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Workshop Metastable Dynamics of Neural Ensembles. Paris, 18th of July 2013

This workshop will take place this summer in Paris and will have the participation of five of the most recognized European experts in neural modelling. The context is the 23th conference on Computational Neuroscience; perhaps the most prestigious international meeting specialized in this topic, which alternates between Europe and America on a yearly basis (other conferences have mainly a national scope). For the workshop organization we are having the constant support and collaboration of Professor Hamid Bouchachia of BU.
A couple of weeks ago I was thinking on how we would fund the workshop expenses. I mentioned my concern about this to my colleague and director of our Smart Technology Center, Professor Bogdan Gabrys. He strongly encouraged me to apply to the internal European funding schemes. That was a good advice, and thanks to the EUNF funding scheme of BU now I am able to organize the workshop jointly with Professor Gustavo Deco and I am writing this. If you have a similar idea I think you really need to try, response in either way is very, very quick and just takes a short time to apply. You can find the documents in this same blog.
The topic of the workshop is metastable dynamics of neural ensembles. Metastability is a term used in several research areas such as statistical physics; loosely speaking refers to states which are stable but only for a limited time span. We will discuss about the following question: Is the traditional view on brain activity dynamics, in which the cognitive flow of information wanders through multiple stable states driven by task-dependent inputs, still a robust model? This picture has been recently challenged both empirically and from the modelling perspective.
For instance, in several contemporary models, intrinsic noise drives default transitions between cortical states, even in the absence of external stimuli. This model explains a range of puzzling phenomenology such as the intrinsic fluctuations of neural activity observed in functional magnetic resonance imaging when subjects are not performing a task (the so-called resting state). According to these models, cortical noise, commonly regarded as irrelevant, has a fundamental role [1, 2]. But there are completely different metaphors of transient brain dynamics where noise is not an essential ingredient: These models are rather based on complex dynamical objects which explain how metastable states could be mapped to cognitive entities even without the intervention of noise or external inputs [3].

In our woskshop, we will have the contribution of advocates of those two complementary perspectives, as well as a rich representation of different neural models and analyses of neural recordings during perceptual and cognitive processing [4].

[1] Deco, G.,and Jirsa, V. (2012). Ongoing cortical activity at rest: criticality, multistability and ghost attractors. J. Neurosci. 32, 3366–3375.
[2] Deco, G.,Jirsa, V. and McIntosh, A.R. (2011). Emerging concepts for the dynamical organization of restingstate activity in the brain. Nat.Rev. Neurosci. 12, 43–56.
[3] Rabinovich, M., Huerta, R., and Laurent, G. (2008). Transient dynamics for neural processing. Science 321, 48–50.
[4] Balaguer-Balllester, E. Lapish, C., Seamans, J. K. and Durstewitz, D. (2011). Attracting Dynamics of Frontal Cortex Ensembles during Memory-Guided Decision-Making. PLoS Comput Biol. 7(5): e100205.

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PhD Student from DEC presenting at the House of Commons, Westminster London

Mayank Anand a Post-Graduate Research Student at School of Design, Engineering & Computing, BU has been selected by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee to present his research work to the Members of both Houses of Parliament at Westminster during National Science and Engineering week. In the current research, Mayank is working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), Head Quartered at Poole, Dorset. The project involves examining the real-time quality of lubricants used in lifeboats of RNLI. This is an industry based PhD in which he spent part of the time at the RNLI HQ working closely with engineering team. The research is also in-kind supported by BP Technology Centre, Pangbourne U.K.

Mayank said, “I see this upcoming event as a great opportunity for an early-stage researcher like me, where one can showcase his/her work and ideas alongside getting invaluable feedback from the judges. Networking will be an added bonus”. He added “the support from the supervisory team at university including Prof Mark Hadfield, Dr Ben Thomas, Sustainable Design Research Team, and the RNLI has been a key in producing good research outputs and gaining confidence to present to a wider mass”.
At the event, Mayank will also be competing against 60 other participants within Engineering and Science session for the prestigious Engineering Medal and 180 others for Westminster Medal for the overall winner as a part of National Competition.

BU to host 35th meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group!

BU will host the 35th meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) on the 16-18 December 2013. TAG is a lively international meeting that promotes debate and discussion of issues in theoretical archaeology.

BU last held TAG back in 1997, a meeting that is still remembered for its strong international profile and also some rather disruptive snow-showers! This year we anticipate 300-400 delegates, many of whom will be undergraduate and postgraduate students. Indeed, TAG 

 is rather unique in the sense it is run by students (overseen by faculty) for students. It presents a valuable opportunity to fuse academic research with student learning, exploring new and topical ideas and showcasing original work.

More details will be posted in due course by event-leader Professor Timothy Darvill.

EU resources at BU

This is just a quick reminder of the resources we at BU to help you with an EU submission.

  • Copies of submitted proposals on the I drive  I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\European Related\Successful EU proposals
  • Blogposts featuring tips on writing a proposal from our successful award holders as Rudy Gozlan and Bogdan Gabrys 
  • Presentation slides from UKRO and our EU showcase presenters  I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\European Related

I also wanted to remind you that if you are thinking of making a submission, it is imperative to let your R&KEO Senior Officer know as early as possible to enable them to complete the relevant documentation, obtain signed contracts and provide costings etc.

We have a wealth of EU knowledge, experience and resource so do get in touch!

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BFX

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

In November 2012 the VFX Hub – a HEIF funded initiative from BU and AUB, launched BFX, a 5-day festival of Animation and Visual Effects that will be held annually in Bournemouth.

One of the highlights of BFX will be a competition which aims to discover the best new talent in Visual Effects and will run from July to mid August 2013, with the winners being announced during the festival in September. Competitors will be expected to form teams of 4-6 members and will have to submit a written creative and technical treatment that explains in detail how they intend to produce an animated or VFX sequence in answer one of five specific briefs. Following the recent award of Fusion Funding the VFX Hub team will be presenting BFX to an international audience at FMX in Stuttgart during April, as well as pitching the competition to Animation and VFX students at several other UK Universities in the coming weeks – with the aim of attracting teams from at least 8 other institutions. The teams will live on campus at BU free-of-charge for the duration of the competition and each member will receive a £70 per week stipend towards their cost of living expenses. The work produced by the teams will mentored throughout the 6-weeks by professionals from Soho VFX companies Framestore, Double Negative, Cinesite, MPC and The Mill.

The rest of the festival itinerary will be updated on the website as events, venues and personalities are confirmed; it will include master classes, workshops, screenings, an exhibition and advice on careers and education.

At an early stage in your research career? Then come to one of our ECR Forums!

Training

Last year we ran a series of forums for academic colleagues who are at an early stage in their research career.  You can find out more about the September session here

The forums are an open, informal sessions where you can meet with experienced academics and members of R&KEO to discuss anything you like to do with research. From publications to projects to funding to research strategy we will be on hand to help and advise.  Going forward we plan to hold these forums on a School by School basis.  If you would be interested in attending one of these events, please contact Nikki Gloyns here.

The next forum will be a Media School event and will be held on 27 March 2013 from 12:30 – 15:00 on Talbot Campus.  If you wish to attend the Media School forum, please contact Nikki Gloyns to book. Lunch will be provided so booking is essential.

Definitions of BRIAN and BURO

Guidance

Clarification is required of what BRIAN is and what BURO now does.

BRIAN

BRIAN (Bournemouth Research Information And Networking) is BU’s publication management system.  Staff can manage their research outputs on BRIAN, as well as other information such as biography, academic group, memberships, website and social media links, plus many more options.  Information input to BRIAN will be displayed in the BU staff profile web pages.  BRIAN enables a single point of data entry which will enable research information to be used in multiple places.  It will also enable BU to meet Research Excellence Framework (REF) requirements by improving administrative efficiency and data accuracy.  All academic staff automatically have a login and you can access it with your normal university username and password (you don’t need to add staff\ in front of your username).  Help and guidance can be found on the system and via the documents below.  If you have any problems accessing the system or you have any queries please contact BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

If you require any help with BRIAN, please contact BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

BURO

Bournemouth University Research Online [BURO] is the University’s Institutional Repository. BURO is supported by Eprints software. It gives access to academic outputs created by Bournemouth University staff and researchers. Where available BURO contains open access full text of unpublished works (pre-prints) and the author’s version of published works (post-prints).  BURO is located at http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk – it has a well-designed interface and is easy to use. BURO is open to anyone to search, however, only Bournemouth University staff and researchers can contribute material.  Material is contributed to BURO via BRIAN.  BURO contains records of outputs with full-text attached – a full list of outputs can be viewed in the BU staff profile web pages http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/.

If you require help assessing whether an open access version of your work can be contributed to BURO please contact your Subject Library Team or SAS-BURO@bournemouth.ac.uk .

I will shortly be updating the FAQ’s for BRIAN and so watch this space.

PGR Mentoring Skills Workshops – new dates announced

PG research

Are you involved in mentoring within your School – or would you like to be?

Many people find themselves with this role and sometimes feel unprepared as if they are “making it up” as they go along. Being involved as a Mentor can be one of the more satisfying aspects being a PGR and also provide you with valuable skills and insights to apply to your own career development.

Mentoring can provide practical tools enabling you to get the best out of people – starting with yourself – and this experience can contribute to building your CV.

At the end of this session participants will

  • Be clear about the roles and responsibilities of being a mentor
  • Be clear about the support available to you as Mentor
  • Have verbal and non-verbal skills to build rapport

You have a choice of two dates:

Monday 4th March 2013 – 2 pm – 5 pm – PG146 – Thomas Hardy Suite – Poole House, Talbot OR
Tuesday 5th March 2013 – 9.30 am – 12.30 pm – EB202 – Executive Business Centre – Lansdowne

Numbers are restricted, so book early to avoid disappointment!  Email your preferred date to: gsbookings@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

 

 

Do you want to put science in the headlines?

If you do then the British Science Association Media Fellowships are for you.

The scheme offers a free and unique professional development opportunity for practising researchers to experience first-hand how science is reported by spending 3-6 weeks on a summer placement with a press, broadcast or online journalist such as the Guardian, The Times or BBC.

You will work with them to produce well informed, newsworthy pieces about developments in science.

Come away better equipped to communicate your research to the media, public and your colleagues.

You will develop writing skills that could help you produce concise and engaging articles and funding applications.

For details about the scheme and online application form, visit the British Science Association website.  Application deadline is 11 March 2013.

To be eligible to apply for the Media Fellowships scheme you have to fulfil the following criteria:

  • are a practising scientist, social scientist, clinician or engineer and have a minimum of 2 years postgraduate experience in your field. PhD students are eligible although we don’t recommend it due to the heavy workload.
  • are employed, and based, part or full time in the UK or Ireland and you have a work contract/ research funding until December 2013. If you are not a UK or Irish citizen you need to have a work contract until June 2014.
  • work at any level in an academic or research institution, industry, civil service or any other similar organisation
  • have your employers/funders consent to be released on full pay for the period of the Fellowships. Annual leave may be used for part of the placement.

Unfortunately the British Science Association ARE NOT able to offer Media Fellowships to freelancers, those who work in PR or communications, or those who want to change career full time into science communication.

 

REF2014 module on BRIAN

Research assessment

With the preparation for the BU REF Spring 2013 Full Mock Exercise in full swing, the deadline for nominating your Research Outputs on the REF2014 module on BRIAN is looming up.

In a previous blog post, we shared with you the official guidance document on making your NRO (nominated research output) selection. The REF2014 module is extremely straightforward and intuitive. The guidance note will provide you with a step-by-step instruction on nominating your research outputs.

If you find that the REF2014 module is missing from your BRIAN account, please get in touch with Peng Peng Ooi (pengpeng.ooi@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Rita Dugan (rdugan@bournemouth.ac.uk) and we’ll be able to help you.

Fusion supports new collaborative research project about the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro

Fusion

 “Hello, hello, band from Ipanema – big hug! Hello, hello, girl from the favela – big hug!”. These are the lyrics of ‘Aquele Abraço’ (That Embrace), an iconic song in the samba genre performed at the closing ceremony of London 2012 to mark the transition for the Rio 2016 Olympics. The song celebrates all the neighbourhoods of the city, the wealthy Ipanema, but also the favelas (slums or shantytowns) by ‘sending a hug’, a form of friendly greeting in Brazil. It can be inferred that, just like the song, the Olympics are embracing the whole city and vice-versa. But how can mega-events such as the Olympics be truly socially inclusive? To what extent are the perspectives of the city’s impoverished communities being taken into account – being heard and seen – in the decision making process?

A new research project sets out to investigate issues of social inclusion, marginality and the ways in which the residents experience the on-going transformations of the city during the preparations for the Olympics through the senses of hearing and seeing. Funded by the Fusion Staff Networking and Mobility (SMN) fund, Dr Andrea Medrado, from the Media School, will travel to Rio de Janeiro in May 2013 in order to establish collaborations between Bournemouth University and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Whilst in Rio, Andrea will work with UFRJ’s Community Communications Studies Lab (LECC- Laboratório de Estudos de Comunicação Comunitária), which is led by Professor Raquel Paiva and is one of the most prominent in this field in the country. She will then share some of the lessons learned from the communities in Rio with students at BU, particularly those with an interest in social communications and community or student-led media. The project also has the participation of Dr Carrie Hodges and Dr Janice Denegri-Knott, who specialise in emerging promotional cultures in Latin America and are members of BU’s Emerging Consumer Cultures Research Group.

Besides developing stronger ties with universities in Brazil, the goal is to liaise with the Brazilian Olympic Committee, NGOs and the city hall of Rio de Janeiro in order to share research findings and insights. If you would like more information about this project, please contact Andrea Medrado at amedrado@bournemouth.ac.uk. Along with many colleagues in the Media School, she is also keen on initiating a cross-school research group on the Olympics and Paralympics.

Transfer viva? Only 10 000 words(!)

PG research

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

 

Preparing for your transfer viva – a mere 10 000 words and a separate 500 abstract.

After a bit of nudging from a few staff @HSC-BU, I thought to write a short on how to prepare for the transfer viva. I had mine in Dec 2012 and these are few things at the time that helped and a few I got the hang of post-viva. By now you should have done an RD6 and 1 Annual Review. These forms, available from your school administrator, help you put down what you are going to do for the next few years (sigh) and how you will ‘physically’ do it (double sigh). When I started my transfer viva, I took (i.e. copy and pasted) a lot of what was in my RD6 research plan and used it as the skeleton in order to write the 10000 words. I then looked at the BU PhD bible  – Code of Practice for Resarch Degrees booklet and borrowed a transfer viva from the school admins. The older ones  helped me for structure and format. And the same rules apply, be concise and write you abstract last.

The timeline for transfer from MPhil to PhD is usually a  year/and a half after you start (or submit your RD6, 24-36months for PT), once you hand it in, after your supervisors are ‘happy’, you will have a month before your viva. Have a chat with your school admin (for HSC, it is Paula Cooper and Sara Glithro), and your supervisors as they will read it, then look for examiners (2), an independent chair and a supervisor (if you wish; I asked mine, you don’t have to, so as to gain feedback, as he also took notes and could comment on my ‘performance’; all towards the final viva). There is a one page form that you and your supervisors need to fill in, hand in duplicates of form and of bound thesis and done. Not quite.

Take it very ‘seriously’, I took it for granted once written and discussed you would carry on the PhD (this is not always the case read the BU PhD bible), the quality of the document and performance in the viva voce matters. It should ressemble as much as possible the ‘final product’. Once you hand in your 10 000 words, read it the week before or the night before. I was really nervous but the best piece of advice I got was ‘go in and talk’ – you know your work the ‘best’: so pretend like you want your best friend to understand your work. A few things I could have done better? Better writing, made sure I did not repeat myself and written it more as a ‘story’. Using power point where each slide helps you plan what you will write. For me the viva was the best time to say this is my work and to gain (brutal) feedback from people from a similar field as it gives you time to plan your final product. One major thing I realised I needed to put my study in context and what it means to ‘science’.

Essentially it looked something like this:

  • Title page (Name, Title, Supervisors, School, University)
  • Acknowledgements (Thank you to your supervisors, school, funders…)
  • Abstract (500 words)
  • Table of contents (in a table with invisible borders)
  • List of Abbreviations (in a table with invisible borders)
  • Introduction (which is your literature review)
  • Research Plan: Methodology and justification of method(s) used (your literature review will help here)
  • Aim and Objectives – which are drawn from your research question
  • Progress to date: Research contribution to the field (a PhD means a new contribution to the field or new tools); Findings (Here – I only included the findings that I had ‘cleaned’ for the final table and I was sure I would be able to discuss if asked) and a discussion of your findings.
  • Ethical considerations (Ethics body and in the appendix letter of ethics body);
  • Conclusion & future work (what I infer from what is done so far and how it will lead to the next stage).
  • Reference list
  • Appendix (Tables, survey questionnaire, letters…)

Start with the ‘niggly’ bits, making sure your endnoteTM lets you insert during cite and write (the librarian can help you with this if you haven’t done the course, Emma Crowly for graduate school). So that it should only take a click to insert your bibliography as BU Harvard. I chose headings in the layout so that when I write my final thesis it will be a matter of adding heading and sub-heading titles. So for the table of contents: Use a table from excel or use Home>Headings, e.g. Heading 5. Abbreviations can be sorted with the function ‘sort’ in WordTM.

A few useful resources for writing:

Good luck!

Research related brochures from the EC to download

The European Commission has published eight new, mostly environment-related, brochures that provide an overview of the challenges faced in each research area, as well as what EU-funded research is doing to address them. The brochures, which can be downloaded from the Commission’s  website, cover the following themes:

Biodiversity

Environment and Health

International Cooperation

Marine Environment

Natural Hazards and Disasters

Social Innovation for Sustainability

Soil and Sustainable Land Use Management Waste as a Resource.

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Research Professional

Guidance

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

26th February 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/267446504 

26th March 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/518275168 

23rd April 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/255287520 

28th May 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/806064201 

25th June 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/492839664 

23rd July 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/771246561 

27th August 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/398714217 

24th September 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/882372120 

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.