Category / REF Subjects

SDRC newly appointed visiting professor

Fusion

SDRC has developed significant portfolio of industrially funded research, national and international collaborations and visiting faculty. BU has recently appointed Professor Bob Cripps as visiting professor.

He is currently a Director of Longitude Consulting Engineering part of London Offshore Consultants (LOC) which was established to provide independent, high quality marine and engineering consultancy to the shipping and offshore industries.

Professor Cripps was previously Director Engineering College for BAE Systems Surface Ships responsible for developing and maintaining BAE Systems Surface Ships academic and engineering reputation as being world class and he was responsible for setting up University Technology Partnerships at six key UK universities.

Prior to this, Professor Cripps was Technical Director at VT Halmatic responsible for all technical aspects including boat design/engineering and composite development. He was Engineering Manager at RNLI for 18 years responsible for the design and development of all classes of lifeboat (offshore and inshore), launching equipment and moorings. He was instrumental in the development of the latest generation of lifeboats namely, Severn, Trent, Tamar and Atlantic 85 class lifeboats. He was also responsible for all research and development undertaken by the RNLI and he established the Advanced Technology Partnership between the RNLI and the University of Southampton in 2000.

Professor Cripps is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the Principles of Engineering Design at the University of Southampton. He is well known for his work in the design and development of small craft and the use of composite materials in marine applications and this was recognised with the award of an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Bournemouth University in 2005. Particular areas of interest and expertise are the development and integration of methods and processes to enable designers to utilise latest technical developments simply at an early stage of the design process.

Professor Cripps was instrumental in introducing different NDE methods into the construction and in-service inspection of composites hulls and this was recognised by The British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing with the 2002 NEMET Award for outstanding examples of effective use of NDT.

He was a Senior Ship Surveyor with Lloyds Register of Shipping for nearly 13 years in the Research and Development Group and the Plan Approval Department. Graduating in 1976 from University of Southampton with a BSc.(Hons) Ship Science, Professor Cripps is also a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (FRINA), Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (FIMarEST), Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI), a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and European Engineer (EurIng).

If you would like to know more about the SDRC academic activity, please contact

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director SDRC

South Asian midwifery at ICM 2014

Publishing

Photo from UNFPA Lao PDR

In early June I published a short overview of Bournemouth University’s contribution to the ICM (International Congress of Midwives) conference in Prague (Czech Republic) (see: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/05/cmmph-strong-presence-at-icm-conference/ ).  In addition we highlighted the Nepal contribution in a separate BU Research Blog (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/03/46-sharma-s-sicuri-e-belizan-jm-van-teijlingen-e-simkhada-p-stephens-j-hundley-v-angell-c-getting-women-to-care-in-nepal-a-difference-in-difference-analysis-of-a-health-prom/ ).   Today a belated update of our presence at the Special Session on South Asian Midwifery at the ICM conference last month, as I just received photos from our friends at UNFPA Lao PDR.

South Asia posters at ICM conference (photo: UNFPA Lao PDR)

One of the speakers at the South Asian Midwifery session was our friend Kiran Bajracharya, president of the Midwifery Society of Nepal (MIDSON).  Several of our posters describing our work in Nepal were on display.  Bournemouth University friends were involved in the organisation of the event, such as Swedish midwife Malin Bogren and the editor of the newly launched midwifery journal Journal of Asian Midwifery, Dr. Rafat Jan. The session was concluded by another BU collaborator Petra the Hoope-Bender of Integrare.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Rich-cores in networks

The next of our research seminars will take place on Wednesday the 23rd of July, 14:00 at PG10 (Poole House)

Our guest speaker is Dr Athen Ma, Senior Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London; Invited by our colleague Dr Darius Krol

The title of her exciting talk is “Rich-cores in networks”  a topic which is of wide interest way beyond computing ; for instance in areas such as Social Networks, Biology etc.

Abstract: “A core comprises of a group of central and densely connected nodes which governs the overall behaviour of a network, and it is recognised as one of the key meso-scale structures in complex networks. Profiling this meso-scale structure currently relies on a limited number of methods which are often complex and parameter dependent or require a null model, and as a result, scalability issues are likely to arise when dealing with very large networks together with the need for subjective adjustment of parameters. The notion of a rich-club describes nodes which are essentially the hub of a network, as they play a dominating role in structural and functional properties. The definition of a rich-club naturally emphasises high degree nodes and divides a network into two subgroups. Here, we develop a method to characterise a rich core in networks by theoretically coupling the underlying principle of a rich-club with the escape time of a random walker. The method is fast, scalable to large networks and completely parameter free. In particular, we show that the evolution of the core in World Trade and C. elegans networks correspond to responses to historical events and key stages in the physical development respectively.”

I very much encourage to the persons interested in the topic to attend. Coffee and cakes will be served.

Best wishes, Emili

Emili Balaguer-Ballester, PhD

Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University

Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg

Wellcome Trust Grant Success for Dr. Anna Feigenbaum

CMC Media School Lecturer and CEMP Fellow, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, was awarded a Wellcome Trust Small Grant in Medical Humanities for her project ‘Communicating Medical Knowledge in the History of Tear Gas’. Aiming to inform new medical knowledge about tear gas, as well as provide resources for policy-makers and key stakeholders, this research project examines changing and contested notions around the health effects of tear gases for law enforcement purposes. Using a case study approach and archival methods, the project explores how medical experts have communicated medical knowledge around tear gas, shaping policies and legislation, from the Geneva Convention to the European Union ban on trade in instruments of torture. Outputs for this project include a contracted book with Verso and an open access website of tools and resources. Dr. Feigenbaum’s work on tear gas has been quoted in the Guardian, The Financial Times, New Internationalist and Vice magazine, as well as in international publications in Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey and Italy. Dr. Feigenbaum is always interested in building new interdisciplinary collaborations. If you are interested in this area of research, be in touch! afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk

CoPMRE Eleventh Annual Symposium: Impact in Healthcare Research and Education’

The Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education are hosting their Eleventh Annual Symposium on Tuesday 14 October 2014.

The event will focus on developments and activities around impact in healthcare research and education. It will explore impact from the perspectives of the public, the research funder, the university, the provider, the student and the medical educator.

Speakers include:

  • Professor Trish Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care and Dean for Research Impact, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry
  • Simon Denegri, Chair INVOLVE
  • Natalie Carter, Head of Research Liaison and Evaluation, Arthritis Research UK
  • Jonathan Grant, Director, Kings Policy Institute.

This symposium is suitable for primary and secondary doctors, allied healthcare professionals, academics and anyone with an interest in medical research and education. Interested staff from across BU are invited and very welcome.

You can register on Eventbrite here. For more information please contact Audrey Dixon.

IHPRC celebrates 5th birthday

The International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC) celebrated its fifth birthday on the first day of the 2014 conference on Wednesday, July 2.

The conference chair, Prof Tom Watson, was joined in cutting the celebration cake by Prof Don Wright (BostonUniversity), Associate Professor Meg Lamme (UniversityofAlabama) and Associate Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo (UniversityofNavarra), who were members of an advisory panel consulted on the establishment of the conference in 2009.

 The conference, which was opened by the Dean of The Media School, Stephen Jukes, has been attended by delegates from more than 12 countries. Some 33 papers and a Keynote Panel have been presented.

More than 150 papers have been offered by delegates from 30 countries in the past five years. The conference has established the field of PR history and spurred a big growth in journal and book publishing, with two more books launched at the 2014 conference.

 Planning is already beginning for the 2015 conference to be held on July 7-8.

(L-R) Prof Don Wright, Prof Tom Watson, Assoc Prof Meg Lamme & Assoc Prof Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo

 

Reminder: Upcoming seminar from Australian visitor Dr Terry Haines

Further to the previous announcement (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/12/upcoming-seminar-from-dr-terry-haines-monash-university-australia/), a title and abstract is now available for the seminar:

Tuesday 8th July, 2pm, TA134, Talbot campus:

Dr Terry Haines, Monash University, Melbourne.

Reversing research and implementation science for practices that are widely provided, dogma heavy and evidence light.

Some widely provided health services have an absence of evidence for effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and/or safety yet persist in clinical practice. It is possible that these practices are wasting valuable resources, but alternately may be valuable assets to service provision. Provision of these services in the context of usual care is a considerable barrier to conducting a conventional trial. Our team has recently developed a novel research approach to conduct a trial for this context[1]. This approach turns a conventional stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial design on its head.  This presentation will outline the strengths and limitations of the stepped-wedge design relative to other experimental designs, describes how this design was turned into a novel disinvestment research design, and then describe its first application in a clinical setting. The clinical example involves the withdrawal of weekend allied health services from acute medical and surgical wards across three hospitals in Australia. The early results of this trial run contrary to current initiatives to create a 7-day a week health service.

Reference

1. Haines T, O’Brien L, McDermott F, Markham D, Mitchell D, Watterson D, Skinner E: A novel research design can aid disinvestment from existing health technologies with uncertain effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and/or safety. J Clin Epidemiol 2014 , 67(2):144-151.

If you are able to attend the seminar, please let Samuel Nyman know by email: snyman@bournemouth.ac.uk

Latest HSC Midwifery paper in Open Access

Our latest paper in Midwifery ‘Translation and validation of the German version of the Mother-Generated Index and its application during the postnatal period’ is now freely available through Open Access on the Midwifery (Elsevier) webpages.

 

The lead author Susanne Grylka-Baeschlin, together with my colleagues Kathrin Stoll and Mechthild M. Gross, secured funding from COST to make this paper Open Access. The paper was part of Susanne’s M.Sc. project at the Midwifery Research and Education Unit, Hannover Medical School, Germany.

 

We would like to thank the ISCH Cost Action ISO907 (Childbirth Cultures, Concerns, and Consequences: Creating a dynamic EU framework for optimal maternity care) for funding the Open Access.   COST (European Cooperation in Science & Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe. For further information on COST in general see: www.cost.eu.   UCLan lead this particular COST Action and Prof. Soo Downe is the Chair of the Action (www.iresearch4birth.eu).

 

For my colleagues at Bournemouth University please, note there is also funding available for Open Access publishing within the university: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/05/22/money-available-for-open-access-publishing/

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Today’s slides from ROMEO project

Publishing

 

Thank you very much for all of you who attended today’s presentation of the joint project between the University of Aberdeen, Bournemouth University and the University of Stirling.  For those who missed the session or who asked for a copy of the slides after the session, please find these included in the BU Research Blog.

ROMEO Edwin June 2014

The project was funded by National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme (09/127/01).  Therefore, I must point out that “views and opinions expressed therein (and here) are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the HTA programme, NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health.”

 

As with all HTA reports the final report and a ten-page summary are both freely available online, see:

www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/118180/FullReport-hta18350.pdf

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.

R

Dr. Inventor – next generation “Google” search for researchers

Awarded & submitted bids, Research assessment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you eager to have innovative ideas?  Are you keen to find an effective method to solve your research problems? Do you want to speed up your research information collection? Cooperated among eight universities and companies around Europe, we are developing a virtual personal research assistant in our new European Commission funded project “Dr. Inventor – Promoting Scientific Creativity by Utilising Web-based Research Objects”. 

DrInventorDr Inventor aims to develop an intelligent software system utilising machine-empowered search and computation to bring researchers extended perspectives for scientific innovation. By informing researchers of a broad spectrum of relevant research concepts and approaches, this system will help assess the novelty of research ideas and offer suggestions of new concepts and workflows for new scientific discovery. Dr Inventor will be the first web-based system that supports the exploration of scientific creativity via a computational approach, which will overcome a lot of human limitations.

If you would like our system to work the way you envisage to do, please join our user requirement study by finishing a short survey (taking about 5 minutes) at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/drinventor. You can tell us how you perform your research tasks, what is the most difficult part in your research, what you wish our system to do to help you. Your feedback will guide our design; your suggestions may steer the way how people undertake research in the next few decades.

          

 Jian J Zhang & Xiaosong Yang

National Centre for Computer Animation, The Media School, Bournemouth University

 

Epidurals PhD researcher wins EPSRC award

PG research

Congratulations to SciTech’s Dr Neil Vaughan who has won the EPSRC’s ICT Pioneers ‘Transforming Society’ award. The accolade, which recognises the most exceptional UK PhD students, was awarded to Neil at a ceremony in Westminster last week for his innovative epidural simulator project.

The simulator uses software to replicate the epidural process, thereby assisting in training for this delicate procedure that is performed over 1000 times each day in the UK.

Neil’s supervisor Dr Venky Dubey said: “This is an exceptional achievement for BU and the collaborating partner Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Neil was up against stiff competition from top universities, including the University of Oxford, University College London and the University of Bath.”

The clinical project was proposed by the senior consultant anaesthetist at Poole Hospital, Professor Michael Wee, who also co-supervised the PhD.

Neil’s work was judged by a panel of technical experts from academia and industry. He triumphed through a rigorous selection process over a six month period, which included a written proposal, video and poster presentation. This culminated in a high-profile research showcase, where finalists pitched their project to representatives from the EPSRC, Hewlett Packard, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), BT and an audience of hundreds.

For more information about the project view the news item on the research webpages.

‘Intelligences’ theme of PR conference

Dr David MacQueen and Prof Tom Watson of The Media School both chaired panels and presented papers at the PR Meeting #4 conference in Barcelona last week.

The conference, which features research on critical approaches to public relations and strategic communication, had a focus on ‘intelligences’ this year.

Dr McQueen chaired a session which included fellow speakers from the the US, Spain and New Zealand. His paper, jointly authored with Graeme Baxter of Robert Gordon University, considered community resistance to corporate power in Scotland and Ireland.

Prof Watson presented a critical review of repetitive research issues in PR, in a session which also included speakers from Australia and Sweden. On the final afternoon of the conference he was a panel speaker on academic writing and publishing.

“This conference is a top event as it has broad international participation and always pushes into new research territory,” said Prof Watson. “This year, it was built around Howard Gardners’s work on intelligences, which brought forward aspects such as competitive, professional, spiritual, digital, emotional, dialogic, wicked and feminist intelligences.”

(L-R) PR Meeting # organisers Prof Jordi Xifra (Pompeu Fabra) and Prof David McKie (Wakato) with Prof Tom Watson