Category / REF Subjects

MaGMap: Mass Grave Mapping

conferences, international

Mapping projects related to mass atrocities and human rights violations are prevalent across the globe. Despite their often well-intentioned origins, there has been minimal practical research and subsequent output focused on what constitutes effective mapping. Furthermore, there is a lack of guidance on how to balance the pursuit of justice with the need to protect victims and affected communities. This raised an essential question: where, when and under what circumstances should mapping of mass graves be avoided or kept secret so that protection is not jeopardised?

 

In 2022, Professor Melanie Klinkner and Dr Ellie Smith secured Leverhulme funding to address this critical question. As of August 30th, 2024, the project’s output has been completed and is now available as an open-access resource for global use. The output is accessible both online and in a physical format, consisting of a comprehensive workbook accompanied by a set of removable tools designed to guide practitioners through the mapping process. These tools include:

 

  • Mapping Process Flowchart: The flowchart illustrates the life cycle of a mass grave, highlighting the key stages and considerations at each step, all guided by the protection of rights.

 

  • Mapping Decision Tree: Accompanying the flowchart, the decision tree highlights concerns and necessary actions that must be addressed before progressing with mapping at each stage.

 

  • Risk Register: This element assists in decision-making processes by enabling logging and evaluations of risks and subsequent mitigation strategies.

 

Upon completion of the research Dr Ellie Smith outlines that:

“Mapping mass graves in an open-source format has the potential to provide longer-term protection of the site, as well as a means of countering revisionism, but is not without risks. The aim of our MaGMap tools is to enable anyone involved in mass grave mapping to do so in a way that is safe for survivors, witnesses and the families of victims, and preserves the integrity of the site as a crime scene”.

 

For Professor Melanie Klinkner the finalisation of these resources means that:

“Theoretical, transferable foundations have been laid to inform continued research and current mapping of atrocity practices. In fact, much of what we have learned during the course of the project now guides our own approach to building a regularised global mass grave map. This is significant: it will enable us to fully appraise the scale and magnitude of mass graves across the world in a rights-compliant and safe manner”.

 

Dr Ellie Smith will be presenting the findings of MaGMap this week at the European Society of International Law Conference in Lithuania.

 

Congratulations to Heidi Singelton & Steve Ersser

Publishing, writing

In late August Heidi Singleton led the publication of a Cochrane Systematic Review under the title ‘Educational and psychological interventions for managing atopic dermatitis (eczema)’ [1].  The team conducting this review includes BU’s Prof. Steve Ersser, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust colleagues Dr. Andrew Hodder, former BU staff Prof. Vanessa Heaslip (currently at the University of Salford), and one of my co-authors on a previous project Dr. Dwayne Boyers from the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen.

In their review the authors conclude that in-person, individual education, as an adjunct to conventional topical therapy, may reduce short-term eczema signs compared to standard care, but there is no information on eczema symptoms, quality of life or long-term outcomes. Group education probably reduces eczema signs and symptoms in the long term and may also improve quality of life in the short term. Favourable effects were also reported for technology-mediated education, habit reversal treatment and arousal reduction therapy. All favourable effects are of uncertain clinical significance, since they may not exceed the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) for the outcome measures used.  Finally, they found no trials of self-help psychological interventions, psychological therapies or printed education. Future trials should include more diverse populations, address shared priorities, evaluate long-term outcomes and ensure patients are involved in trial design.

 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

Reference:

  1. Singleton, H., Hodder, A., Almilaji, O., Ersser, S. J., Heaslip, V., O’Meara, S., Boyers, D., Roberts, A., Scott, H., Van Onselen, J., Doney, L., Boyle, R. J., & Thompson, A. R. (2024). Educational and psychological interventions for managing atopic dermatitis (eczema). The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 8(8), CD014932. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD014932.pub2

First EPPOCH study paper accepted for publication

open access, Publishing, writing

This afternoon the editorial office of Frontiers in Psychiatry informed us that our manuscript “Prenatal maternal mental health and resilience in the United Kingdom during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A cross-national comparison” [1] has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Psychiatry, section Perinatal Psychiatry.   An interdisciplinary team from Germany, Canada and the UK designed and initiated a longitudinal pregnancy cohort in the United Kingdom titled Maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Effect of the Pandemic on Pregnancy Outcomes & Childhood Health (EPPOCH).    In the second half of  2020, we recruited 3,600 pregnant individuals via self-enrollment through our website ‘www.eppoch-uk.org’. Our EPPOCH study has since collected a wealth of validated questionnaire data at multiple time points, from mothers (during pregnancy and postpartum) and their children (from birth to age 3), and we are currently distributing our 4-year childhood follow-up questionnaire. This is the first paper from the EPPOCH study.

The UK team is a collaboration between Bournemouth University and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, the latter through Professor Minesh Khashu and Dr. Latha Vinayakarao based in Poole Maternity Hospital. The German team is led by Dr. Melanie Conrad, previously at Charité University Medicine Berlin, and now associated with the University of Augsburg, and includes Swarali Datye, PhD student at Charité University Medicine Berlin, whilst our Canadian collaborator, Alison MacRae-Miller, is based at the University of British Columbia, Victoria.  This EPPOCH cohort is closely linked with a sister cohort in Canada called the Pregnancy During the Pandemic (PDP) study.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

 

Reference:

  1. Datye, S., Smiljanic, M., Shetti, R.H., MacRae-Miller, A., van Teijlingen, E., Vinayakarao, L., Peters, E.M.J., Lebel, C.A., Tomfohr-Madsen, L., Giesbrecht, G., Khashu, M., Conrad, M.L. (2024) Prenatal maternal mental health and resilience in the United Kingdom during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A cross-national comparison, Frontiers in Psychiatry, (accepted).

Iridescent Spider Webs: BU NCCA Undergraduate Student Success at SIGGRAPH’24

conferences, Publishing, REF Subjects, staff profile pages, Student Engagement, student research

The 51st International Conference & Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH’24), the international annual conference for the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM, the world’s foremost computing society) was held in Denver, Colorado in August.

Among the work showcased at the conference was the poster “O, What an Iridescent Web We Weave: Rendering Physically Inspired Spider Webs for Visual Effects” by Vaya Simeonova (Grigorova) from this year’s graduating cohort (Computer Animation Technical Arts – CATA, Level 6) of the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA, Faculty of Media and Communication) and co-authored by Dr Eike Falk Anderson.

Poster presented at SIGGRAPH’24

The poster paper is based on Vaya’s final year Research & Development Project unit project “An Exploration of the Optical Properties of Spider Web Fibres”, which resulted in the development of a physically inspired method for rendering CG spider webs that display the iridescent properties, observable in real-world spider webs.

The method achieves this in a manner that does not require a computationally expensive and bespoke/proprietary software solution, but instead works with industry standard, off-the-shelf, visual effects (VFX) software, meaning it can effortlessly be integrated into existing VFX production pipelines. The project was also one of five submissions featured in the SIGGRAPH’24 “Posters Highlights” video.

After being accepted as one of the 70 posters presented at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference, the world’s Premier Conference & Exhibition on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques, Vaya’s contribution (poster 32), was invited to the first round of the prestigious ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) sponsored by Microsoft, shortlisted as a semi-finalists, and presented to a panel of experts in the SRC Final Presentation. The jury, who enjoyed Vaya’s presentation and appreciated her demonstrated knowledge of prior research, were impressed by her execution of the work and its practicality, for which they awarded Vaya the Second Place in the ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Student Research Competition in the undergraduate category.

Vaya Simeonova, presenting her poster (2nd place SRC, undergraduate category) at SIGGRAPH'24

After Ben Knowles (with Dr Oleg Fryazinov) who was awarded second place at SIGGRAPH’15 for “Increasing realism of animated grass in real-time game environments“, Teemu Lindborg and Philip Gifford (with Dr Oleg Fryazinov) who were semi-finalists at SIGGRAPH’17 for “Interactive parameterised heterogeneous 3D modelling with signed distance fields”, Quentin Corker-Marin (with Dr Valery Adzhiev and the late Professor Alexander Pasko) who achieved second place at SIGGRAPH’17 for “Space-time cubification of artistic shapes“, Bianca Cirdei (with Dr Eike Falk Anderson) who was awarded 1st place at SIGGRAPH’18 for her exceptional project “Withering fruits: vegetable matter decay and fungus growth” and Laura Mann (with Dr Oleg Fryazinov) who won second place at SIGGRAPH’19 for “3D printing for mixed reality hands-on museum exhibit interaction“, this is the first time since the start of the COVID’19 pandemic that an NCCA undergraduate student has progressed to the final round in this prestigious competition.

New publication Dr. Pramod Regmi

international, open access, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Pramod Regmi on the publication of his latest Open Access paper ‘Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life of Stroke Survivors in Southeast Communities in Nigeria’ [1].  Dr. Regmi is based in the Centre for  for Wellbeing & Long-Term Health.   The paper’s co-authors include Dr. Folashade Alloh, who completed her PhD studies at Bournemouth University a few years ago.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Adigwe GA, Alloh F, Smith P, Tribe R, Regmi P. Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life of Stroke Survivors in Southeast Communities in Nigeria. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2024; 21(9):1116. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21091116

New midwifery publication

NHS, PG research, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Joanne Rack on the publication today of her paper ‘Understanding perceptions and communication of risk in advanced maternal age: a scoping review (protocol) on women’s engagement with health care services’  [1].   Joanne is currently doing a Clinical Doctorate in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) focusing on personalised care for women of advanced maternal age.  Her doctoral study is matched-funded by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and Bournemouth University [BU].  Her PhD is supervised and supported by Profs. Vanora Hundley, Ann Luce and Edwin van Teijlingen at BU and Dr. Latha Vinayakarao in Poole Maternity Hospital.

Well done!

 

Reference:

  1. Rack, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E., Luce, A., Vinayakarao. L. (2024) Understanding perceptions and communication of risk in advanced maternal age: a scoping review (protocol) on women’s engagement with health care services, MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, 34(3): 201-204.

An interdisciplinary approach to thinking about pain

Congratulations to Professor Carol Clark, Dr Sujan Marahatta and Professor Vanora Hundley for their new interdisciplinary paper exploring the prevalence of pain catastrophising among women of reproductive age in Nepal.

It is well-acknowledged that there are multiple factors that contribute to constructing perceptions of pain – this paper explores previous pain experiences and the prevalence of pain catastrophising. The team found a high prevalence of pain catastrophising in Nepal, which could contribute rising obstetric intervention, particularly caesarean births, in Nepal.

The work is part of a programme of work looking at how best to support women during the latent phase of labour (early labour). You can hear more about this work by listening to a recent vodcast from Carol and Vanora:

Pain in Childbirth: An Interdisciplinary Approach – By: Prof. Vanora Hundley and Prof. Carol Clark (youtube.com)

BU e-health paper read 4,000 times

international, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Our paper ‘Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature’ [1] reached 4,000 reads on ResearchGate today.  Obviously, there is a growing interest in the use of mobile apps as well as the more general application of mHealth and eHealth in the UK and elsewhere.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Reference:

  1. Vickery, M., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Smith, G. B., Way, S., Westwood, G. (2020). Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature. European Journal of Midwifery, 4: 1-11. https://doi.org/10.18332/ejm/126625

Drowning prevention meeting for NIHR-funded study

international, PG research

This week our collaborators on the Sonamoni project traveled from Bangladesh and Uganda to Dorset for a set of research planning meetings.  The visitors represented CIPRB (The Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh) and DWB (Design without Borders).  They were hosted by colleagues from Bournemouth University, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) and from the University of Southampton.  Since Monday we managed to have an intensive week of design workshops, reviewing and incorporating local-community prioritised interventions for child drowning prevention (aged <2years) in Bangladesh.  I say ‘we managed’, but I have been at home all week with COVID-19.  The past few days I was beginning to feel quite well again, so I was unpleasantly surprised that I was still positive when I tested yesterday, and even more so this morning.  Consequently, missing the whole week working with our visiting collaborators.

The Sonamoni project recently presented its own video recording on YouTube,which you can watch here!

Sonamoni is a public health project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through its Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation programme. For more information, visit the NIHR website.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)