues such as sustainability – all of which research can help solve.  Posters in Parliament is designed celebrate the research of some of the UK’s undergraduates, as well as highlighting the achievements of the next generation of researchers, some of whom may well go on to tackle some of our biggest challenges.

Georgia Robertson, an Events & Leisure Marketing student, will be presenting her research into business-to-business marketing, which she began while on her placement year.

“Over the years, email marketing has developed a negative stigma, perhaps because of an increase in unsolicited contact in an attempt to generate businesses leads.  These are known as lead generation emails.  This stigma has led to a dramatic drop in engagement in business-to-business email marketing campaigns, which means it’s important for those involved in the campaigns to know how to optimise their success,” explains Georgia.

“I analysed data from over 500 lead generation email campaigns from my placement to see which variables influenced the success of those campaigns.  These included the subject line, email content and the links in the email.  By exploring these variables, I was able to identify the factors that led to success in email marketing campaigns, which I hope will be useful to businesses trying convert email contacts into customers.”

Jordan Ezra is a Digital Media Design student.  For his final year dissertation, he chose to explore the gradual dissolution of human rights by different world governments and intelligence agencies.

“I’m interested in current world events and particularly how the erosion of human rights has been justified by events of the last 20 years.  My research has shown that it’s becoming more difficult to tell the truth – an interesting conclusion, given the rise of ‘fake news’ stories,” says Jordan.

“By analysing events of the last 20 years, I found that legislation across the world is limiting our human rights through increased surveillance and co-operation with corporations, among other issues.  My analysis showed that the justification for this dissolution is related to events such as September 11 Twin Towers attacks and subsequent war on terror.  There’s an increasingly blurred line between privacy and security, which is beginning to spark debates around the need for more transparent democracies.”

Georgia and Jordan will be presenting their research in Parliament on 14 March.  Posters in Parliament is part of the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR), which Bournemouth University will be hosting in April.  If you’d like to attend and support some of the BU students presenting their research at BCUR, please register on Eventbrite here.

Coping with stress and anxiety: Health and well-being for researchers

Training

Focus on themesMessage from Vitae:

“We all know that being a researcher can be very satisfying, but it often comes at a price of high levels of stress and anxiety. It could be the pressure of deadlines, writers block or dealing with fixed term contracts, or perhaps the anxiety of not knowing where your next steps will take you. Research can also be isolating and hard on your self-confidence and motivation. Good mental health and well-being can help researchers deal with the stresses of life in academia and make the most of the opportunities around them whatever their future may hold.

Join us for a Google Hangout to learn more about looking after your own mental health and well-being and hear from researchers share their experiences of balancing life and research”.

For further details, please see the Vitae website.