Category / Research themes

Capturing a yawn: initial observations – Dr Simon Thompson

Yawning presents scientists and clinicians with an intriguing phenomenon. There is continued uncertainty over its neuroanatomical origin, the neuro-chemicals involved, mechanisms involved, and its reasons of functionality. Apart from being able to visually (and aurally) observe a person yawning, it has been difficult to quantify until now.

Researchers suggest that yawning may play an important role in the protection of our immune system, by regulating hormones, and particular reflexes, when we are exposed to psychological or physical stress or fatigue (Thompson, & Zisa, 2012).

The stress hormone, cortisol may be a part of this complex response because of its involvement in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (Wikipedia, 2013). Cortisol, known systematically as 11-beta-11, 17, 21-trihydroxypregn-4-ene-3, 20-dione (IUPAC, 2013), is measured reliably in saliva as well as in the blood. The exact relationship between cortisol and yawning is thought to be either as a precursor to the yawn or as a result of yawning since, curiously, cortisol is found to be elevated after yawning (Thompson, & Bishop, 2012).

The yawn is produced by stretching the muscles along the jaw-line; however, the extent of stretch and volume of yawn varies between people. Measuring the level of electrical muscle activity using electromyography (EMG) at the muscle site during the yawn phase is in the region of millionths of a volt and may be sustained for several seconds.

Male and female volunteers aged between 18-53 years were exposed to conditions that provoked a yawning response in a randomised controlled trial here at Bournemouth University. For the first time, the yawn was quantified and a profile of EMG data (sine wave) was obtained.

Initial observations find that of a sample of yawners and non-yawners, induced by presentation of yawning stimuli, the people who yawned had elevated nerve activity from 50 (at rest) to 175 (after stimuli presentation and yawning) (see Photo) compared with those who did not yawn who exhibited 10 (at rest) to 80 (after stimuli presentation). Yawners generally had higher level of electrical muscular jaw activity both before and after yawning.

Further research is continuing into the “yawning envelope” (EMG wave) with the hope that, together with cortisol measurement, this new information may form part of a potential diagnostic tool to identify untoward early neurological sequelae that are indicative of neurological disease.

IUPAC – International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry., 2013. www.iupac.org/home/about.html, Accessed 18.08.2013

Thompson, S.B.N., & Bishop, P., 2012. Born to yawn? Understanding yawning as a warning of the rise in cortisol levels: randomized trial. Interactive Journal of Medical Research 1(5);e4:1-9. Doi: 10.2196/ijmr.2241

Thompson SBN, Zisa L., 2012. Ill-health, stress, cortisol levels and yawning. In SBN Thompson (Ed.), Psychology of trauma: clinical reviews, case histories, research. Portsmouth: Blackwell-Harvard-Academic: 125-132

Wikipedia, 2013b. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary%E2%80%93adrenal_axis, Accessed: 18.08.2013

 

 

 

You CAN access eBU off campus

 

you can now unlock BU research on eBU from the comfort of your own home

Staff and students are able to access eBU: Online Journal when off campus. Users have to log in via ‘View’. If you already have ‘View’ installed on your home computer, log in via ‘View’ and simply access eBU as you would on campus (the easiest way to do this is to type ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar).

If you have not got ‘View’ installed on your home computer, please follow this link – https://view.bournemouth.ac.uk – and follow the instructions to install ‘View’. ‘View’ allows you to access a university computer, from home, as if you were on the university network. This means your H and I drive are mapped, you can use the full outlook mail client as per usual and you can access, upload and comment on articles on eBU.

New submission to eBU

Dr Philip Long, Associate Dean, from the School of Tourism has submitted a paper to eBU.

The abstract is as follows:

This paper suggests that there may be insufficient recognition of critical ideas, professional and cultural practices associated with the ‘creative industries’ among tourism destination management researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in England. The paper considers the relationships between academic and practitioner knowledge and practice that potentially connect tourism destination management with creativity and the arts. The paper argues that more research is needed on the contrasting backgrounds, education and occupational discourses of tourism and arts / creative practitioners and how these may be addressed in the curriculum at postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD) levels. The article suggests that there is a need for destination managers to explore contrasting agendas, knowledge needs and interests, and occupational discourses among creative industry practitioners and likewise for creative industry practitioners concerning tourism and destination management.

This paper can be viewed, reviewed and commented on by following this link – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/11 – alternatively when on campus just type in ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar.

KTP associate attends conferences to promote her research

Dr Celia Beckett, Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) research associate at BU and Five Rivers Child Care Ltd attended the KTP Associates’ Conference at Brighton University on 13th June. She presented a paper on the pilot stage of her project “Improving the care of children in residential units: assessment and interventions”. The conference, which is a Brighton University initiative supported by the Centre for Collaboration and Partnership, was well attended and there were 10 paper presentations and 8 posters. Topics ranged from roller blinds to leak repair additives for coolant systems! A recurring theme at the conference was the role of the KTP in working to effect change in organisations that result in improved commercial outcomes as well as the challenges and rewards of this role.

There are c. 800 KTP associates currently working on projects throughout the UK, ensuring that there is an exchange of knowledge between Universities and private / public companies, making a real difference to all those organisations involved in KTPs. It is one of the largest graduate schemes in the UK. More information about BU’s KTPs can be found at the newly relaunched Business Pages.

Celia will also be presenting a poster at the forthcoming  Recovery-focused conference: Engagement in Life: Promoting Wellbeing and Mental Health, hosted by BU on 6th September 2013.

HSC student wins Santander Travel Grant to go to Yale

Mrs. Anita Immanuel has just been awarded a travel award from Santander to visit the Yale Cancer Centre in the USA. Anita studies the quality of lives of adults in Dorset who have survived cancer of the blood or immune system. Cancer is a devastating disease and with the advances in treatment patients are living longer, however left with debilitating side effects which can negatively affect their quality of life.

Anita’s research will identify any unmet needs in this group of patients and will give a better understanding into comprehensive survivorship care thereby maximising quality of life. This study uses a mixed methods approach in examining the quality of lives of these patients who have been treated for a haematological cancer. Data will be collected across three Dorset hospitals: The Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Poole Hospital and Dorset County Hospital.

Dr. Helen McCarthy, Consultant Haematologist at The Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Anita’s clinical supervisor, highlighted: “At Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic, Anita will be introduced to their comprehensive survivorship care programme which can help improve the quality of lives of adults treated with cancer in Dorset.

Dr. Jane Hunt, the lead supervisor and senior lecturer at Bournemouth University’s School of Health & Social Care added: “The survivorship programme at the Yale Cancer Centre Survivorship Clinic integrates a multidisciplinary approach for following up patients treated for cancer by leading experts, which differs significantly from our own. I am convinced Anita’s PhD study will benefit from collaborating with the Yale experts.

BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Anita’s third supervisor, commented “We are grateful to Santander for this funding. We know Anita’s research will significantly contribute to the underdeveloped area of research on adult haematological cancer survivors”.

For more about Santander Awards see: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/graduate-school/pgt-santander-mobility-awards/

Burdett Trust for Nursing Grant

‘Delivering Excellence in Nutrition and Dignity in Dementia Care – Empowering Nurses and Care Home Staff to Enhance the Care Environment’.

Dr Jane Murphy and Joanne Holmes from the School of Health & Social Care, working in collaboration with representatives from local council (Partners in Care), the Local Enterprise Partnership, local and national care home organisations have won significant grant income from the Burdett Trust for Nursing to tackle the increasing and yet unresolved problems of nutrition and delivering dignity in dementia. Over a two year period, the project will identify best practice guidelines for delivering nutrition in dementia care by providing a new nutrition education programme based on fundamental principles of self-leadership and nutrition to empower nurses and care home staff. The programme will be easily translated and adopted widely to induce a long-lasting culture change towards excellence in dementia care that is person-centred and upholds dignity.

 

For further details, contact either Jane (jmurphy@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Joanne (holmesj@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

New submission to eBU

Professor of Financial Economics, and Deputy Dean for Research in the Business School, Andy Mullineux has submitted a paper to eBU titled ‘Banking for the Public Good’.

The abstract is as follows:

Bank shareholders cannot be expected to provide good stewardship to banks because there is a conflict of interests between the shareholder owners and a non-mutually owned bank’s depositors; who provide the bulk of the funds in traditional retail banks and are willing to accept a lower return on their savings than shareholders, in return for lower risk exposure.  Regulation is required to protect depositors where deposit insurance schemes are at best partially funded and underwritten by taxpayers, who in turn need to be protected, and to deliver financial stability, a public good.  Once some banks become ‘too big (to be allowed) to fail’ (TBTF), they enjoy additional implicit public (taxpayer) insurance that enables them to fund themselves more cheaply than smaller banks, which gives them a competitive advantage.  The political influence of big banks in the US and the UK is such that they can be regarded as financial oligarchies that have hitherto successfully blocked far reaching structural reform in the wake of the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ and lobbied successfully for the financial sector liberalisation that preceded it. The TBTF problem and associated moral hazard has been worsened by mergers to save failing banks during the crisis and as a result competition within a number of national banking systems, notably the UK, has been significantly reduced.  Solutions alternative to making the banks small enough to be allowed to fail are considered in this paper, but it is difficult to be convinced that they will deliver banks that promote the common or public good.  It is argued that regulating retail banking as a utility and pooling insurance against financial instability using pre-funded deposit insurance schemes, with risk related premiums that can also serve as bank resolution funds, should be pursued; and that capital leverage ratios and/or Financial Activity Taxes might be used to ‘tax’ the size of banks.

This paper can be viewed, reviewed and commented on by following this link – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/10 – alternatively when on campus just type in ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar.

ISBE Upcoming Events

Upcoming events from ISBE

Partnering to Deliver SME Growth: Developing HE as “Institutional Anchors” through Research-Led Business Support

Monday 2nd September 2013, University College London

The purpose of this second seminar within the ISBE SME Growth SIG series is to delve deeper into the ways in which a multi-disciplinary (public/private sector) approach to sustainable SME growth and performance can be fostered through a research led ‘institutional anchor’ role with UK HEIs.

Following on from the very successful first seminar (Researching Growth in SMEs: Application and Impacts) held in Manchester earlier this year this seminar will build on key issues explored regarding the research being carried out and its key strengths/weaknesses. One of the specific issues identifies at this seminar was the need to look in greater detail at the context specific support that could be provided to the business community through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research. Also how we can leverage out networks to assist such an approach.

During the second seminar, after Contributions from ERC and the Growth Accelerator, an example will be presented of a successful project within the South East that combines multi-methods and longitudinal research with direct business engagement and support. This will be followed by group sessions to reflect on how a broader model(s) for generating SME growth might be established and how we might best work together to support such a model?

To book your place or for further information visit https://www.eventsforce.net/isbe/38/home


Food, Fibre, Fuel: The Rise of the Sustainable Society  ISBE Social & Sustainable Enterprise Network Special Interest Group Seminar Series

18th September 2013, Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH

This seminar brings together practitioners and academics to learn from each other, connect and shape co-interests. This is an interactive event, small pitches, breakouts and more….

Aims and Objectives

There are numerous opportunities and challenges in shaping a sustainable society. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to develop strong networks of cross and interdisciplinary partnerships where we can increase knowledge, showcase eco-entrepreneurship and reflect on practice and theory.

The aim of this seminar is to build a community of academic researchers and practitioners, who wish share experiences and ideas with people of similar interests – but from different backgrounds – with the implicit objective to connect, learn, and shape the sustainability, eco and social entrepreneur agendas, both in universities and in the wider community.

The legacy from this event will be in the networks and partnerships created, and the actions and co-production that people will take forward after this seminar.

 This seminar is for:

  • academics interested in eco/social entrepreneurship and sustainability from research or education
  • academics who want to build real life eco/social entrepreneurial experience into their subjects and curricula
  • students wishing to improve their understanding of eco/social entrepreneurs and sustainability
  • local authority officers wishing to explore the relevance of eco/social enterprise social value and sustainability in their locality
  • Social enterprises and voluntary groups wanting to discover how they can influence universities and how universities can better support their work

To book your place or for further information visit https://www.eventsforce.net/isbe/39/home


A Thinkspace on the Gendering of Entrepreneurship: New Theoretical and Empirical Insights

Friday 20th September 2013 (10:00-16:30), Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

How can gender theory be used to better understand entrepreneurship and to develop gender-sensitive enterprise policy and support? And how can our research on entrepreneurship inform understanding of different societies as gendered?

In this event, you will have a chance to think and comment about different forms of gender theory and how they inform our understanding of entrepreneurship by listening to – and discussing – papers to be published in a new special issue of the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (IJEBR) on ‘The Gendering of Entrepreneurship: Theoretical and Empirical Insights’.

At GEN’s first ‘Think-Space on Gender and Entrepreneurship’ in 2011, GEN committee members launched the call for papers for this special issue of IJEBR. We had a tremendous response to the call for papers and hope that this special issue represents significant progress in the development of our gender research community. We seek to use this event to share the papers and our Editorial reflections on the use of gender theory, what recent research tells us about entrepreneurship and society and the research agenda going forwards. We will encourage discussion and support researchers and practitioners to think about the future of their own work.

As GEN members have asked for more social time to network, we are also inviting you all to join us for dinner on the evening prior to our event.

Presentations include:

• Managing the business of everyday life: The roles of space and place in ‘mumpreneurship’ – Dr Carol Ekinsmyth
• Contextualising Black migrant women entrepreneurs’ work-life balance experiences – Dr Cynthia Forson
• Women doing their own thing: media representations of female entrepreneurship – Dr Doris Eikhof, Dr Juliette Summers and Professor Sara Carter
• Empowerment and entrepreneurship: a theoretical framework – Dr Haya Al Dajani and Professor Susan Marlow
• Editorial reflections on ‘The Gendering of Entrepreneurship’ – Dr Julia Rouse, Lorna Treanor and Dr Emma Fleck

To book your place or for further information visit https://www.eventsforce.net/isbe/37/home

How do I submit to eBU?

eBU: Online Journal is the new journal for the BU community. It works on the basis of immediate publication (after an initial quality check) and open peer review in a safe internal environment. Authors then have two options – either publish on the external arm of eBU or publish their paper in an external journal.

Author guidelines and editorial policies are on the eBU site, and submitting manuscripts could not be easier. Follow these simple steps:

1. Access the eBU site by following this link (or when on campus type ‘ebu’ into your web browser address bar) – http://ebu.bournemouth.ac.uk

2. Use your BU credentials to log in to eBU. Click on the ‘Login’ tab on the eBU site, or alternatively follow this link – http://ebu.bournemouth.ac.uk/index.php/ebu/login

3. Logging in as an author with your BU credentials will take you to your ‘Author Submission’ homepage. To submit a manuscript, follow the instructions under ‘Start A New Submission’ (below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Follow the 5 steps to complete manuscript submission.

 

eBU is now live with papers for comment!

 

eBU can now be accessed

I am delighted to announce that eBU, the online BU journal that operates on the basis of immediate publication and open peer review, is now live with two papers ready for comment.

Jane Murphy (HSC), Louise Worswick (HSC), Andy Pullman, Grainne Ford (Royal Bournemouth Hospital) and Jaana Jeffery (HSC PhD student) suggest that e-learning is a great way to deliver nutririon education and training for health care staff who are involved in the care pathway for cancer survivors. The abstract can be found below:

Health care professionals are in a prime position to provide diet and lifestyle advice, but there are gaps in their own knowledge and education highlighting the need for improvements in teaching and learning approaches. This paper presents the rationale for the design, implementation and evaluation of an e-learning resource to deliver nutrition education and training for health care staff who are involved in the care pathway for cancer survivors. The findings of the evaluation are discussed and the importance of the resource in terms of its impact upon the provision of nutrition, diet and lifestyle advice in practice for the delivery of care and support of cancer survivors.

This paper can be accessed here –

http://ebu.bournemouth.ac.uk/index.php/ebu/article/view/9

Dorothy Fox (ST) uses original research to discuss the dynamics of doctoral supervision and provides recommendations for improving supervisory practice. The abstract can be found below:

Abstract:

This article reports an exploratory study of the professional relationships between supervisors who co-supervise management doctoral students in England. It draws on the concept and theoretical framework of emotional geographies (Hargreaves 2001) to understand the affective elements of these relationships. Team supervision has become mandatory in many Western universities and whilst the advantages and disadvantages of this development have been identified, the relationship between supervisors has not received the same attention. This is despite the evidence from students that positive or negative relationships within the supervisory team are of critical relevance to a successful outcome. Data from 13 in-depth interviews with supervisors was analysed and the emotional geographies are revealed. Further analysis showed that differences within the relationship are resolved in ways that are either ‘autocratic’, ‘overtly democratic’ or ‘covertly democratic’. With the aim of improving the quality of supervisory practice, the implications for doctoral supervision are discussed.

This paper can be accessed here –

http://ebu.bournemouth.ac.uk/index.php/ebu/article/view/8

CEMP Research and Innovation Bulletin

The updated CEMP bulletin is here.

CEMP Cluster bulletin and agenda 25.7.13

Whilst there is no cluster meeting to review this, due to annual leave colleagues are encouraged to have a look since there are a number of good ‘leads’ here and several imminent deadlines for calls people have identified for applications.

Next academic year, we’d like to encourage colleagues to approach CEMP to provide support for developing research ideas into projects or matching proposals to funding, as well as responding to the bulletin items.

 

 

A royal birth? Lucky Kate

With the Queen’s Jubilee, the Olympics and Andy Murray winning at SW1 Wimbledon (again) it seems Britain is still riding a wave of optimism with the birth of a male heir to the throne; the Prince of Cambridge. The baby was delivered on 22 July 2013 at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, weighing 8lb 6oz. The document said: “Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm today. He and the duchess will remain in the hospital overnight. A bulletin signed by the Queen’s gynaecologist Marcus Setchell, who led the medical team that delivered the baby – was taken by a royal aide from St Mary’s to the palace under police escort.

The implications are wide -reaching, in multi-cultural Britain the royal baby is unusual for London in having a mother originally from the UK and most babies delivered in the capital these days (57%) are to mothers born overseas and nearly half of all babies (48%) are born outwith marriage. With midwifery cuts and the further medicalisation of birth where the “cascade of interventions” often occurs when birth is induced.  For instance, in the USA which spends more money on healthcare than any country in the world and yet the maternal mortality rate is among the highest of any industrialised country.

And on July 19, 2013, the USA the House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee today approved a steep cutback in international family planning assistance for fiscal year 2014. Rejecting President’s Obama’s 2014 budget request of $635.4 million, the Subcommittee capped appropriations for international family planning and reproductive health programs at $461 million, $174 million less than the President’s request, and $137 million (23% below the current funding level).  The cuts, if approved by the full Congress, would have a devastating impact: Several million women in the developing world would lose access to contraceptives services, resulting in more unplanned pregnancies and deaths from unsafe abortions. Each pregnancy multiplies a woman’s chance of dying from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. Maternal mortality rates are particularly high for young and poor women, those who have least access to contraceptive services. It is estimated that one in three deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth could be avoided if all women had access to contraceptive services.

Not so lucky, therefore, are Kate’s counterparts in the South – Frightening statistics include that daily, approximately 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In our study site, Nepal every year, 4,500 Nepali women die in childbirth due to lack of medical care. In low-income countries, most maternal deaths are avoidable, as the health-care solutions to prevent or manage complications are well known. All women need is access to antenatal care in pregnancy, skilled care during childbirth, and care and support in the weeks after childbirth.

To make every birth worldwide as joyful an event as the royal birth in London we need is: a) more and better midwifery services; and b) improved access to care for pregnant women globally.

Sheetal Sharma is a HSC PhD student and currently a visiting researcher in Barcelona, supervised by Dr. Elisa Sicuri at CRESIB on an evaluation of a health promotion programme in rural Nepal aiming to improve access to care; in which socio-economic and cultural barriers exist.

Thanks to Edwin & Elisa for their input in this piece.

References:

http://www.populationinstitute.org/newsroom/press/view/57/

http://midwifeinternational.org/how-to-become-midwife/business-of-baby/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23408377

http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/mothers/pid/4382

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23403391

I’ll bet you it’s a baby!

 

 

The new royal baby has been born.  Good news for Kate and William and also for the betting shops.  Apparently a large number of people bet on a girl being born on the estimated due date July 13th, and the punters seem to believe the gender would be female.  As a consequence, a large amount of money was made by UK betting shops.   The next bet is, of course, on his name.  Some websites seem to suggest the bookmakers favoured the name James, such as a website in the Netherlands (http://wereldnieuws.blog.nl/politiek/2013/07/19/britse-baby-kan-nu-ieder-moment-komen).  A Canadian website suggested a few days before the birth that “James or George were the favourites” for a boy (http://o.canada.com/2013/07/17/escape-from-royal-baby-media-circus-leads-to-londons-betting-shops/.  On the webpages of one of the UK’s larger betting shops today’s  (22nd July) top 13 boys’ names were: George, James, Alexander, Louis, Arthur, Henry, Phillip, Albert, Spencer, David, Thomas, Richard & Edward.

 

Betting on aspects of the royal birth and baby is a way of being involved in the same way that betting on your football team to win its first away-game of the season is part of being a supporter for some.  Luckily, there are many more options to waste your money, punters can also put money on the colour of his hair, baby’s first word, and if you want to wait a little longer for your money:  the name of his first love, age of first nightclub visit photograph, first official visit overseas, whether the prince will ever compete in the Olympics, and the university where he will study.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

Bournemouth University, UK

 

 

 

 

 

PGRs and the Health, Wellbeing & Ageing Theme!

The first PGR Health, Wellbeing and Ageing Community meeting took place on Wednesday 10th July at Royal London House. The purpose of the event was to bring together post graduate researchers from across schools to present and discuss their research under the Health, Wellbeing and Ageing theme.

Jo Hawkes (ST) began the meeting by presenting her research on the impact of premenopausal osteoporosis on physically active females. This was followed by the impact that children’s hospices have on parental relationships by Ashley Mitchell (HSC). Phillip James (ST) discussed his work on how active seniors engage with the internet when choosing holidays. We were also joined by Alister du Rose (DEC) from the AECC, who is using quantitative fluoroscopy and electromyography to determine normal mechanics of the lumbar spine.

Mevalyn Cross (HSC) discussed how her research was going to evaluate the effectiveness of a humanising framework to improve patient care in Poole Hospital. Becca Elisa (DEC) is who is due to start in September proposed plans and theory for her research into norepinephrine activity in ADHD. The meeting finished with Jib Acharya (HSC) presenting the results from his comparative study into nutritional problems in the preschool children of the Kaski district in Nepal.

All presentations were extremely interesting and the event was positively received by all those who attended. The event was also attended by Dr Heather Hartwell, Professor Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor Les Todres and Julia Hastings Taylor who were on hand to give advice and feedback to those who presented. It also gave PGRs the opportunity to meet each other and network across schools.

It is hoped that community events like this will be a regular occurrence with even more PGRs presenting their research. If anyone is interested in presenting or attending the next event please email Ashley Mitchell (ashmitchell@bournemouth.ac.uk).