Category / Research themes

IVF failure is hard to accept!

 

On today’s BBC webpage is a very interesting article under the title ‘I wish IVF had never been invented’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24725655).  The article lists comments, experiences and/or feelings from readers of Magazine about the frequency with which In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) fails.

The article reminded me that some years ago colleagues at the University of Aberdeen and I published a series of articles on the often difficult decision for couples to end IVF treatment after having tried for a long time (1-3).  We noted that couples embarking on their IVF  programme are full of optimism with unrealistically high expectations. Then we noted that IVF yield only a 20-25 percent pregnancy rate per cycle, today the success rate is still less than one in three for women under 35 according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), in short many couples leave the IVF clinic childless. We also noted that IVF treatment can also be a source of tension for couples.

We concluded at the time that the decision to end IVF treatment is a complex interaction between (a) the experience of diagnosis of infertility; investigations and IVF treatment; and (b) the emotions around involuntary childlessness. Our results indicated the need for improved psychological preparation of couples who decide to end IVF treatment.

 

We commented that IVF clinics should adapt their systems to facilitate the needs of this client group and consider a policy, which would help couples ‘plan for the end’ in the beginning. Finally, our study suggested that health care staff involved in IVF care need to examine their roles in providing an environment, which (1) encourages realistic expectations to ensure realistic decisions; (2) offers accurate and consistent information; and (3) deliver an efficient support system, which encompasses listening skills and recognises grief for which at present, there appears to be little validation. Only then, can reflective practice improve service provision for those who decide to end IVF treatment. Reading the various comments on the BBC webpages today suggests to me that many of our original recommendations still have currency!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

References

  1. Peddie, V., van Teijlingen, E., Bhattacharya, S (2004) Decision making in in-vitro fertilisation: How women view the end of treatment Human Fertility, 7: 31-37.
  2. Peddie, V.L., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2005) A qualitative study of women’s decision-making at the end of IVF treatment, Human Reproduction, 20 (7): 1944-1951.
  3. Peddie, V.L., Porter, M., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2006) Research as a therapeutic experience? An investigation of women’s participation in research on ending IVF treatment, Human Fertility, 9(4): 231-238.

Sport Students Learn About Employability Of Their European Peers – And More

Once again, beginning of October the Sports group hosted senior academics from some of its European partner universities in order to provide students with international insights into topics of their study and future career. In addition, the visitors worked with BU staff on progressing international research agendas and teaching models, such as intercultural mixed-group student management games partly facilitated via online conferencing.

Dr Stefan Walzel (German Sport University Cologne) and Gerco van Dalfsen (Hanzehogeschool Groningen and Secretary General European Association for Sport Management) presented and discussed with students of all UG/PG levels and all Sport pathways topics of neuromarketing, sport city strategies, leadership and provided insights into the employability and career prospects of their own respective graduates. Both visitors stressed the need for their universities to include an array of international activities and learning experiences into their students’ curriculum in order to lift their competitiveness on an increasingly international job market.

Together with BU sport management colleague Dr Tim Breitbarth, they also progressed a collaborative international study on community perceptions of professional sport clubs’ social responsibility initiatives by collecting further data in Bournemouth. A fourth set of data was collected in the USA end of October.

Gerco and Stefan were also very interested to meet with BU sport students who will study in Cologne and Groningen in semester 2, and receive feedback from the Sport group’s ever-first incoming Erasmus exchange student in order to manage expectations and processes for future exchanges, such as the four students arriving in Bournemouth for semester 2.

 

Dr Stefan Walzel presenting on sport, neuroscience and marketing

Sport students of all levels and Sport pathways during Dr Walzel’s presentation in the Fusion Seminar Series

Gerco van Dalfsen with Level I students of all Sport pathways

Gerco van Dalfsen with sport management Masters student Andreas Stylianides and Philip Smith (from left to right)

European visitors and incoming/outgoing Sport students get-together.

CMMPH PhD students steal the show at the GLOW maternal health conference

PG research

The second Global Women’s Health Conference, held in Birmingham on November 1st, highlighted the work that still needs to be done to reduce maternal mortality. Prof Wendy Graham from the University of Aberdeen opened the conference outlining the progress to date but reminding us that there was much still to do. Her hard hitting presentation showed the unacceptable conditions of birthing rooms in many countries. She urged the audience to remember that “we do not want universal health care of poor quality.”

Rachel Arnold

This was followed by a short film produced by BU Visiting Professor Gwyneth Lewis, which tells the story of Mrs X and why she died in childbirth.

A number of presenters highlighted hospital conditions and disrespectful staff as a disincentive for women in seeking facility birth. However, Rachel Arnold, PhD student in CMMPH,  reminded the audience that the carers were women too. She noted that it is all too easy to blame health care professionals, forgetting the challenging conditions that they have to work in. In her excellent and moving presentation Rachel presented quotes from midwives and doctors in Afghanistan that brought a number of audience members to tears.

BU Prof Vanora Hundley presented work from Pakistan evaluating a decision tool to support policy makers and programme managers who are considering the potential role of clean birth kits in their strategy for care at birth.

Sheeta;

Sheetal Sharma

While PhD student Sheetal Sharma’s poster presentation Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention stole the day winning best poster prize.   Sheetal has a unique international supervisory team led by BU and her PhD is supported by Bournemouth University with a studentship and a Santander grant.

The event was also an opportunity to publicise next year’s international conference on Midwifery and the post-MDG agenda, which will be held at Bournemouth University.

Prof. Ben Azvine, Global Head of Security Research and Innovation at BT. Monday the 11th of November, PG16

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities, PG research

The next of our research seminars will take on Monday, the 11th of November, PG16 at 15:00.
Our distinguished guest is Professor Ben Azvine, the Global Head of Security Research and Innovation at BT; invited by our colleague Prof. Bogdan Gabrys.

Professor Azvine holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, an MSc in Control Engineering, a PhD in Intelligent Control Systems all from Manchester University and an MBA from Imperial College, London. Having held research fellowship and lectureship posts in several universities, he joined British Telecom Research in 1995 and set up a research programme to develop and exploit intelligent systems technologies within BT.
Since then he has held senior, principal and chief research scientist as well as head of research centre posts at Adastral Park, the head quarter of BT R&D. Ben has edited several books and published more than 100 scientific articles. He is an inventor on 50 patents, has won two BCS gold medals, and the IET award for innovation in IT, holds visiting professorships at Universities of Bristol, Cranfield and Bournemouth in the UK.

The title of his exciting talk will be “Industrial applications of novel Intelligent Systems”. Intelligent systems play an important role in industry for managing customer relationship, providing business intelligence, helping organisations analyse their data and protecting organisations against Cyber-attacks. In this talk I’ll present a number of case studies within BT where we have used intelligent system originating from within our research organisation and successfully downstreamed them into our operations.

I strongly encourage academics and PhD students not to miss the opportunity to attend to the seminar and to discuss potential collaborations.

Emili

Meeting the Dalai Lama

What a defining moment it was to be addressed by the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and one of the world’s most popular spiritual leaders. The occasion was The Global Spa and Wellness Summit (GSWS) in New Delhi, where for the first time world-renowned tourism experts got together to discuss, define, and shape, the best strategies to grow, this new and emerging tourism sector.

The Global Spa & Wellness Summit (GSWS) is an international organization representing senior executives and leaders from over 40 countries, joined by a common interest to drive economic development and understanding of the spa and wellness industries. Delegates from diverse sectors, including hospitality, tourism, health and wellness, beauty, finance, medical, real estate, manufacturing and technology, attended the organization’s annual Summit, which is held in a different host country each year. Ministries of tourism and ambassadors were in Delhi to share their current strategies and future plans to attract more business and leisure wellness travellers; however academics were rather thin on the ground!

Personally and professionally it was the experience of a lifetime.

BU well represented at Global Women’s (GLOW) Research Conference

PG research

 

At tomorrow’s Global Women’s (GLOW) Research Conference at the University of Birmingham BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health is very well presented.  Prof. Vanora Hundley presents her poster Clean Birth Kits to promote safe childbirth, which reports the views of policy makers and district health officers in Pakistan regarding the potential for CBKs to facilitate clean birth practices.

 

PhD student Sheetal Sharma also presents a poster on her thesis under the title: Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention.  Sheetal’s work is supervised by BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley, BU Senior Lecturer in Midwifery Catherine Angell, BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Padam Simkhada (ScHARR, University of Sheffield) and Dr. Elisa Sicuri from CRESIB (Barcelona Centre for International Health Research) in Spain and Prof. José M. Belizán from IECS (Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy) in Argentina.  Sheetal’s PhD evaluates a community-based health promotion intervention in Nepal which aims to improve the uptake of maternity care.  The intervention is sponsored by the London-based Buddhist charity Green Tara Trust (see: http://www.greentaratrust.com/ ).

 

Whilst PhD student Rachel Arnold will give an oral presentation of her PhD research under the title:  Afghan women: a qualitative study of the culture of care in an Afghan maternity hospital.   This PhD, supervised by BU Professors Immy Holloway and Edwin van Teijlingen and BU Visiting Professor Kath Ryan (La Trobe University, Australia), analyses the culture of care within a maternity hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul and examines the perspectives of midwives, doctors and cleaners on their role and care within that hospital. In a country striving to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality the provision of quality intrapartum care for women in Kabul’s maternity hospitals is vital.

 

BU Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen will also take the opportunity at the GLOW conference to promote the forthcoming BU conference on what will happen after the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 ‘Midwifery and the post MDG agenda’ (http://postmdgagenda-eorg.eventbrite.co.uk/ ).

 

Vanora Hundley is Professor of Midwifery

Edwin van Teijlingen is Professor of Reproductive Health Research

 

Congrats Courtney!

Fusion

Courtney Lee, a Level H, BA Events and Leisure Marketing student has been appointed Social Media Manager for the Festival Impact Monitor.

Courtney brings a great deal of experience to the role. During her placement she worked for the Hong Kong Tourism board, where she worked within the organisation’s Trade Development Team  and also provided support with public relations. Courtney has already designed a comprehensive social media plan for the project which she will launch in early November. This includes the rechristening of the project as FestIM and the design of a logo. She will be accompanying the project’s Principal Investigator, Nigel Williams to key events and presentations to ensure that both the project’s live and virtual media are in sync and key messages are delivered across all the project’s media platforms.

Courtney is open to working with others interested in a social media role and would welcome enquiries from students wishing to be social media assistants.  Interested students should e-mail nferdinand@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The Festival Impact Monitor is funded by the BU Fusion Investment Fund. For more click on this link.

 

Decreasing spatial disorientation: towards dementia-friendly environments: A progress report

Spatial disorientation is among the earliest indicators of dementia, an increasingly common condition in our ageing society that currently costs the UK £23 billion annually. With support of the Fusion-CCCP strand we have created ViRtUOS (Virtual Reality User Orientation System), a state-of-the-art eye-tracking and virtual environments research platform which will facilitate the study of factors that affect spatial disorientation in people with dementia. Data gathered using ViRtUOS will be used to formulate design principles for dementia-friendly care homes, reducing care costs, and leading to new knowledge with significance and reach.

To develop ViRtUOS we have brought together undergraduate RAs from Computing, Creative Technology and Computer Animation to work co-operatively and as part of a high-level, well-resourced multi-disciplinary team.

This video demonstrates the results of their excellent work:

 CLICK HERE TO VIEW; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1oo6JXWNuY

So far, this FIF project has been a great success and feedback from the students RAs suggests that they have enjoyed this unique student experience and that working in an inter-disciplinary team has helped them improve their skills.

Excerpts from students’ feedback:

“I enjoyed working on a project which is not exactly ordinary in my field, and working with people who come from different professional backgrounds. It was interesting to see how contrasting subjects tie into the same workflow to try and produce a coherent product. Personally, I am glad to take away new knowledge about my own study subject and the ones of my fellow colleagues; most of that knowledge I will surely apply in my last year of study.” Jurate Pozeraite (Computer Animation, Media School)

“I’ve learnt a lot in my time here, which will be invaluable for both my final year project and my future career. I’ve learnt not only about software development, but about modelling, developing reliable systems, working as a team to produce a joint system and error handling and bug fixing. I feel that working with other students, in a similar position to myself, really helped me in this project. They made me feel at ease and they helped me learn about their roles in developing this system, which otherwise I would have completely ignored. Overall I feel that for me personally this was a very worthwhile project, for expanding my experience and learning something new. I would love to continue my work with this project for as long as possible.” William Chappell (Computing, DEC)

“During the full length of the project I had learnt more and more, I think that this was the best opportunity I have had in a long time. This job gave me lots of experience with people from different schools, which have completely different perspectives. They are both brilliant in their profession and I have learned a lot from them. Also I hope they have learned some things from me. Generally, I have gained new skills including working with ‘Vizard 4.0’ software and ‘3DsMax’. In fact, the project was really interesting and I was glad to not only earn experience from it but also produce a good quality product at the end. Overall I am very happy that I get a chance to work with such a wonderful team. It was a great experience that improves my skills for future projects. If I had a chance to go back in time and redo this project again I will definitely do it.” Arkadiusz Szerszmidt (Creative Technology, DEC)

 We believe that ViRtUOS has great potential to also foster other inter-disciplinary collaborations within BU and we would like to invite academics and students from across BU to get in contact with us, visit the laboratory and explore its potential for their research interests.

The further development of ViRtUOS will be driven by two PhD projects that started in October this year and we are planning to run first experiments investigating spatial orientation in people with dementia soon.

The team, from left to right: Arkadiusz Szerszmidt (undergraduate RA, Creative Technology), William Chappell (undergraduate RA Computing), Mary O’Malley (PhD student, Psychology & BUDI), Mariela Gaete-Reyes (BUDI), Jurate Pozeraite (undergraduate RA, Computer Animation), Chris Ramsey (PhD student, CDE), Jan Wiener (Psychology & BUDI)

 CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO !!!

By Mariela Gaete-Reyes & Jan Wiener

Thank FIF it’s open! – Round two now open to applications

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Research themes

 

 

 

The Pro-Vice Chancellor would like to invite you to apply for the current round of Fusion Investment Fund.

 Three funding strands are available for staff at BU:                                                       

Co-Creation and Co-Production strand (CCCP)

 Study Leave strand (SL)

There are three sub-strands under this strand: Academic Study Leave, Internal Secondments and Industrial Staff Placements.

 Staff Mobility and Networking strand (SMN)

This strand includes Santander and Erasmus.

 Awareness sessions will take place on the following, giving applicants the valuable opportunity to discuss their applications with the FIF Manager and committee members:

  • Wednesday 13 November 12-1pm, S203, Lansdowne
  • Monday 18 November 2-3pm, Casterbridge room, THS, Talbot
  •  In addition, Dr. Martin Pickard of Grantcraft will be running a two and a half hour session giving essential Fusion bid writing advice on Wednesday 20 November, at 9.30am in, CG04, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus. Martin is a specialist in writing and supporting research grant applications and tenders, as well as providing administrative and management support services for ongoing projects.

If you are interested in attending any of these sessions please contact Fusion Fund to confirm your place and your preferred session.For all the updated strand policy documents, application form and more information please visit the FIF intranet pages.

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.

Sustainable Design Research Centre: Research and Professional Practice Activities and Engagement

About SDRC

Studies of surface wear mechanisms and integration of sustainable development issues within advanced engineering components and systems is the underlying principle of this research centre. Issues of tribology (friction, wear and lubrication) are studied to help understand their influence on product durability and energy consumption. SDRC has significant industrial funding and partnership in research into structural integrity in terms of corrosion, corrosion condition monitoring and prediction, nano coatings, oil condition monitoring, renewable technology & rolling contact failure.

The activities of SDRC include four areas

  1. Tribology
  2. Renewable Technology & Sustainable Design
  3. Structural Integrity and
  4. Design Education.

The Centre has extensive experimental and analytical resources to assess wear mechanisms of rolling and sliding contacts, corrosion simulation, renewable technology and surface analyses. These include rotary tribometer, micro-friction machine, corrosion simulation chamber, solar-thermal heat transfer & thermal expansion bench testing, 2D and 3D surface analysis techniques.

We have formed strong partnerships with multinational companies such as SK&F (Netherlands), Oakland Ridge National Laboratories (USA), Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), Future Energy Source Ltd, Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) Ministry of Defence, Schaeffler, Energetix, Smith & Nephew plc, The Tank Museum, Poole Tidal Energy Partnership, Balmain Trust and have secured funding from The Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC.

Collaborative work is also being carried out with other universities such as Oviedo University in Spain, County Carlow Institute of Technology in Ireland, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee USA, PES Institute of Technology Bangalore India and National Institute of Technology Srinagar India.

Research Themes within SDRC

Tribology

Design for Whole Life Cycle managed Programme titled “Sustainable Development of Mechanical Systems using replacement environmental acceptable refrigerants” (£110K EPSRC plus £8K in kind from BP Castrol Technology Centre) was completed in this area of research. This research theme was further developed by another EPSRC funded studentship (£45K) with BP Castrol and Plint and Partners as industrial collaborators.

EPSRC previously funded two industrial CASE projects, “Sustainable design of lifeboat launching systems”, (£65K) and “Tribology Tests Using Oil Condition Monitoring Techniques” (£130+704K + 4K) with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. This research is looking to identify a non-invasive condition monitoring approach that is suitable for the RNLI mode of operations and maintenance environment.

A BU funded research looking into Sustainable Design of Domestic Micro Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems was recently completed. Micro CHP systems are very efficient and effective in generating electricity and in producing heat and hot water simultaneously.

SK&F Engineering and Research Centre (The Netherlands) have fully funded 3 PhD studentships (£38K, £54K and £57K), one fellowship (£70K) and a number of short-term projects (£16K).

Schaeffler is match funding a PhD studentship (£24K plus £41K in kind) looking into Electroplated composite coatings with incorporated nano particles for tribological systems with a focus on water lubrication. Schaeffler develops and manufactures precision products for machines, equipment, vehicles and aerospace applications. Schaeffler is a leading manufacturer of bearings worldwide and a renowned supplier to the automotive industry.

Renewable Technology & Sustainable Design

It is envisaged that further expansion of this research area, in conjunction with a large commercial partner could potentially produce a substantive portfolio of academic activity.

Renewable Technology has been identified as a BU cross-school and cross-disciplinary area within the BU’s Technology & Design Theme. The research engagement and funded projects have significantly increased in a short period of time. SDRC has been actively engaged with Poole Tidal Energy Partnership. Students led projects in mechanical current turbine and heat pumps have been completed in partnerships with the local community interest groups and stakeholders in renewable technology.

This theme has led to strong collaborative links with industry interested in renewable technology. Future Energy Source is fully funding (£49K plus in kind support £50K/year lab staff over four years, £10K/year estates costs over four years & £20K lab equipments in solar-thermal simulation and thermodynamics expansion lab) PhD research in “Research and development in novel alternative renewable energy technology” and a second project (£48K) in “Experimental investigation and mathematical modelling of dynamic equilibrium of novel thermo fluids for renewable technology applications”. In addition another short term research project looking into quantitative assessment of existing bench testing in Renewable Technologies (£3600) is funded by Future Energy Source Ltd.

Significant partnerships have been established with cross-channel academic and industrial partners within renewable technology in mechanical current turbines (tidal and fluvial) to work towards the EU strategy of renewable technology. AmpereWave has shown interest in research collaborations with SDRC. Balmain Charitable Trust is match funding (£30K) PhD in “An optimised tidal energy design for Poole harbour”.

SDRC is actively working with industry and continues to support renewable technology and sustainable design projects in the form of enterprise, short courses and consultancy.

The Centre has completed a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) projects with Electronic Technician Limited. The partnerships were to improve the competitiveness and productivity of the companies through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills.

Structural Integrity

The Tank Museum at Bovington is one of the world’s largest museums which has over 300 historic military vehicles. These vehicles are subject to structural deterioration through corrosion, corrosion fatigue, stress corrosion cracking and mechanical failures. The Tank Museum at Bovington match funded (£25K + £3600) a PhD research programme in “Sustainable Methodology of Conserving Historic Vehicles”. This project provided an understanding of military vehicle preservation from a predominantly technical viewpoint with aspects of project management and ethics of museum artefacts. The interesting aspects of this project with the Tank Museum are the requirements to run and operate large and heavy vehicles after periods of non-use in various humidity and temperature environments.

The current research in collaboration with the Tank Museum has made significant contributions to knowledge creation and exchange through coupling research in UG and PGT live projects with The Tank Museum. The outcomes to date have been disseminated through prestigious international journals (Insight: Non-Destructive Testing and Condition Monitoring, Journal of Materials Performance and Characterisation, Engineering (ASTM) & Tribology Transactions), commercial articles and international conferences as invited keynote speaking at Cranfield University, Oxford University, Cardiff University, The Institute of Physics and Time Higher Education.

The findings have also attracted international industrial players in corrosion, structural deterioration and materials’ characterisation, who have been involved through in-kind support such as NASA Materials Testing and Corrosion Control Branch (joint research publication). BAE Systems, Technology Design Limited, PANalytical Ltd, Analatom, PMI Analytical, Carl-Zeiss Cambridge and West-Dean Chichester (in kind £21K in total) in experimental resources.

Defence Science and Testing Laboratories (DSTL), Ministry of Defence is match funding (£22.5K) PhD studentship in “In-situ corrosion health monitoring and prediction in military vehicles.

Design Education

Teaching development based on research was the basis of the successful grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering grant in Sustainable development to second a visiting professor (£98K over five years). This activity has resulted in learning and teaching resource used for teaching all levels of design group programmes and by other UK and European universities.

The historical research area of the SDRC, as evidenced by the themes above, has revolved around the highly technical aspects of sustainable design, namely the techno-centric dimension. However, more recently, the research of the SDRC has expanded to encompass the socio-cultural aspects of sustainable design. Initially, this developed from the area of sustainable design education with the awarding of an HEA grant to build a web-based learning resource for the socio-centric dimension, however, this has now expanded through consultancy work currently being undertaken, and through current bidding for funding, for example, to investigate how product life spans may be extended by re-designing products with a focus on product attachment.

SDRC has established long standing collaborations with University of Wisconsin Milwaukee USA, PES Institute of Technology Bangalore India, National Institute of Technology Srinagar India and Oviedo University Spain.

SDRC has visiting professors from PES Institute of Technology Bangalore India, National Institute of Technology Srinagar India and visiting research fellows from Oviedo University Spain

Current PGRs & Research Projects

Surname First Name Project Title
ALKHATEEB Maryam Element, Use and Meaning: Between the Vernacular and Current Interiors in Saudi Arabia, Eastern Region.
ANAND Mayank A Condition Based Approach to the Tribology of RNLI Marine Systems
AWAN Abdul Waheed Defect Tolerance Assessment of Silicon Nitride in Rolling Contact
MAHER Carmel Practice Based Design Research: Development of research models, methodologies and evaluation criteria appropriate to its intellectual culture.
MORGAN Alan Optimisation of Braking Systems and Sustainable Design in Traction Drive Passenger and Goods Lifts
NASSEF Iman A Market Driven Standard for a High Quality Graduate
SAEED Adil Sustainable Methodology of Conserving Historic Vehicles
WEN Zheming (Bruce) Research and development in novel alternative renewable energy technology
NAZIR Mian Hammad In-situ corrosion health monitoring and prediction in military vehicles
BAJWA Rizwan Electroplated composite coatings with incorporated nano particles for tribological systems with the focus on water lubrication
HÜSEYN UTKU Helvaci Experimental investigation and mathematical modelling of dynamic equilibrium of novel thermo fluids for renewable technology applications

Public Engagement

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2013/05/23/renewable-energy-and-renewable-technology-public-engagement-event/

SDRC Membership

  1. Ben Thomas
  2. Christine Keenan
  3. Clive Hunt
  4. Franziska Conrad
  5. Gary Underwood
  6. Kamran Tabeshfar
  7. Mark Hadfield
  8. Nigel Garland
  9. Sarah Palmer
  10. Tania Humphries
  11. Tilak Ginige
  12. Zulfiqar Khan

 

Contact Us

For research, enterprise or professional practice inquiries within SDRC themes please contact

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director SDRC

zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk

The KTP Advantage

Festival of Learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my KTP I…

Provided consultation into the design of an innovative model of dementia care: ‘Shared Care’ The aim of Shared Care is to offer an alternative lifestyle choice to people living with dementia. At present, options for people needing support living with dementia are limited to in home care packages, outsourced respite and long term care home placement.

Brendoncare sought the expertise at Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) to ensure the built and psycho-social environments, methods of care delivery and technologies implemented within Shared Care were ‘dementia friendly’ and to ensure the voice of people living with dementia has an input to the design of services. This was achieved through consultation with people with dementia, family carers and formal care staff.

Highlights of the project were…

Being given the opportunity to take responsibility for all aspects of my project from ensuring the consultation work was ethically proficient to recruitment to dissemination and succeeding in meeting the expectations of the client. Moreover, being funded to go and discuss my work with peers at Alzheimer’s Europe 2013 in Malta was a great experience.

Representing Brendoncare at BUDI's internal conference in May

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Thing about being a KTP Associate is…

Applying the theoretical knowledge and skills learnt during education into practice, with the support of an expert knowledge base and a practice base receptive to service innovation. The opportunities to present findings at board room level and hear action points being raised as a direct result of your work is also extremely satisfying.

From KTP I have learnt…

Before KTP I was just another graduate. Now I have professional academic experience, I have completed a challenging and intensive project within dementia studies; met peers and discussed my work at an international conference and have become a valued member of BUDI; a team committed to improving the lives of people with dementia. KTP has confirmed, reinforced and enabled me to start an academic career in dementia research.

Life after KTP is…

I am about to start my PhD study: An investigation into the strategic implementation of a model of dementia care into a care home environment. I am also planning to get findings of this project published in a peer reviewed academic journal.

I recommend KTP because…

It provides one of the best opportunities I’ve seen in the graduate market. It gives associate experience in both academic and practice-based working environments, space to develop skills, control and ownership over project work and much support along the way. I would recommend any graduate to grasp this opportunity and get the KTP advantage!

 

CIM Dorset Event – Brand Purpose – Richard Calvert from Bright Blue Day

Training

Join us on Tuesday 12 November 2013 for the latest in our series of events held by the CIM Dorset branch.

Richard Calvert from Bright Blue Day is joining us to tell us about Brand Purpose.  As marketers we’re finding new ways to integrate Social, Local and Mobile communications into our customers day-to-day lives – invariably introducing complexity and unnecessary hassle into our lives.

There has been an explosion in the tools, techniques, strategies and tactics available to the SO LO MO marketer – each promising to deliver just the right message at the right time in the right place to the right person.  How do we apply SO LO MO thinking to deliver real value to customers, prospects and to our businesses?

How do we deliver real brand purpose and cut through everything that we can do in order to deliver just what we should?

Arrival from 6pm for a 6:30pm start.  Networking from 6pm until the event start. To book please visit http://bit.ly/1idcvi5

Energy Management for existing buildings. Competition now open

Funding opportunities

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Research Councils’ UK Energy Programme are to invest up to £4m in collaborative R&D to stimulate innovation in the field of energy management for existing buildings.

The aim of this competition is to advance significantly the capabilities of UK businesses so that they can capture a greater share of growing UK and global markets.

Consortia must be collaborative and led by a business. They should include at least one business that provides solutions for energy management, such as technology providers, building/facility/energy managers or engineers. The TSB are also encouraging consortia to include a potential customer for their energy management innovation and, where appropriate, researchers from relevant academic or research organisations.

This is a two-stage competition that opened for applicants on 14 October 2013. Applicants must register by noon on 20 November 2013. The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 27 November 2013.

A briefing event for potential applicants will be held in London on 23 October 2013. For more information and to register please click here.

What can a University community contribute to a Dementia Friendly Society? Being a friend is a start!

In what proved to be a very busy few months of engaging with the public to try and raise awareness of dementia, BUDI held its first Dementia Friends Training session in September. People with dementia sometimes need a helping hand to go about their daily lives and feel included in their local community. The Prime Ministers Challenge and the Alzheimer Society national initiative – Dementia Friends – is giving the general public an understanding of dementia and the small things they can do that can make a difference to people living with dementia – from raising dementia awareness in customer-facing staff to spreading the word about dementia. http://www.dementiafriends.org.uk/

20 BU staff and students responded to the invitation to take part and the training was delivered by one of BUDIs research collaborators Ian Sherriff at Plymouth University, who is also a Trustee of the Alzheimer Society, and a member of one of the Prime Minister’s national Dementia Working Groups. Friends’ information sessions are run by Dementia Friends Champions, who are volunteers who have taken the Dementia Friends Champions’ training. The Friends’ information session lasted around one hour and we learnt more about dementia and how we can help to create dementia friendly communities in our working environment and in our local community. The session was good fun and made everyone realise how they can contribute to making the lives of those living with dementia easier.

Professor Anthea Innes and BUDI PhD student Ben Hicks were so inspired by the friends training they have agreed to become Dementia Champions to help train more BU staff and students to become dementia friends. The one-hour training session is free and will be offered at different points in the year to any BU staff or students who want to become a Dementia Friend. If you are interested in becoming a dementia friend and want to make a positive difference to people living with dementia in your community please contact Michelle O’Brien to book your place (Email: mobrien@bournemouth.ac.uk Telephone: 01202 962771)