Category / REF Subjects

HSS Writing Week 4th-8th January – How can Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit support you?

writing

bucru identity

The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences is holding a Writing Week between 4th-8th January 2016 aimed at supporting staff to find time in their busy academic diaries to prioritise writing grant applications and papers for publication.

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit offers methodological and statistical collaboration for all healthcare researchers in the area. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across Bournemouth University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It incorporates the Dorset office of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service who offer free methodological support to researchers who are developing research ideas in the field of health and social care.

BUCRU will be supporting Writing Week in HSS by holding two drop-in sessions on Tuesday 5th January and Thursday 7th January 12-2pm in R508 Royal London House. We would also like to extend the invitation across the other Faculties for anyone who feels we may be able to support them. For those unable to attend the drop-in sessions, we would be delighted to arrange an alternative appointment.

Please see further information here, contact our adminstrator Louise Ward on 01202 961939 / bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit our website. We look forward to seeing you!

Congratulations to FHSS staff on latest KPI publication

Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing

Five RiversCongratulations to FHSS Celia Beckett and Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor and colleagues Richard Cross and Pam McConnell based at Five Rivers Child Care, Salisbury. Their first paper describes the exciting process of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project between BU and Five Rivers Child Care which started in 2012 and finished recently in 2015.[1]    The project was established to develop a stepped assessment package that would help to identify the emotional and behavioural needs of children who are looked after to ensure the right services are accessed and to monitor their progress.

 

Congratulations,

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Celia Beckett , Richard Cross , Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor , Pam McConnell (2015) Developing a process for assessment of the emotional and behavioural needs of “looked after” children: the Five Rivers model Journal of Children’s Services, 10(4):  324-38.

Creative Europe -measuring the creative industries of Europe

international

Euro_FlagThe origins of the EU – a coal and steel free trade agreement – lie elsewhere; however Europe’s creative industries are likely to be an increasingly important part of its economic future. Creative industries provide jobs that are highly skilled and more resistant to automation, jobs that are therefore more likely to be sustainable. [1] Understanding them is therefore of strategic importance.

A challenge in thinking about creative industries at a European level has been the absence of comparable statistics across the countries of the EU. Nesta’s report by Max Nathan, Andy Pratt and Ana Rincon-Aznar, published today, helps address this by providing consistent estimates of employment in the creative industries of the EU’s 28 member states and, where data has allowed, the wider ‘creative economies’ of 20 member states (the ‘creative economy’ consists of jobs inside the creative industries and creative jobs in other industries, for example a designer working for a car manufacturer).

For more information on this report click here.

If this is the type of information you would find interesting why not sign up to receive updates into your inbox from Nesta

New joint AECC and FHSS publication

PG research, Publishing

journal 2015

Congratulations to Joyce Miller, Monica Beharie and Elisabeth Simmenes based at the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic (AECC) and FHSS’s Alison Taylor and Sue Way who just had their paper ‘Parent reports of exclusive breastfeeding after attending a combined midwifery and chiropractic feeding clinic in the UK: A cross sectional service evaluation’ accepted in the journal Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

Bournemouth Academic invited to present at Developing Social Data Science Methodologies workshop within the Alan Turing Institute

Katarzyna Musial-Gabrys was invited to present her work on complex social networks during the upcoming workshop organised by the Alan Turing Institute within the Foundation of Social Data Science initiative.tag_claud_2011

The Alan Turing Institute was established in 2015 as the UK national institute for the data sciences in response to a letter from the Council for Science and Technology (CST) to the UK Prime Minister (7 June 2013), describing the “Age of Algorithms”. The letter presents a case that “The Government, working with the universities and industry, should create a National Centre to promote advanced research and translational work in algorithms and the application of data science.” (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-age-of-algorithms).
Katarzyna’s presentation will contribute to shaping the portfolio of research challenges to be addressed within the Alan Turing Institute.

Title of Katarzyna’s talk: Methodological challenges in data aggregation in complex social networks.

Abstract of the talk:
For the first time in history, we have the possibility to process ‘big data’ (gathered in computer systems) about the interactions and activities of millions of individuals. It represents an increasingly important yet underutilized resource because due to the scale, complexity and dynamics, social networks extracted from this data are extremely difficult to analyse. There is no coherent and comprehensive methodological approach to analyse such networks which is crucial to advance our understanding of continuously changing people’s behaviour.
One of the methodological challenges is to cope with the variety of available big social data. This data comes from multiple systems (email, instant messengers, blogs, social networking sites, google searches, YouTube, etc.); in each system user can have one or more accounts; this data describes different types of activities (commenting, sharing, messaging, calling, etc.) and relationships (direct, quasi-direct and indirect). In order to be able to effectively process gathered data using data science approaches we need to develop new methodology that will focus on the multirelational (more than one type of connections in a network) character of data.
In general, there are two methods to do that: (i) analyse each relation type separately and then combine results from different layers or (ii) merge all relation types in one layer and analyse this newly created layer. Both approaches require effort in terms of redefining existing network analysis techniques. Analysing each network separately means that methods for combining results from different layers need to be developed. Merging some/all connection types into one heterogeneous relation means that a new approach for aggregation of data from different layers is required. Only by developing rigid approaches to data aggregation, the analytics task can be performed.

If you are interested and you would like to get some further information please contact kmusialgabrys@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Report on the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) Age 17 Survey: Consultative Conference

Funding opportunities

I recently attended the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS7) Age 17 Survey: Consultative one day conference held at UCL’s Institute of Education in London. Cohort studies are extremely valuable because data is collected over time working with the same sample of people. Longitudinal studies permit to describe the natural history of the same population and can identify risk factors for example, for optimal health, educational attainment chances and/or employment opportunities. Professor Emla Fitzsimons is the Principal Investigator of MCS,m strategically invited leaders of the ‘Activities and Daily Life’, ‘Cognitive Development’, and the ‘Socio-Emotional Development’ to harness conference delegates’ view on what are the important and key issues that society should know when examining 17 year old adolescents’ lives. The leaders provided an overview of their current strategies for capturing participants’ unique style of life. Then through a series of workshops the pros and cons of these were discussed and summarised. I don’t envy their jobs! To study the individual characteristics and the associated environmental factors in such a large sample is a huge undertaking. The attendees were from very varied inter- and multi-disciplinary backgrounds working at a wide range of organisations, including government agencies. The common objective was to create a dataset that can inform many governmental policies on a variety of topics. The process of decision making over every aspects of the 7th sweep of the MCS is extremely complex. The key aspect of longitudinal studies is comparability. Although, each sweep is unique because of the cohort is ageing, there has to be a trend of using the same methodology overtime. Studies like the MCS are facing constant funding crises because they are very expensive to run. There is an ongoing revision of time taken to collect data, finding proxy to gold standard measures and considering cutting expensive data collection methods like, FMRI scans, use of accelerometers to assess physical activity patterns and conducting physical tests. Despite all of these difficulties, data from such studies are invaluable. For example, in the 7th sweep they want to omit interviewing parents about their child’s mental health. I argued to include this data at this sweep, as most adolescents in the study are still living at home and others (like family members) are the ones most likely to identify early signs of mental health problems. Early detection is vital, especially when 1 in 10 adolescents known to develop at least one serious depressive episode in the UK by the time they are 18. Check out the MCS website if you are interested. You can also access all speakers’ slides by following the link (http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/Conference.aspx?itemid=4285&itemTitle=MCS+Consultative+Conference&sitesectionid=28&sitesectiontitle=Events). Data from the previous 6 sweeps are available for researchers to interrogate.

CEMP awarded EU COST Action Grant

Awarded & submitted bids, international

cemp10

CEMP’s Marketa Zezulkova has been awarded a COST “Short-Term Scientific Mission” grant to conduct field media literacy research with 4-7 year old disadvantaged children in the Czech Republic and to establish a Child Research and Impact Group (CRAIG) with Charles University, Prague.  Together with a ‘Mapping Media Literacy in the Czech Republic’ grant Marketa was also awarded recently, this new project further establishes CEMP’s partnership with CU, following the Media Education Summit in Prague last year.

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The Hands-on Guide to Midwifery Placements – Newly published book

Knowledge Exchange, writing

smaal image book and studentsStudent midwives spend approximately 50% of their three year undergraduate programme in the clinical area. Going to a new placement is often a stressful time for them as they consider ‘will they fit in’, ‘will they know enough’, ‘have they the right skills’, ‘what will they be able to learn whilst there to meet their practice assessments’ and so on. Other concerns relate to being away from home, what hours they are expected to do and how they cope with ‘difficult’ mentors. If students are unfamiliar with healthcare environments it takes time for them to adjust and become used to the environment. It was these thoughts that began fermenting in my head back in 2010 and following a positive response from students whose views on a book on placements were informally sought, I pitched the idea to a commissioning editor at Wiley Blackwell. In addition wider research had revealed that no such book existed within the published midwifery arena. Finally, in 2012 a contract was agreed between myself, and Margaret Fisher, Associate Professor in Midwifery at Plymouth University to co-edit nine chapters for submission in November 2014. The book is now due for publication on the 11th December 2015.
Professor Paul Lewis wrote the forward and chapter contributions from Bournemouth University lecturers, Dr. Sue Way, Stella Rawnson and myself, prepare prospective and current students for midwifery practice and the profession, caseloading and the elective period. Jo Coggins and Henrietta Otley, both midwives practising in North Wiltshire were co-opted to write chapters on ‘Preparing for practice’ and ‘Low-risk midwifery placements’. Other chapters were written by Margaret Fisher and Faye Doris at Plymouth University.
The final published edition is small enough to fit into a uniform pocket and contains many vignettes from students currently or previously studying at Bournemouth and Plymouth University. Their stories reflect ‘real life’ clinical experience and ‘Top Tips’ provide overall advice. Three original cartoons illustrating the vagaries of placement were devised by Clare Shirley (formerly a BU student, now a newly qualified midwife) and Hugo Beaumont (4th year medical student at Plymouth University). Students and women have provided photographs. Both Margaret and I hope students far and wide will enjoy the book which aims to provide a realistic perspective on clinical placement, by offering hints and tips and encouragement along their student journey.

ESRC funded project: “Dementia Friendly Architecture – Reducing Spatial Disorientation in Dementia Care”

ESRC logo New ESRC-funded project in Psychology and BUDI

This week saw the start of a two year ESRC-funded project entitled “Dementia Friendly Architecture: Reducing Spatial Disorientation in Dementia Care Homes”. The project, which has been awarded to Dr Jan Wiener (Psychology/BUDI), aims to develop design guidelines for dementia-friendly architecture that minimise spatial disorientation, one of the earliest signs of dementia.

Post-Doctoral researcher Dr Ramona Grzeschik, who started on the first of December, and Chris Hilton (PhD student) will test how different aspects of build environments affect orientation and navigation abilities in people with dementia. In order to do so, they will use cutting-edge virtual environments and eye-tracking technology (https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/wayfinding/) which allows for systematic manipulations of environmental properties.

This international multidisciplinary project brings together researchers from cognitive psychology, dementia research and architecture. It is a collaboration between Bournemouth University’s Wayfinding Lab, BUDI (Bournemouth University Dementia Institute), Northumbria University (Prof Ruth Dalton, Co-I), UWS (Prof Anthea Innes, Co-I) and the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (Prof Wolbers, Prof Nestor, both project-partners).

 

CsJCC Book Launch

The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community will be holding a book launch on Wednesday 9 December between 5 and 7 in the Global Hub room (DG68) to celebrate the work of colleagues who have recently had books published.  Refreshments will be on offer and all are welcome to drop by.

 

Slide1

Bull run – archive research and lectures in Pamplona

international, Research assessment

Pamplona in the Spanish province of Navarra is renowned for the annual Running of the Bulls, popularised by Ernest Hemingway, and as being on the path of the Camino de Santiago. It is also home to the Universidad de Navarra whose Faculty of Communication has two strong links to BU.

Associate Professor John Oliver of the Faculty of Media & Communication (FMC) is one of the leaders of the European Media Management Association (EMMA) which is very active in Pamplona and includes the university’s President. Professor Tom Watson of FMC collaborates with public relations historian Dr Natalia Rodriguez-Salcedo, a regular participant in the International History of Public Relations Conference held each year at BU.

From November 23-27, Professor Watson visited the Pamplona university and spent time in its excellent archive researching the development of public relations education policies by European professional bodies from the 1950s to 1980.

“Dr Rodriguez-Salcedo has catalogued the records of pioneer Spanish practitioner, Joaquin Maestre Mora, who was very active in the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) from the 1960s to 1980s,” he said. ‘This links with BU’s own IPRA archive. My Spanish colleague investigated IPRA archive in 2014 and identified gaps in our files that could be filled from the Maestre archive.”

The investigations of both archives have led to journal articles and conference presentations by the two researchers, with another paper to come in 2016. “As archives are digitised, access to this basic material of communication history research will become easier but there is still nothing like leafing through paper files and finding the unexpected,” said Professor Watson.

While at the Universidad de Navarra, he gave guest lectures to UG and PG students on management of corporate communication, crisis management and the measurement and evaluation of public relations. Professor Watson also discussed current developments in research assessment with staff in the Faculty of Communication.

Professor Tom Watson addressing the CorpComClub at Universidad de Navarra

Professor Tom Watson addressing the CorpComClub at Universidad de Navarra

HSS Writing Week 4th-8th January – How can Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit support you?

Publishing, writing

bucru identity

The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences is holding a Writing Week between 4th-8th January 2016 aimed at supporting staff to find time in their busy academic diaries to prioritise writing grant applications and papers for publication.

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit offers methodological and statistical collaboration for all healthcare researchers in the area. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across Bournemouth University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It incorporates the Dorset office of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service who offer free methodological support to researchers who are developing research ideas in the field of health and social care.

BUCRU will be supporting Writing Week in HSS by holding two drop-in sessions on Tuesday 5th January and Thursday 7th January 12-2pm in R508 Royal London House. We would also like to extend the invitation across the other Faculties for anyone who feels we may be able to support them. For those unable to attend the drop-in sessions, we would be delighted to arrange an alternative appointment.

Please see further information here, contact our adminstrator Louise Ward on 01202 961939 / bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit our website. We look forward to seeing you!