Category / Research themes

EXON by the sea!

Training

 

After many months of negotiation I packed my weekend bag and set off to Eastbourne to provide the first of a six day programme spread over three months on newborn examination, to a select cohort of nine midwives who work for the East Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust. The nearest university (Brighton) does not provide the module and I regularly have midwives travelling up from Brighton to attend the two courses provided annually at the Lansdowne Campus.

Midwives from the midwife led unit (EMU as it is fondly referred to) at Eastbourne Hospital, the acute trust at Hastings and Crowbridge Birthing Unit all joined the module at the beginning of January 2014. Some of the midwives were undertaking the unit in work time and some during their annual leave, but all were enthusiastic and very excited to be finally learning the skills and competencies necessary to become newborn examiners. Currently no midwives in the combined trusts undertake newborn examination and all babies are either examined by junior doctors in training or general practitioners (GPs) in the community setting. For a number of years there have been concerns expressed in the literature around the quality of the newborn examination when undertaken by junior doctors and GPs mainly around training and on-going education. Traditionally doctors in NHS hospitals were taught newborn examination under the mantra ‘see one – do one – teach one’, midwives on the other hand, have had to undergo many months of extra training and are required to undertake between 40 & 60 newborn examinations before being deemed competent. These conditions became onerous for midwives as it became difficult for them to find mentors and assessors to support them in practice. Many requested extensions and in some cases took almost two years to complete. This model of learning was not sustainable in the long run for both the clinical workplace and for university processes. Therefore an opportunity arose to change how BU provided examination of the newborn (EXON) when the post registration framework was re-validated in 2012, with the main difference being in relation to the examinations.

Midwifery is a self-regulating profession; therefore it is up to individual practitioners to judge whether they are component when providing midwifery care. The philosophy of self-regulation underpinning competency guided the provision of the new EXON course in relation to the number of examinations required. Midwives have to carry out a minimum of 10 mentored newborn checks, with five examinations being directly supervised. Once 10 examinations have been carried out midwives can undertake as many self-assessed newborn checks until they feel competent. Once they have reached this point they put themselves forward for one summative assessment which is a newborn examination evaluated in practice.  Midwives have nine months to complete the module. In addition, to further support midwives in training for this role, experienced midwives around the BU patch and as far as West Wiltshire have been provided with a half day update focusing on mentoring/assessing and understanding the EXON paperwork. These midwives have now taken on the role of mentoring and assessing midwives through EXON.

Now having delivered the six day programme the midwives in Eastbourne have successfully completed the academic requirement,s with all passing their ‘enquiry-based learning’ presentations which focused on an aspect of newborn physiology/pathology. The presentations were of an extremely high standard and feedback from the unit leader recommended writing up their work for publication in the British Journal of Midwifery. Their unit evaluations were 100% positive. One of the main benefits centered on the midwives forming a cohesive group and getting to know each other better.  These midwives are leading the way at East Sussex Healthcare. Once they qualify, they in turn, can become mentors and assessors for the next cohort. Perhaps even more importantly, evidence demonstrates that when midwives undertake this expanded role, women’s satisfaction and midwifery autonomy is increased and crucially, there is continuity of care for the woman and her baby and for the midwife herself.

 

For further information on the EXON module please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler, Senior Lecturer, Lansdowne Campus: lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

NIHR Research Design Service Grant Applications Workshop

The Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) is running a free one-day grant applications workshop on Thursday 10 July 2014 at Taunton Racecourse, Somerset.

The grant applications workshop is directed at researchers who are considering applying to peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research, and is intended to allow them to turn good applications into excellent ones.

If you are interested in attending the workshop you will need to submit an application form and the latest draft of your research proposal by 1pm Monday 9 June 2014.

For more information and to download an application form please go to http://www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk/gaw.htm.

Don’t forget, your local branch of the Research Design Service is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us or send us an email.

CoPMRE celebrates joint PhDs

 

Thirty-five clinicians and academics crammed into the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education’s (CoPMRE) meeting room on the 5th Floor of Royal London House for this Spring’s Visiting Faculty workshop brilliantly organised by Audrey Dixon.  Five excellent presentations from PhD students, with supervisors from BU and local NHS clinicians, showcased the breadth and depth of research from risk stratification for early detection of heart attacks in ED to using the Nintendo Wii to increase activity levels and quality of life in people with multiple sclerosis. Fiona Knight from the Graduate School explained process and policy, Alan Breen from the Anglo European Chiropractic College mused on the benefits of being a PhD supervisor, Zoe Sheppard briefed on HSC’s plan to enhance research impact and Tony Markus called for a special interest group to explore human factors in patient safety. All washed down by plenty of fresh coffee and a buffet lunch. Thanks to all who took part.

Paul Thompson MD FRCP

Director CoPMRE

Fusion – Establishment of research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

 My application to the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF) has been successful.  The funds will be used to establish research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. I will be travelling to the UKZN during Easter this month for an exploratory visit. While at UKZN, I will present a paper to the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance. This will be followed by a series of meetings with students and staff. On my return, I will apply to Bournemouth University to put in place the three relationships.

 A successful establishment of the three aforesaid relationships will have many enormous benefits to the students and staff of BU and UKZN. For example, students should benefit culturally in terms of spending sometime in South Africa and UK respectively due to differences in the two countries’ cultures. In addition to cultural awareness, the staff exchange will benefit the staff involved through observing how lecturers in a different country deliver lectures. Apart from co-authoring academic journal articles, research collaboration between BU and UKZN staff should be beneficial where the research call (e.g. Horizon 2020) requires that researchers from Europe collaborate with a partner from South Africa.

 At an institution level, the relationships should help BU in two main ways. Firstly, student exchange should increase awareness of BU in Africa which may translate into increase in percentage of African students enrolled at BU. Increasing the percentage of students from Africa is important for BU because currently less than 4% of our students are from Africa compared to 8% UK universities average. Secondly, the increase in student population from Africa will also help BU achieve the strategic plan objective of increasing overseas students’ recruitment by 15% by 2015.

 UKNZ is the third largest university in South Africa and a very good university and also shares great similarities in university teaching, research and enterprise activities with those of the Business School, School of Tourism, Design, Engineering and Computing, School of Health and Social Care. Further information about the university can be found on: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/.

 Dr Ven Tauringana, Associate Professor of Accounting – The Business School

CEMP Success: Three BU Colleagues approved as Higher Education Academy Associates

Fusion

Last week colleagues from BU’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) and Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) won appointments to the newly approved Higher Education Academy (HEA) Associates programme. CEMP’s Director Julian McDougall, Head of CEMP’s Postgraduate Research Richard Berger, and CEMP Fellow Anna Feigenbaum from the Media School’s CMC will join the re-developed Academic Associates community. As Associates they will take part in research projects, event programming and developing the HEA’s UK and International consultancy.  The HEA is the UK’s main provider of resources, events and workshops relating to learning and teaching in higher education, servicing 28 different disciplines. In addition to running its professional recognition Fellowship programme–that many BU staff are a part of–the Higher Education Academy also offers a robust funding scheme for education research and practice.  Through their Academic Associate roles, Julian, Richard and Anna look forward to strengthening CEL and BU’s relationship with the HEA.  Continuing CEMP’s track record of internationally recognised higher education research, this role will enhance the centre’s engagement in media education research consultancy, shaping innovative teaching practice and influencing HE policy.

Fusion Investment Fund – Bournemouth Bio-Beach

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

Dr Roger Herbert from the Faculty of Science and Technology has been successfully awarded Fusion Investment Funding for the Bio-Beach project, in collaboration with Bournemouth Borough Council’s Coastal Activity Park.

The project will see academics from the Faculty of Science and Technology combining their ecological and engineering knowledge in order to pump-prime research on sustainable coastal development and improve public engagement in the marine environment. The team (made up of Dr Roger Herbert, Dr Bob Eves, Dr Ben Thomas, Dr Rick Stafford, Dr Genoveva Esteban, Dr Luciana Esteves & Ben Thornes) will be designing, making and installing novel structures to selected groynes and other structures on Boscombe Beach to provide refugia for marine organisms and to fulfil a variety of research aims.

Potentially, these structures will transform the groynes into intertidal reefs, with features designed to increase biodiversity; extending the intertidal range of marine organisms up the beach for the public to see. Next month we will be working with the AspireBU team and two local schools, Avonbourne School and Harewood College, who will be getting involved with the project. They will be designing and making their own structures to increase biodiversity on the groynes and will be monitoring their creations after installation to see how many organisms have colonised them.

Congratulations to Dr. Joyce Miller (PhD by Publication)

PG research, Publishing

Congratulations to HSC postgraduate student Joyce Miller who has just completed her PhD by Publication.  Joyce Miller is a chiropractic practitioner and lecturer with over 25 years private practice experience. She is Associate Professor at Anglo-European Chiropractic College in Bournemouth.  Her thesis Effects of Musculoskeletal Dysfunction in Excessive Crying Syndromes of Infancy presents research spanning more than a decade.  Joyce studied the relevance of chiropractic manual therapy to excessive crying in infancy through a unique series of eight clinical academic papers.

 

The eight separate studies used a range of different research methods:

  1. a demographic survey of paediatric patients attending a chiropractic clinic;
  2. a record study to determine the prevalence of side effects or adverse events;
  3. a cohort study to substantiate sub-groups of excessively crying infants;
  4. a prospective observational study to develop a predictive model using likelihood ratios to forecast the presence of infant colic in a clinical population;
  5. validation of a one-page instrument to assess clinical outcomes against the gold standard crying diary;
  6. a randomised comparison trial of two types of chiropractic manual therapy for infant colic;
  7. a randomised controlled single blind trial to determine efficacy of blinding as well as chiropractic manual therapy in management of infant colic;
  8. a case-control study to investigate  long-term effects of chiropractic manual therapy into toddlerhood.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

HSC

Low-Power High-Quality Interactive Digital Media: The Challenges

PG research

Dear all,

We would like to invite you to an additional guest talk for the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Professor Edmond C. Prakash from the University of Bedfordshire.

Title: Low-Power High-Quality Interactive Digital Media: The Challenges

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Thursday 3rd April 2014

Room: P302 (Poole House, Talbot Campus)

Abstract: Traditional GPUs have super graphics performance and have been extremely utilised for media rich applications. However, they are not suitable for low-power mobile devices. Digital media research and development are at the crossroads. This talk looks at some of the key challenges faced in Embedded GPUs for next generation media rich applications (interactive 3D graphics and games) on low-power mobile devices. Graphics programmers, 3D modellers, animators and game developers will benefit from this talk.

Biography:  Edmond is a Professor in Computer Games Technology and the Director for the Institute for Research in Applicable Computing at the University of Bedfordshire. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Games Technology.  Edmond has worked at top institutions across the globe including MIT, UIUC, BNU, NTU, MMU, PUJ and IISc. Edmond’s research interests are in volume graphics, real-time visualisation, game based learning and game engines.

We hope to see you there,

Dr. David John

Highly Commended Paper by Lorraine Brown, John Edwards & Heather Hartwell.

Delicious links, Publishing

Congratulations to BU academics Dr. Lorraine Brown, Prof. John Edwards and Prof. Heather Hartwell.  Their recent paper “Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal” published in the British Food Journal has been selected by the journal’s Editorial Team as a Highly Commended Paper of 2013.

“Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal” was chosen as a Highly Commended Paper winner as it is one of the most impressive pieces of work the British Food Journal has seen throughout 2013.

The three winners will be presented with a certificate by the journal!  The authors are all based in the School of Tourism whilst Prof. Hartwell also has appointment in the School of Health & Social Care.

Details of the paper are listed at the following web site: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0007-070X&volume=115&issue=2&articleid=17077382&show=html

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, School of Health & Social Care

CfE Upcoming Event: Moov2 with the CIM

Training

Date: Tuesday 8 April 2014

Time: Arrival from 6pm for a 6:30pm start until approx 8pm

Location: EBC

We would like to invite you to join us at our latest CIM event.  Dan Thomas, of Moov2 will be demonstrating, in his straight-talking (and completely non-geeky) style, how businesses and the agencies they work with can successfully make and exploit their data, adding real value to the bottom line.

To book please visit: http://bit.ly/1eK1d3a

Website & BRIAN Training Sessions ** New Date Added**

Guidance, Info Days, Publishing, Research themes, Training

Screen shot of new website

Due to popular demand we are hosting  training sessions for the new research webpages together with BRIAN training.

These sessions are open to all BU academic staff, post graduate research students and those supporting researchers in their communications activity.

During the session you will learn the following:

Research Webpages

  • Why BU has new research webpages
  • How you can upload content to the website
  • How the site can be used most effectively to maximise exposure of BU research.

BRIAN

  • What is BRIAN and why is it important
  • How to set up and maintain your BRIAN profile
  • How to ensure your details are correct
  • How to request a photo is uploaded
  • How BRIAN links to your external staff profile

To book on one of the following sessions please use the links below…

Thursday 27th March 2pm in P227 Poole House, Talbot Campus

Thursday 17th April 2pm in P227 Poole House, Talbot Campus

Wednesday 23rd April 11am in S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

If you have any queries, please  email Shelly Maskell on smaskell@bournemouth.ac.uk

Fusion Investment Fund – BU research and education visit in Mexico

Fusion

Dr Christos Apostolakis from the Business School has been awarded Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships with Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Tecnologico de Monterrey), Mexico in terms of research and education. Christos has accepted an invitation by the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera at Tec de Monterrey and he will travel to Monterrey on the 5th April 2014 for a week’s visit to engaging in a series of intellectual and networking activities.

During his 5 working-day visit, Christos plans to:

  • Give a guest lecture about Bournemouth University Business School (vision; goals; history; future plans; suggestions for collaboration with Tec de Monterrey and EGADE Business School);
  • Give a presentation about his research work on social entrepreneurship expanding on the significant role of entrepreneurship in biotechnology the main research theme of the host research centre;
  • Attend student classes on Entrepreneurship and, Strategy;
  • Collect material and other secondary data about entrepreneurship activities run or supported by the host research centre;
  • Visit wherever possible local businesses that promote entrepreneurship in biotechnology (in collaboration with the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera);
  • Do networking with colleagues who work for EGADE Business School and the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera;
  • Collaborate in expanding the paper the abstract of which has already been accepted for the ECIE 2014 conference with Dr Marcia Villasana Campos.

It is envisaged that this visit can initiate long term collaboration between the two universities such as staff and student exchange, joint PhD supervision and, student recruitment with a focus on entrepreneurship (and not only). The project contributes to both research and education of the Fusion concept as it aims to develop gradually a strategic partner for BU’s internationalisation process.

Tecnológico de Monterrey is one of the largest private multi-campus universities in Latin America, with over 90,000 students. Based in Monterrey, Mexico the University has 31 campuses in 25 cities throughout the country. It has one of the top graduate business schools in the region and it is well-known for having a large number of students studying abroad every year.

For more information, please contact Dr Christos Apostolakis (capostolakis@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Sustainable Design Research Centre New Experimental Resources for Research & Education

Fusion, PG research

Sustainable Design Research Centre

Faculty of Science & Technology

Newly Added and Commissioned Experimental Resources for Research & Education

The following new equipment have been recently added to the lab resources for both research & education. Two PhD research projects in Renewable Technology (Heat Transfer and Thermodynamic Expansion) and one Research Assistant within SDRC are fully funded by industrial partner FES Ltd [Dr Zulfiqar Khan, PI]. This research informs education within the Design & Engineering Framework, MEng Programme, through Level I Thermo-fluids & Heat Transfer (20 Credit) unit led by Dr Zulfiqar Khan.

These equipment are significant addition for enhancing students’ experience and providing a vehicle for realising BU Fusion initiative.

PIPE FRICTION APPARATUS

The experimentation stand can be used to investigate pipe frictional losses with laminar and turbulent flows. The pipe section is a brass pipe with an internal diameter of 3 mm. The distance between the pressure measuring fittings and thus the length of the experimental pipe section is 400 mm.

The pressure losses for laminar flow are measured using a water manometer. The static pressure difference is displayed. A head tank is available to create a laminar flow and ensures a constant water inlet pressure in the pipe section at a constant water level.

For turbulent flow, the pressure difference is measured using a dial manometer. The head tank is not used to create a turbulent flow. The water is fed directly into the pipe section from the water supply via a bypass. The flow is adjusted using shut-off valves at the beginning and end of the pipe. The water supply is provided either by the Basic Hydraulics Module or from the mains supply in the laboratory.

BERNOULLI’S PRINCIPLE DEMONSTRATOR

The equipment is used to investigate Bernoulli’s law. The measurement object is a Venturi nozzle with six pressure measurement points. The six static pressures are displayed on a board with six water pressure gauges. The overall pressure can also be measured at various locations in the Venturi nozzle and indicated on a second water pressure gauge. Measurement is by way of a probe which can be moved axially with respect to the Venturi nozzle. The probe is sealed by way of a compression gland. Water is supplied either from the Fluid Mechanics Basic Module or from the laboratory mains.

The equipment enables a closed water circuit to be constructed.

Possible experiments:

  1. Demonstration of Bernoulli’s law
  2. Pressure measurements along Venturi nozzle
  3. Determination of flow rate factor K

[The above information are provided by GUNT Publication-no.: 917.000 01 A 150 12 (A) Experiment instructions HM 150.01 Pipe Friction Apparatus & Experiment Instructions HM 150.07 Bernoulli’s Principle Demonstrator].

If you have interest in Renewable Technology research & education and would like to find more about the activities within the Sustainable Design Research Centre, then please contact.

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director SDRC

Dash7 for remote patient monitoring via mobile phone

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Andrew Yearp.

TitleDash7 for remote patient monitoring via mobile phone

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 26th March 2014

Room: P302 (Poole House, Talbot Campus)

Abstract: Wireless Remote patient monitoring systems provide an improved environment for hospital patients while expanding the range physiological information available to medical personnel. With these developments patients are now free from wires, but are still contained within the range of the wireless monitoring system. This seminar explores the application of Dash7 and mobile phone technologies in patient monitoring, particularly in hospital wards. The functionality of a prototype system which has been developed so far will be demonstrated during this seminar.

We hope to see you there,

 Dr. David John