Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
If you have been following my previous posts then you will know that today is the final Cyber Security Seminar for this semester. We hope you have found the seminar series interesting so far.
We are currently planning the seminars for next semester. Please get in touch if you have suggestions for potential speakers, or topics you would like to hear more about. Although the budget we have available is modest, we will do our best to accommodate your suggestions.
BUDI, in the form of Clare, Derek, Sarah and Chris, along with 3000 other delegates attended an extremely busy Birmingham Care Show 2013 at the NEC between the 12 and 13 of November. A diverse range of experts from all sectors of the care industry, from care home providers to academic institutions were present, making it a fantastic opportunity to network and introduce BUDI to a range of potential collaborators.
Our very orange stand at the Birmingham Care Show definitely stood out!
The ‘Dementia Design Academy’ (a new feature of The Care Show this year) drew much attention with regular lectures, presentations from experts within the field, interactive virtual environments to tour and BUDI’s very own ‘Don’t Mention Dementia Project’ on display. Over the course of the two day event we met and exchanged details with over 100 delegates interested in buddying up with BUDI in the future, many interested in our bespoke educational programmes. The event demonstrated how the care industry has become extremely focused on offering ‘dementia friendly’ services and products. This was reflected by the high interest in the BUDI stand, although the chocolates and free mouse mats may also have played a part in that!
SDRC has added a new fluid property research and education resource to its experimental lab. This resource will be deployed in the current on-going research in renewable technology and coupled with the MEng/BEng Level I thermodynamics & heat transfer unit. This will provide opportunity to realise BU Fusion initiative through research informed education.
Description
The F1-30 Fluid Property Apparatus is part of the Engineering Teaching & Research Equipment in SDRC. It consists of a collection of components that demonstrate individual fluid properties:
For education purpose, it can introduce students a clear understanding about the physical properties of fluids that can build the foundation for them to study the behaviour of fluids in static or dynamic applications.
For research purpose, it allows bench tests to be performed for measuring physical properties of fluids from a wide range of applications.
Measuring Capabilities
If you would like to know more about the research and education activities within the SDRC themes please contact
Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)
Email: zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk
Our final Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar this semester will take place on Tuesday, 10th December at 5pm. The seminar will take place in EB202 in the Executive Business Centre, and will be free and open to all. If you would like to attend, please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interdisciplinary-seminar-in-cyber-security-tickets-9688353125
Our speaker will be Dr. Simon Parkin from UCL. Simon is a Senior Research Associate in the Information Security group at University College London, contributing to the Productive Security project within the Research Institute in the Science of Cyber Security (RISCS). He was previously a member of the Innovation Team at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Security Services (HP ESS) until mid-2012. From 2007 to 2011, Simon was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University, where he also obtained his PhD. His research interests include: IT-security policy management metrics, models and tools; holistic IT-security management principles, and; IT-security risk management approaches and knowledge formalisation.
Abstract: Individuals working within organisations must complete their tasks, and are often expected to do so using secured IT systems. There can be times when the expectations for productivity and security are in competition, and so how would an organisation measure the outcomes in practice? We will review a series of interdisciplinary research efforts that characterise the human factor in IT-security within large organisations, as part of a holistic view of security. There are furthermore a variety of modelling approaches and frameworks that have emerged and informed this view. We will consider the challenges that remain in affording measurement of the human factor in IT-security within organisations, and some of the changes that are required for such activities to be sustainable and effective.
The Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to invite you to a presentation by Dr John Oliver from the Media School on 20 January 2014 at the Executive Business Centre. Arrival from 5:30pm for a 6pm start.
Dr John Oliver is Deputy President of the European Media Management Association along with being Programme Director for the Professional Directorate in the Creative Industries at Bournemouth University. Dr John Oliver has delivered executive education to clients including Virgin Media and BskyB.
Businesses increasingly find themselves competing in highly changeable and dynamic markets. Visibility is limited, and the strategic way forward is ambiguous to say the least. Dr John Oliver will present and discuss the latest findings on how UK media firms are managing media innovation over the short and long-term.
Please join us for this free event. Local businesses and students will also be attending so it is a great opportunity for networking / public engagment!
Refreshments will be provided, to find out more or to book your place please visit http://bucfe.com/events/managing-media-innovation/
Dr Julian McDougall from BU’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) will make recommendations on UK media education at a conference in Paris later this month.
The conference brings together comparative analyses on media and information education from EU member states and Dr McDougall will present the UK report alongside his London School of economics (LSE) research collaborators.
Dr McDougall said: “In the UK report, we have mapped media education provision in the UK against the various EC and EU frameworks and draw a clear conclusion, that the UK is rich with expertise, energy and leadership for media and information education, and to a significant extent is the envy of other European nations in this respect, but deeply entrenched prejudice against ‘media studies’ means that promoting media literacy through schools is continually undermined.”
The report examines the progression of media education through three key phases:
When examining the current ‘state of play’ in UK media literacy education, Dr McDougall and his colleagues looked at four areas: the study of media in formal secondary and higher education through curriculum subjects such as Media Studies, Film Studies and Media/non-literary textual analysis in English as well as vocational courses; broader, less formal examples of media literacy across the UK curriculum and extra-curricular activities such as literacy education in primary schools and related subjects like Citizenship, Sociology and History; e-safety policies in the school system; and media & information literacy outside of formal education.
Having examined the current scope and provision of UK media education and media literacy, the report identifies a scarcity of funding and training and a contradiction between support for creative industry employability, digital literacy and e-safety and derision towards, neglect of and undermining (through UCAS tariff distinctions, for example) media education where it already exists for thousands of young people.
At the same time, the recent Next Gen Report, well received by policy-makers, fails to locate media education as a context for teaching digital programming and coding. The UK report predicts that the combined effect of proposed secondary curriculum reform and this response to the Next Gen report will place UK media education in further ‘limbo’ between the cultural value afforded to English Literature and Art as academic /creative disciplines for their own sake and the vocational importance of strong media and technological literacy, such as those assumed for games and effects education within the STEM subject cluster, in today’s modern media-saturated tech-savvy workplace.
Three clear and compelling recommendations are presented from the UK report’s findings:
The conference is hosted by the French National Research Agency project TRANSLIT (convergence between computer, media and information literacies), in association with the European network COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies.” It takes place on 13-14 December at the Grand Amphi of Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris.
Dr McDougall was lead author on the report, entitled Media and Information Education in the UK, alongside his LSE collaborators Professor Sonia Livingstone (Leader of the TRANSLIT/COST Media Literacy Task Force) and Dr Julian Sefton-Green.
Santander Mobility Network Fusion Funds allowed me to visit King Juan Carlos University (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, URJC) in Madrid, Spain, a few weeks ago. After being hit by the parvovirus 24hr after arriving in Madrid I finally managed to pull myself together and visit Dr Marcos Mendez at the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation, who had arranged for me to meet the Head of the Department, the Head of the Postgraduate School, some academics and undergraduate students. I introduced them to (and left them with several hard copies of) BU’s Summer Schools and our Master’s courses; we also discussed placement opportunities for BU and URJC students. One of them (from URJC) will be visiting us in the New Year funded by Erasmus placement funds. Academics at URJC Department of Biodiversity and Conservation are extremely keen in receiving BU students to work on the wealth of terrestrial and aquatic conservation projects that are running in the Department.
Overall, it was a very productive visit and we now are exploring funding opportunities to develop further this collaboration. If you know of any student looking for a placement, URJC can offer a great opportunity… in the wonderful town of Madrid. Drop me an email (Genoveva Esteban, School of Applied Sciences – gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk) and I will get it organised.
So what started as a match funded PhD with Solutions for Chefs (SFC), an Austrian software company, has now developed into an exciting portfolio of activity. Working with DEC we are going to apply for funding through The Global Innovation Initiative (GII) which is a shared commitment of the United Kingdom and the United States to strengthen research collaboration between universities in the UK, and the US. GII will award grants to university consortia focusing on interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related issues of global significance that foster cutting-edge multinational research and strengthen international partnerships. We are proposing an innovative ICT solution to menu design that can be used as a catalyst for improving human health and wellbeing. This will then lead to an EU RISE bid in January 2015.
Bearing in mind Fusion, SFC have also agreed to sponsor a fourth year consultancy project and the visit this week by one of the partners was both inspirational and supportive of BU.
The question of why our species engages in war is one that goes to the heart of human nature, often generating starkly polarised views as to whether the peculiarly human propensity to engage in organized conflict between groups is something ‘hard wired’ in our species or is simply a product of particular social systems that promote such behaviour. In considering this question an aspect often debated is the extent to which war should be seen as a fairly recent development, absent before civilization, or whether it has been around much longer going deep into the human past. In relation to this latter the answers people generate may depend largely on the kind of data they focus on. Past conflict can generally be detected via four strands of evidence: written sources, artefacts (weapons, armour etc.), defensive structures and human remains. Of these four, the first three come with a range of problems; weapons and defences may simply be statements of prestige or status and reveal little about how much actual conflict there was in the past, meanwhile written sources are characteristically biased and incomplete and together represent only 1-2% of the time modern humans have existed.
Instead our new book The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict (edited by Chris Knüsel, Exeter and Martin Smith, BU) focuses specifically on human remains in order to ask the question: ‘if human burials were our only window onto the past, what story would they tell?’ Skeletal injuries constitute the most direct and unambiguous evidence for violence in the past, and in fact offer clear and unequivocal evidence of physical hostilities reaching as far back as we have burials to examine.
Warfare is often dismissed as ‘senseless’ and as having no place in society. Consequently, its place in social relations and societal change remains obscure. The studies in this volume combine to present an overview of the nature and development of human conflict from prehistory to recent times as evidenced by the remains of past people themselves in order to explore the social contexts in which such injuries were inflicted. A broadly chronological approach is taken ranging from the Krapina Neanderthals, to Neolithic Asia, Precolumbian Peru, First World War France, and 1990’s Rwanda. However this book is not simply a catalogue of injuries illustrating changes in technology or a narrative detailing ‘progress’ in warfare but rather provides a framework in which to explore both continuity and change based on a range of important themes that hold continuing relevance throughout human development.
Taken together these studies demonstrate not only the antiquity of war but also the extent to which processes and mechanisms acting to promote or limit intergroup conflict in the context of prehistoric villages hold equal relevance for the global village today. We conclude that war may not be an evolutionary adaptation in itself but rather a by-product of other ‘hard-wired’ mechanisms that may be exploited as part of a social strategy by which individuals and groups attempt to advance their own interests. This is a heartening point as this means that rather than an inevitable human universal, war can be seen as something that might eventually be dispensed with altogether. The last word on human conflict is far from being written, but when it is it need not be a pessimistic one.
BU’s Sustainable Design Research Centre has recently added nano-coating experimental resource to its labs
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.
This research lies within the Sustainable Design Research Centre’s Tribology theme. This research aims to understand friction, wear, and corrosion performance of electroplated nano-composite coatings especially with special focus in water lubricated mechanical components. These issues are of significant importance in terms of industrial applications. The proposed project will enhance reliability, durability and life cycle issues while incorporating sustainability aspects.
In order to carry this research forward SDRC has recently added a nano-coating facility to its leading research labs in Tribology, Corrosion, Nano-Coatings, Renewable Technology (Thermodynamics & Heat Transfer) and Sustainable Design.
General specifications of the new addition are provided here.
Control Interface
Straight DC and Choice of Low Frequency Pulse or High Frequency Pulse Output
If you have interests in this resource, research area or would like to know more about the research activities within SDRC please do contact.
Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)
Director SDRC
email: zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk
The December issue of The Practising Midwife included the slightly more theoretical article ‘Normal birth: social-medical model’.[1] The paper is written by Ms. Jillian Ireland, midwife and Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Union Learning Rep. at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Faculty at Bournemouth University in collaboration with BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.
The paper argues that someone’s perspective of birth is not simply semantic. Thus, whether a midwife describes her role as being ‘with woman’ through labour or as someone who ‘delivers’ women of babies does not just demonstrates a more or less currently politically correct description. No, it suggests having different perspectives or world views of pregnancy and childbirth. Sociologists recognise two different approaches as two different models, a social model and a medical model of childbirth. The social model stresses that childbirth is a physiological event that takes place in most women’s lives. The medical model highlights that childbirth is potentially pathological. In the latter view every pregnant woman is potentially at risk, hence she should deliver her baby in an obstetric hospital with its high-technology screening equipment supervised by expert obstetricians. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.
The Practising Midwife’s paper argues that having some understanding of the underlying sociological models of pregnancy and childbirth can help politicians, journalists, policy-makers, midwives, doctors, and new mothers (and their partners) to put issues around ‘normal birth’ into perspective. This paper builds on previous work by the second author on the medicalisation of childbirth and the social/medical model published in Sociological Research Online[2] and Midwifery.[3]
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
References:
1. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16(11): 17-20.
2. van Teijlingen, E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociological Research Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
3. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.
For further details or inquiries please contact
Dr Zulfiqar Khan
Director SDRC
Montclair State University (MSU) is working with Sodexo on an international menu-labelling collaboration. Dr. Charles Feldman of MSU, Dr. Heather Hartwell of Bournemouth University in England, and Sodexo at MSU are researching the effectiveness of menu-board icons in promoting healthy-meal selections by students. The findings from this research are helping Sodexo design computer-aided menus with helpful nutrient information.
Based on the research, a prototype ‘traffic light system’ has been implemented at MSU on paper menus, and on menu boards to help students determine healthy and unhealthy options – red meaning less healthy, green meaning healthy, and yellow meaning an “okay” choice. Menus designed to promote good nutrition may have the potential to encourage healthier decisions through hidden persuaders, without restricting students’ freedom of dietary choice.
This research relationship has also resulted in student exchange and virtual interactive lectures between the two institutions. Both USA and UK cohorts are able to see and interact with each other throughout the lecture and can ask questions and debate current food topics as though they were in the same room. However, it isn’t all about work and our students are able to find out more about being at Montclair and were especially interested in the Fraternities and Sororities (fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students).
It is the second time that the School of Tourism has hosted such an activity and is certainly something that we hope to repeat in the future.
Our next Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar will take place on Tuesday, 3rd December at 5pm. Our seminars are approachable, and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.
Our speaker will be David Rogers, who is Founder and Director of Copper Horse Solutions Ltd: a software and security company based in Windsor, UK. Alongside this he teaches the Mobile Systems Security course at the University of Oxford and Chairs the Device Security Steering Group at the GSM Association. He has worked in the mobile industry for over 14 years in security and engineering roles. Prior to this he worked in the semiconductor industry. David’s articles and comments on mobile security topics have been regularly covered by the media worldwide including The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Sophos’ Naked Security blog. His book ‘Mobile Security: A Guide for Users’ was published in 2013. David holds an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Oxford and a HND in Mechatronics from the University of Teesside.
Abstract: Technology in mobile devices is continuing to advance at an incredible rate, but some of the old security themes continue to persist, mobile phone theft being one of them. This talk looks at the topic of mobile phone theft and what industry’s role has been in helping to prevent it and whether that has been entirely successful. The talk looks at what could happen next and whether it is possible to standardise usable anti-theft mechanisms within devices. It will also look at technologies such as biometrics for access control and whether Police and Government actions have been adequate in dealing with the modus operandi of thieves and fencers of stolen phones.
The seminar will take place in EB202 in the Executive Business Centre, and will be free and open to all. If you would like to attend, please register at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interdisciplinary-seminar-in-cyber-security-tickets-9564165677
Here is the updated CEMP bulletin for December 2013.
Please contact Julian McDougall to follow up any of these opportunities or to share other ideas for pedagogy/ practitioner research.
Speakers and delegates from 10 mainly Asian countries voted the 1st International Corporate and Marketing Communication in Asia Conference, held in Bangkok on November 18-19, “a big success”
The FIF-supported conference went so well that planning is already under way for the 2014 conference, also to be held at Chulalongkorn University in the Thai capital.
Representing BU at the conference were Prof Tom Watson, a co-organiser, and Dr Ana Adi, both of the Media School. Tom was a second day keynote speaker while Ana presented the outcome of research by her and Nathaniel Hobby on social media monitoring in higher education.
The conference, held at the Faculty of Communication Arts, was opened by the host’s Vice-President, Assoc Prof Dr Sittichai Tudsri. Including the Thai and UK organisers, 30 papers were presented by academics from Australia, Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
“The conference especially sought Asian perspectives: alternatives to Anglo-American models of theory, practice and education. In this aspect it succeeded to everyone’s satisfaction,” Prof Watson said. “I believe that several international joint research projects will develop from the 2013 conference, which is also a major step forward.”
He said that delegates had welcomed the conference as filling a major gap in corporate and marketing communication academic discourse in Asia. “This reflected well on BU and I’m grateful for the FIF support that helped us devise and develop the conference. It’s an investment that has long term reputational and research value.”
Already, a Media School team researching CSR has linked with colleagues at Chulalongkorn University and a further connection with an Indonesian researcher may follow soon. The BU-Chula link was confirmed at the conference.
(L-R) Conference organisers Prof Tom Watson and Assoc Prof Jirayudh Sinthuphan with keynote speaker Prof Dr Ansgar Zerfas (Leipzig University)
Our next Creative Technology Research Centre Research Seminar will be presented by Jessika Weber.
Title: Augmented Reality Gaming: A New Paradigm for Tourist Experience?”
Date: Wednesday 4th December 2013
Time: 2 – 3PM
Venue: P302 LT
Abstract: Location-based Augmented Reality (AR) Games are an innovative way to attract tourists into challenges and interactive gameplay while they are exploring an urban destination or cultural heritage site. The aim of AR games is to create a deeper level of engagement with the destination by adding a game experience that educates through fun using location-based storytelling, personalised features, and social interaction. The player location and the context of playing are important dimensions in location-based AR Gameplay. However, little is known by game designers on how to design location-based Augmented Reality Games in the context of tourism. This study uses the construct of presence throughout AR gameplay using historical facts and information about a destination and combining them into an interactive engaging gaming experience for tourists.
Exposure to guest lectures and research seminars by expert speakers is a key aspect of learning on the HSC BA Sociology & Social Policy programme. A diverse group of our level I students undertaking the unit ‘History of Social Welfare’ were very privileged to be able to witness a session led by Professor Otto Hutter, former Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Glasgow and Mrs Josephine Jackson on the Kindertransport Movement. This ran between 1938 and 1940, halting from Germany to Britain at the outbreak of war in 1939. The final Transport ship carrying the children set sail from Holland to Britain in May 1940 following which the Dutch army was forced to surrender to the Third Reich.
Mrs Jackson, who is a regular public speaker on the Holocaust and especially the Kindertransport, provided the context for the session by informing the audience of how Stanley Baldwin, the former Prime Minister, had made an impassioned appeal on radio for public aid on the 8th Dec 1938, in the wake of the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom that had just taken place a month earlier in Germany. Over £522,000 was raised in answer to the call from the concerned, ecumenical British public.
Urged on by involved individuals and welfare organisations, Neville Chamberlain’s Government agreed to allow an unspecified number of unaccompanied refugee children into the country under private sponsorship of £50 per child (about 1/10 the price of an average house!), and through the ministration of 175 committees, until such time came when they could be rejoined with their families in Europe. For the greatest majority such a moment never came as their families perished; but in the meantime as their parents had intended, the children survived and many flourished under the patronage of this country.
The students were profoundly moved to hear the personal account offered by 89-year-old Professor Hutter, who, as 14-year-old boy, was one of the first children to arrive in Britain on the Kindertransport. He was eventually taken under the wing of his sponsors, Mr and Mrs Blacksill and their three children, and soon after excelled at the public school, Bishop’s Stortford College, as public schools also rose to the challenge of taking in refugee children on a scholarship basis.
The most moving verbatim extract taken from this very modest and venerable, aged academic, is taken from his account recollecting the last time he would ever see his ex-army officer father as Otto departed Vienna for good: ‘To me as a heedless youngster, it was all a great adventure. I was anxious to go. The thought I would never see my parents again, never crossed my mind. My father who saw the future more clearly, held me back to bestow his blessing. When I bless my children, grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, as is the Jewish custom, I still think of his blessing.’
In this present anti-Europe, anti-immigration political climate, inflamed by similar austerity measures to 1930s Europe, it is important to remind ourselves of some of the key lessons that the Kindertransport Movement initiative provided. Firstly, that it was Britain alone, of those countries fighting in the Second World War that remained unoccupied in Europe, and rose with remarkable swiftness to rescue refugee children en masse and thus secured their safety from Nazi oppression (where one should add that Dorset played no small part in that mission). That while 10,000 refugee children were rescued before this vital escape route was closed by war, 90% (1.5m) of Jewish European children would ultimately perish in the Holocaust. In this day of anti-immigration xenophobia, it is also very important to remember what gifts and talents these refugees would bring to their host country. The fact that the Kindertransport Movement brought two future Nobel prize winners to Britain, is merely a symbol of the less celebrated but greatly valued achievements of other refugees that were welcomed here.
Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Professor Jonathan Parker
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BRIAN drop-in surgery – Lansdowne
Postgraduate Research Summer Social – 1 week to go!
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
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Research Information Network
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Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published