Category / REF Subjects

New study published comparing high-scoring and low-scoring impact case studies from REF2014

BU research, Impact, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, REF Subjects, Uncategorized

A paper titled: Writing impact case studies: a comparative study of high-scoring and low-scoring case studies from REF2014 was published in Nature this week.

The authors have analysed the content and language of the impact case studies submitted to REF2014 and concluded that: “implicit rules linked to written style may have contributed to scores alongside the published criteria on the significance, reach and attribution of impact”. The article is enlightening, with many useful tables comparing high and low-scoring impact case studies which show a clear difference in content and language between them.

From the abstract: “The paper provides the first empirical evidence across disciplinary main panels of statistically significant linguistic differences between high- versus low-scoring case studies, suggesting that implicit rules linked to written style may have contributed to scores alongside the published criteria on the significance, reach and attribution of impact. High-scoring case studies were more likely to provide specific and high-magnitude articulations of significance and reach than low-scoring cases. High-scoring case studies contained attributional phrases which were more likely to attribute research and/or pathways to impact, and they were written more coherently (containing more explicit causal connections between ideas and more logical connectives) than low-scoring cases. High-scoring case studies appear to have conformed to a distinctive new genre of writing, which was clear and direct, and often simplified in its representation of causality between research and impact, and less likely to contain expressions of uncertainty than typically associated with academic writing.”

The authors analyse each section of impact case studies and find differences in language and content in the research, impact and evidence sections of high and low scoring case studies. As they say: “The findings of our work enable impact case study authors to better understand the genre and make content and language choices that communicate their impact as effectively as possible”.

PBS America, Ichnology and Poole Harbour

BU research, Fusion, Research Centres

Yesterday a film crew from Windfall Films spent the afternoon in Poole Harbour filming some experimental ichnology.  Ichnology is the study of trace fossils and is something that Bournemouth has an international reputation for.  The production company are working on a documentary for Nova and are currently following our research team as they bring forward new research at White Sands National Park.  As part of this they filmed a sequence yesterday involving the use of primitive transport technology.  Think of a wheel-less wheel barrow used to transport butchered mammoths and giant ground sloth remains and you have the idea.  We were experimenting with different designs and trying to work out what the trace fossil record looks like for each.

The Bournemouth team consisted of Hannah Larsen a PhD student who braved the bitter cold to go shoe less on the mudflats and a first year undergraduate student Gary Packwood who volunteered to help.  It was a nice example of fusion in action.

Gender in Conflict Conference: WAN-funded event

BU research, conferences, hate crime, Research Centres, Women's Academic Network

On Wednesday 9 October 2019 Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and I hosted an international and intersectional conference involving staff, students and Erasmus colleagues to debate issues of gender, violence and conflict in contemporary societies. We were very fortunate to receive funding from the Women’s Academic Network for this event, and for additional guest speakers who will be visiting BU in the coming months to contribute to discussion on this theme.

The focus of our ‘Gender in Conflict’ conference was to provide a platform for discussion and reflection on conceptualisations of gender and violence that have heightened visibility in post-conflict environments. We asked contributors to consider what we can learn from questions of gendered violence in a fragile international context and whether international lessons can be applied to social environments in the UK.

The aims were:

  1. To de-colonise and de-exoticise knowledge about gendered violence in war and post-conflict contexts abroad by going beyond stereotypical assumptions and representations;
  2. To interpret contemporary UK conceptualisations of gendered violence through an alternative lens inspired by international experience.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity of the Erasmus-funded presence of two visiting Kosovar colleagues who presented at this event.  Dr Linda Gusia and Assoc. Prof. Nita Luci are the founders and directors of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research at University of Prishtina, Kosovo. They are highly visible women’s rights activists in Kosovo. The post-conflict situation in Kosovo poses unexpected challenges to equal rights not only arising from classic patriarchal cultural legacies but also from masculinity reiterations in the totalising field of international intervention.

We were also joined by two BU criminologists of our own Department for Social Sciences who are working in related fields: Jade Levell on gang crimes in the UK and Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari on agency and interventions within human trafficking in Nepal. This conference emerged from our own academic interests in questions of gendered hate crime in the UK (Dr Jane Healy) and on questions of social justice in transnational and post-conflict settings (Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers).

Stephanie welcomes participants

Stephanie opened the conference by encouraging contributors and audience members to reflect upon the transferability of interpreting phenomena we often consider in their specific contexts alone and the limitations arising from differences in our epistemological framings of analyses, contingent on such context and distinctions such as ‘the Global South’. Questions of cultural translation, power, language and positioning can be perceived or experienced as barriers to engagement, rather than opportunities to share best practice. The aims of the conference were to critically re-envisage our contemporary conceptualisations of such concepts on the basis of comparison and shared reflection.

Jade Levell was our first speaker, with a paper entitled:  “The competing masculinities of gang-involved men who experienced domestic violence/abuse in childhood”. Jade’s presentation, drawn from her PhD thesis, considers the conflicted and competing gender performances by marginalised men who have been drawn into gangs in the UK. She demonstrated how these men are performing hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to claim power where they have none. This is conveyed through a language and symbolic rhetoric of war and honour.

Jade Levell introduces her research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nita Luci then spoke about “Researching Gender in the Balkans” as she traced the recent history of gender studies research in Kosovo. Her presentation began during a period where few academics were interested in looking at gendered experiences in the region to the emergence of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research in contemporary Kosovo. Through this timeframe, she highlighted the simultaneous re-framing and changing conceptualisations of masculinities in Kosovo.

 

 

Visiting scholar Nita Luci from University of Prishtina

 

 

 

Linda Gusia’s paper took this conceptualisation further. In “Recognition of Sexual Violence in Kosovo after the War” Linda highlighted the conflict between the hyper visibility of war-time sexual violence and a complete silencing of questions of gender and nationalism before the war. She considered how sexual violence against women was propagated by men, as an attack on the nation’s male gaze. Through a nationalist lens the concept of heroism was the prevailing public image and discourse. There was limited space for women’s own conceptualisation of the war as their stories were reframed through a narrative of sacrifice, martyrdom and atonement.

Visiting scholar Linda Gusia

In her paper entitled “Exploring Child Vulnerabilities: pre- and post-disaster in Nepal”, Shovita Dhakal Adhikari demonstrated similar patterns of silencing of women’s and girl’s experiences of human trafficking in Nepal. Shovita critiqued the application of Westernised concepts and labels to Nepalese society, particularly in regard to discourses of vulnerable victims in need of ‘rescue and protect’. Here again, women’s bodies are being controlled as a method of protection.

BU’s Shovita Dhakal Adhikari shares her research on child trafficking narratives in Nepal

 

Lastly, Stephanie chaired a panel discussion of all of the speakers, entitled “Inverting the gaze: Juxtaposing gender and conflict in transitional societies abroad and the UK”. This produced a lively debate around concepts of competing masculinities, vulnerabilities and visibilities of marginalised voices that could be drawn from all case studies presented. The conference drew to a close with contributors and audience members agreeing that this was an energising and engaging series of papers that showcased similarities in constructions of gender and gendered violence, both in the UK and abroad.

Participant contributions

Two further speakers who were unable to attend this conference at short notice were re-scheduled to visit BU this academic year:

  • Dr Emma Milne from Plymouth presented on Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the failed mother on 13 February 2020.
  • Dr Hannah Mason-Bish will visit on 23 March 2020 to discuss Gender and Hate Crime.

For further details or discussion please contact: jhealy@bournemouth.ac.uk or sssievers@bournemouth.ac.uk

Corrosion Condition Monitoring

BU research, Impact, innovation, international, Publishing

Collaborative research with The Tank Museum in terms of experimental investigations to evaluate and analyse corrosion induced damage to high value assets led to further collaborations with NASA Materials & Corrosion Control Branch and BAE Systems. The experimental research provided valuable data to develop precision based mathematical models in collaboration with Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) Ministry of Defence (MOD) to predict and prognose fracture, electrochemical and coating failures in military vehicles. Further work was conducted to develop in-situ and remote sensing, prediction and prognosis models incorporating advanced sensing techniques to predict and prognose corrosion, coating and fracture led failures.

Subject of this study

Subject of this study

In a separate research additional work has led to state-of-the-art novel sensor design and has been recently patented (GB2018/053368). A framework of remote sensing techniques have been developed and has been adopted by Analatom Inc. USA which are successfully applied in several key installations in the US.

Telescopic Electrochemical Cell (TEC) for Non-Destructive Corrosion Testing of Coated Substrate. Patent number GB2018/053368

Since 2009 a suite of numerical models – and published algorithms and methodologies that have enabled other researchers to reproduce the methods – have been developed at NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling (NCEM) Research Group (previously SDRC[1]) to simulate corrosion failures in large complex engineering structures and to predict averaged material properties, typically measured in laboratory experiments, such as hardness and corrosion resistance.

Experimental work at NCEM was started in 2009 with a focus on corrosion issues and expanded to multidisciplinary research with new grants from several key stakeholders into wear-corrosion, nanocoating failure, fracture mechanics, in-situ and remote sensing techniques. This research was led and conducted by Professor Zulfiqar A Khan and his team including Dr Adil Saeed, Dr Mian Hammad Nazir, Dr Jawwad Latif and several other PGRs and Post Docs.

At the start of project, research was conducted to analyse corrosion and tribological failures in The Tank Museum Bovington military tanks. Based on collected data, (3.5 years of live data, over 153k data points) numerical models were developed for simulating corrosion failures in nonconductive polymeric coatings applied to large engineering structures such as automotive and aerospace applications. These models represented the failing structure as bending cantilever beam subjected to mechanical and/or thermal loading which produces both residual and diffusion-induced stresses in beam. These numerical models were later extended to include nano-composite metal and sea water resistant coatings.

These structures are affected by corrosion

This numerical modelling technology developed at NCEM was combined with remote sensing techniques, which enabled predictions in static structures and high value mobile assets substituting conventional methods which require expensive & time consuming experimental setup and laborious while often unreliable visual inspection. The technology allowed faster structural analyses with greater reliability and precision compared to experiments in turn saving money, labour and time. Further developments included the performance enhancement of coatings under extreme temperatures and pressures. Recent plans are to extend the model capabilities to simulate the effects of deep zone residual stresses on corrosion failures.

Coating delamination issues due to corrosion

This research has developed state of the art cells fabricated by using a special magnetic aluminium compound, which is highly electrically conductive and resistant to corrosion. The research has commissioned for deploying this novel sensing technology for micro-defects detection, corrosion rate measurement and condition assessment of defective coatings. This technology has been successfully tested and commissioned in automotive, hazardous compartments with polymeric coatings and bridges to assess their coating condition in terms of their structural integrity. Post design testing involved the installation of these cells, running diagnostics, data acquisition, and macro-graphs to predict structural defects and the resulting corrosion rate. Taking above research further, an NDT apparatus for use in sensing the electromechanical state of an object was invented to monitor the health/condition of coatings.

Further details can be found in [1, 2, and 3]. If you have interest in the above subjects or have questions and would like to discuss then contact Professor Zulfiqar A Khan.

[1] Sustainable Design Research Centre

New BU diabetes research

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Collard in the Department of Psychology, Dr. Pramod Regmi in the Department of Nursing Science and FHSS Visiting Professor Katherine Barnard-Kelly on their publication: ‘Exercising with an automated insulin delivery system: qualitative insight into the hopes and expectations of people with type 1 diabetes’  [1]. This paper in Practical Diabetes is a joint publication with several North American scholars.

The authors of this qualitative paper distilled three themes related to the benefits of automated insulin delivery systems: (a) more freedom and spontaneity in the individual’s ability to exercise; (b) relief
from worry of hypoglycaemia as a result of exercise; (c) removing the ‘guesswork’ of adjusting insulin for exercise, as well as two further themes relating to potential concerns with regard to safely exercising while wearing an automated insulin delivery system.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Collard, S.S., Regmi, P.R., Hood, K.K., Laffel, L., Weissberg-Benchell, J., Naranjo, D., Barnard-Kelly, K. (2020) Exercising with an automated insulin delivery system: qualitative insight into the hopes and expectations of people with type 1 diabetes, Practical Diabetes 2020; 37(1): 19–23

New publication by NCCA academics and students in the top journal

BU research, Doctoral College, Featured academics, Fusion, open access, Research Centres, student research

The SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences (“SIIMS – a broad authoritative source for fundamental results in imaging sciences, with a unique combination of mathematics and applications”), an influential Q1-journal with a significant Impact Factor and SJR indicator, has just published the paper “Automatically Controlled Morphing of 2D Shapes with Textures” authored by NCCA academics and students. This multidisciplinary paper proposes a novel theoretical and practical framework resulting in a suite of mathematically substantiated techniques important in the context of 2D imagery, artistic design, computer animation, and emerging streaming and interactive applications.

The paper has a rather long and non-trivial history related to the fusion of academic and student research. Initially, NCCA UG student Felix Marrington-Reeve (“Computer Visualisation and Animation” course, Level 6) undertook his R&D project within the “Innovations” unit and got some interesting results. The 8-page paper written on the basis of his project and co-authored with his supervisors Dr Valery Adzhiev and Prof Alexander Pasko, was, however, rejected in 2017 by two international conferences (they were prepared to accept a short version but the authors thought the work deserved a better fate).

After Felix’s graduation (he started working in a leading production company Framestore) Dr Oleg Fryazinov and PhD student Alexander Tereshin joined the project team. A lot of additional theoretical and practical work had been done, and in February 2019 the radically modified and extended 30-page version was submitted to SIIMS. After two-stage rigorous peer-reviewing process, in October 2019 the paper was accepted by this prestigious journal.

References:

  • Tereshin, A., Adzhiev, V., Fryazinov, O., Marrington-Reeve, F., Pasko, A. (2020). “Automatically Controlled Morphing of 2D Shapes with Textures”, The SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 78-107. DOI: 10.1137/19M1241581
  • Full text of the paper: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/33366/

New paper accepted for publication on triangulation in case study research

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research news

Faculty of Management Associate Professor Julie Robson has had a paper accepted for publication in Industrial Marketing Management (CABS 3*) entitled Triangulation in Industrial Qualitative Case Study Research: Widening the Scope. The authors are Jillian Farquhar (University of Pretoria and Solent University), Nicolette Michels (Oxford Brookes) and Julie Robson (Bournemouth University).

This paper provides an inventory of triangulation categories for case study research and a theoretical reframing of triangulation consisting of three modes – convergence, complementarity and divergence.

Although set in an industrial marketing management context, the paper is a useful read for anyone undertaking case study research.

International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research

BU research, Impact, Research Centres, Uncategorized

ICTHR has recently been re-approved for another three years. If your research is in (or partly overlapping with) tourism or hospitality or related subjects such as events and leisure, join with other researchers in this centre.

What does membership involve?

  • addition of your details to the ICTHR website,
  • addition to the ICTHR email list, giving you news and updates from the centre, for example on meetings, seminars and workshops.

What does it give you?

  • collaboration across BU with other tourism and hospitality researchers,
  • workshops and seminars relevant to your research,
  • use of the centre membership, e.g. on grant applications as appropriate.

Simply email Adam Blake to be included.