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Research and Impact in Active Ageing Symposia (University of Cumbria) – A URA Experience

BU research, conferences, PG research, student research

Louise Burgess, Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA)

When first applying to become an URA, I was unsure about what to expect. Initially, I thought my summer would be spent holding a clipboard and collecting endless lists of data for someone else to analyse. In reality, the role has been much more exciting than I could have imagined, even prompting me to investigate future careers within research. The research I am assisting with aims to examine the most effective acute recovery routine for individuals who have undergone hip arthroplasty, a reconstructive procedure which involves the replacement of the femoral head and acetabulum with an artificial prosthesis. I felt immediately welcomed by James Gavin (Lead Researcher) and the Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) team: Tom Wainwright, (Deputy Head), Tikki Immins (Research Fellow) Shay Bahadori (Medical Device Engineer), in my URA role.

Since starting 2 weeks ago, I have been involved in:

  • Designing and implementing a testing protocolRecruitment media
  • Recruitment through designing posters and contacting volunteers
  • Advancing skills technical: electromyography (EMG), isometric strength testing, clinical recovery exercises
  • Developing my subject knowledge and understanding
  • Training on the PrimusRS Multimodal Dynamometer
  • Developing data collection spreadsheets
  • Data collection: anthropometric, handgrip strength, walk speed, muscle activity and isometric strength.
  • Data analysis (using Biometrics Datalog EMG software)
  • Conference presentation:Research and Impact in Active Ageing Symposia (University of Cumbria)

Attending the Research and Impact in Active Ageing Symposia (University of Cumbria) proved to be a valuable experience for me as both a student, and as a researcher. The morning began with a talk from Prof Tim Donovan, who covered the role of vision and eye movement in motor control. This was followed by Prof Giuseppe de Vito (University College Dublin), focussing on how old muscle responds to training and nutritional interventions. Finally, Prof Andrea Macaluso (University of Rome Foro Italico) discussed his work on physical activity levels and physiological factors underlying mobility in ageing.

The morning was followed by a poster presentation session, where I presented the findings of my dissertation project. My dissertation entitled, ‘The Incidence of Injuries and the Epidemiology of Osteoarthritis in Retired, Amateur, Rugby Union Males’ was a project I thoroughly enjoyed and despite being incredibly nervous, I really liked sharing it with others. I presented my work to other students, academics, researchers, and members of the NHS. The feedback I received during the question and answer session after my presentation was positive, with ideas how the research could be expanded in the future. Having the opportunity to take part within the symposia increased my confidence within my own research, improved my presentation skills and developed my knowledge of research in active ageing. I even won the prize for best poster presentation, a £100 Human Kinetics book voucher!

I’m not even half way through my time as a URA, but I would still highly recommend other students to apply for similar positions at Bournemouth University.

For more information on ORI please visit:

  • bournemouth.ac.uk/ori2
  • Twitter: @BU_Orthopaedic

Or to get involved with the current research please email me on:

  • Lburgess@bournemouth.ac.uk

Call for papers – 10th International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management & Applications

BU research, conferences

The 10th International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications (SKIMA) is going to be held from 15 to 17 December 2016 in Chengdu, China. SKIMA aims to bring together researchers and experts  in Knowledge Management, Software Engineering and Information Systems to share their ideas, experiences and insights.

The call for papers is now open.  Topics of interest for the conference include areas such as AI, cloud computing, digital healthcare technology, intelligent control and robotics, research informed learning and teaching and smar tourism.  For more information about topics of interest and details of how to submit, please click here.

The deadline for submitting papers is 15 July.

The conference will be chaired by BU’s Professor Hongnian Yu. For further information, please contact Professor Yu or Karin Ermert.

The Faculty of Science and Technology’s Second Annual PGR Conference 2016

BU research, conferences, Fusion, PG research, Research news

scitech2016

On the 18th of May the Faculty of Science and Technology held its Second Annual PGR Conference. This is a chance for the academic and postgraduate community to showcase the research that is being undertaken in the six departments within the Faculty. A total of 45 students presented their work over the course of the day, with 29 posters and 16 oral presentations.

The SciTech PGR Representatives: Hayley Roberts, Adam Roberts, Sarah Hodge and Paul Evans, would like to thank all who made the SciTech PGR conference such a success. Both Professor Christine Maggs and Professor Matt Bentley commented on how interesting it was to hear about the high quality research that PGRs in SciTech are conducting. We would like to thank both of them for their support.  We were also honoured to have Vice Chancellor, Professor John Vinney who came to open the event and listened to the first session. The day wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Naomi Bailey, Louise Pearson and Natalie Andrade, the chairs, the presenters, the judges and everyone else that helped with the organisation.

Six prizes were awarded to students who demonstrated particularly high standards:

Best poster

Winner:

Jawwad Latif (Design and Engineering)

Experimental Analysis and Modelling of Multi-layer Coating in Large Vehicles

 

Runner-up:

Catherine Collop (Life and Environmental Sciences)

An individual based model of Poole Harbour – is disturbance from human activities limiting wintering bird numbers?

 

Best 15 minute presentation

Winner:

Sarah Jeffery (Psychology)

Self-Compassion & Healthier Lifestyles: A Self-Compassion Based Intervention to Support Health-Promoting Behaviours in Emerging Adults

 

Runner-up:

Oxala Garcia Rodriguez (Life and Environmental Sciences)

Comparative phylogeography of modern humans and other organisms

Best 20 minute presentation

Winner:

Adam Roberts (Design and Engineering)

The potential of using the water hammer effect in small-scale tidal power applications

 

Runner-up:

Monica Knul (Life and Environmental Sciences)

Re-assessing the quality of published radiocarbon dates of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in Europe

Congratulations!

scitech

 

 

Seminar today: Dr Marcellus Mbah,R301, 13:00-14:00

Awarded & submitted bids, BRIAN, BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Coffee Morning, conferences, Events, Fusion, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, PG research, Research Ethics, staff profile pages, student research, Uncategorized

All welcome to the seminar happening today. Room R301 (Royal London House), 13:00-14:00. Feel free to bring your lunch with you.

 

An exploration into the dynamics of being an international student and the complexities surrounding their placement and employability prospects

Abstract

The experience of students gaining work placement has become an integral part of the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) system in an attempt to help prepare students for the world of work. Whilst much has been written about this subject, the majority of the research centres on the UK domicile learner. Considering the importance of the HE internationalisation agenda, the drive to increase the recruitment numbers of international students (IS) and the fact that the need to gain work experience extends to include IS, there is little published literature which explores the work placement experiences from an international student perspective. This presentation reports on an instrumental case study which explored the experiences of IS with a view to understanding the challenges they face identifying, securing and successfully completing a work placement. Findings suggest substantial challenges exist and a framework is proposed to help the university improve the international students’ placement experience and employability prospects.

 

Marcellus is Research Fellow in the Centre for Excellence in Learning at Bournemouth University. His involvement in the Centre touches on some of the key areas in the discipline of Education such as University Community Engagement, Graduate Employability and Education for Sustainable Development.

If you have any queries about Social Science Seminar Series, please get in touch with Dr Mastoureh Fathi (mfathi@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

 

International Conference “Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: History vs. Modernity”

conferences, Research news

Call for Papers for the International Conference “Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine(s): History vs. Modernity”, to be held in Warsaw on 4-5 November 2016. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 30 June 2016. Papers presented at the conference will be published in a collected volume.

The conference keynote speaker is Dr. Joana Almeida (University of London), the author of Towards the camisation of health? The countervailing power of CAM in relation to the Portuguese mainstream healthcare system.


For more information, please visit the conference website at www.tcam.conf.irf-network.org.

BU’s PhD student Isabell Nessel attending the UK Association for Milk Banking annual training day in London, 8th of June

BU research, conferences, Events, PG research

UKAMB Training Day2

The UK Association for Milk Banking (UKAMB) recently held their annual training day in London (Picture: Isabell and UKAMB’s Trustee Chair Ann McCrea). Mostly, milk bank staff were present; however, the training day is also open to anyone interested in human milk banking. Therefore, milk donors, medical researchers, midwives, neonatal nurses and clinicians were also in attendance. The presentations included current topics such as the Zika virus and the implications for milk banking, new guidance on decontamination of breast milk pumps and an update of ongoing research at donor milk banks.

As part of this, I presented my proposed donor milk bank survey, which is part of my PhD at BU. I received a great deal of helpful feedback and support from UKAMB and the audience. It was a great opportunity to get more insights into human milk banking and ongoing research in the UK and to network with potenital participants of the survey and possible future collaborators. Thanks to Bournemouth University for the funding, which made my attendance possible!

A big thank you also goes to Gillian Weaver and UKAMB for the invitation,UKAMB and this great, informative day! If you would like to find out more about human milk banking in the UK or want to become a milk donor visit UKAMB’s website at http://www.ukamb.org/.

If you would like to learn more about our research, please feel free to contact me at inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Isabell

Annual Eurographics UK Chapter Conference -Computer Graphics and Visual Computing

BU research, conferences

BU is hosting the 2016 Annual Eurographics UK Chapter Conference -Computer Graphics and Visual Computing (CGVC 2016). 

The annual EGUK conference is a meeting place for all those in the UK working in computer graphics and visual computing. It attracts researchers from across the country and from further afield.​ Followed by the 2015 CGVC  conference held at UCL, the Creative Technology department in the Faculty of Science and Technology is the local organizer  of 2016 CGVC.  

Detailed call for paper can be found at http://www.eguk.org.uk/CGVC2016/

For more information, contact Dr Wen Tang.​

Bournemouth University student wins ‘Best Undergraduate Research Paper Award’

BU research, conferences, student research

Katherine at the conference

Bournemouth University Events Management graduate, Katherine Devenish, has won the ‘Best Research Paper Award’ for undergraduate research at the Asia Pacific Forum for Graduate Students Research in Tourism.  Katherine’s research into event greening – the process of incorporating socially and environmentally responsible decision making into the planning and implementation of an event – was carried out as part of her undergraduate dissertation.

Her research explored the factors that ease or impede the process of event greening in the corporate world, based on interviews with staff from a UK corporate event organisation.  As well as identifying the barriers and facilitating factors, Katherine’s paper also makes useful recommendations for practice.  These include developing a formal environmental policy to support cultural change within the organisation, encouraging long-term thinking to improve the use of resources and providing formal training to improve staff knowledge of greening measures.

Katherine was encouraged to submit her research paper to the conference by her supervisor – Dr Miguel Moital, a Principal Academic in Events Management.

“Katherine did extremely well in her dissertation, which was essentially written at journal article level,” explains Dr Moital, “We have developed it into a full academic paper which we’ve submitted to a journal.  We’re waiting for reviews at the moment.”

“After we’d written the paper up, I found out about the ‘Best Undergraduate Research Paper Award’ at the Asia Pacific Forum and encouraged Katherine to submit the final paper.  I was delighted to hear that she had won first prize.”

The conference was hosted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Hotel & Tourism Management – one of BU’s partner institutions.  Conference organisers incorporated an undergraduate award with the aim of highlighting and fostering high quality research from undergraduates across the world.

To find out more about Katherine’s experiences, please see her video blog.

There’s no ‘I’ in Team: My experience as a URA

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, Fusion, Research communication

Blog post by Pippa Empson, Undergraduate Research Assistant (Innovative Pedagogy)

Following my application and interview earlier this year I was accepted for the Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) position on an ‘Innovative Pedagogy’ research project. Being part of the URA programme gave me an insight into the world of primary research which involved transcribing conversations from focus groups, collating data into spreadsheets and statistically analysing data using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), and getting the opportunity to present our findings in the Bournemouth University conference SURE (Showcasing Undergraduate Research Excellence). It was a pleasure to work alongside academic staff Dr Jacqueline Priego and Dr Jonathan Branney who welcomed me and Jade Offer, the other URA, to the team and supported me in my position.

I learnt many new skills including analysing quantitative and qualitative data which the academic staff was happy to guide me in. I was initially daunted by the work I would be expected to do and whether I would be able to fit it around my undergraduate studies as a second year adult nursing student. However as I was able to fulfill some of the URA work at home on my own computer it meant I was able to be flexible with when I worked, so I could keep my other commitments. Being a URA was a great opportunity which I would recommend it to anyone interested in research or furthering their skills, be it computer skills or communication skills.

Pippa Empson, BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing, year two

Rewilding Dorset

conferences, Events

A very successful meeting with 140 delegates from was held in May 2016 at Charlton Down Village Hall, near Dorchester to discuss and explore the application of rewilding concepts to Dorset co-hosted by Bournemouth University and the Dorset Wildlife Trust.

Photo 05-05-2016, 16 28 59

In recent years, rewilding has become a major theme in conservation, stimulated by publications such as George Monbiot’s Feral and the launch of rewilding organisations both in the UK and at the European scale. While a number of rewilding initiatives have been launched in the UK, most of these are predominantly located in upland areas in the north and west of the country. Elsewhere in Europe, many rewilding initiatives are seeking to encourage ecological recovery on agricultural land that has been abandoned. This raises the question of whether rewilding concepts are applicable to intensive agricultural landscapes such as Dorset, and if so, how they might best be implemented.

We were delighted to be able to welcome a number of speakers who presented at the meeting, including leading researchers with expertise in rewilding, and practitioners with experience in implementing rewilding projects. The meeting also involved representatives from a number of conservation organisations in Dorset.

Speakers included:

Photo 05-05-2016, 10 40 14

Dr Paul Jepson, Oxford University – “Rewilding policy: risk and opportunities”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 11 10 17

Dr Christopher Sandom, University of Sussex – “Putting rewilding into practice”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 12 15 00

Dr Matthew Heard, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology – “Ecological impacts of rewilding using extensive grazing: the case of Knepp Estate”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 14 45 32

Fiona Bowles, Poole Harbour Catchment Initiative – “Is there space for Dorset Rivers to run wild?”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 15 29 45

Helen Meech, Rewilding Britain – “Why Rewild Britain?”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 14 11 57

Professor Richard Brazier, Exeter University – “Quantifying the ecohydrological impacts of reintroducing Eurasian Beaver to intensively managed, lowland agricultural landscapes”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 12 41 56

Alison Turnock, Dorset AONB – “The Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area – towards bigger, better, more, joined”

 

Photo 05-05-2016, 15 57 31

The day was rounded off with a lively and positive discussion with  Jonathan Spencer (Forestry Commission), Ian Alexander (Natural England), Mark Robbins (RSPB), David Brown (National Trust), Imogen Davenport (Dorset Wildlife Trust) and chaired by Prof. James Bullock (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology).

 

This meeting was held as part of the Modelling Natural Capital in Dorset Project (funded under the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) initiative). Any questions can be addressed to Research Assistant Arjan Gosal.

Horizon 2020 – Health – 7th & 8th July 2016, Brussels

conferences, EU, Events, Info Days, Uncategorized

Health, Demographic Change & Wellbeing

Challenge in Horizon 2020

Do you intend to prepare a proposal for the 2017 call in Horizon 2020 for Health?

On the 8th of July 2016, the European Commission is organizing an Open Info Day dedicated to “Health, Demographic Change & Wellbeing (SC1)” challenge in Horizon 2020 and focusing on the 2017 call.

One day before, on the 7th of July 2016, Health NCP Net 2.0 and Fit for Health 2.0 are organizing a free of charge Partnering event meant to assist you in finding the right partners for the upcoming 2017 calls. The launch of the 2017 call is planned for the 29th of July 2016, having the first deadline on the 4th of October 2016, therefore this would be a good opportunity for your institution to identify the proper consortium partners.

Priority in participation, on 7th July, will be granted to entrepreneurs and research organizations with identified expertise profiles and project applications initiatives. As participation is limited to 2 persons representing the same department/organization, please contact RKEO so that we can co-ordinate registration on this event.

If you are attending both days, separate registration will be needed  As far as we are aware, there is no restriction on numbers from each organisation for the Info Day on 8/7/16.

BROKERAGE EVENT

M2M + Symposium

Find cooperation partners for the upcoming H2020 health calls.

PRESENT YOUR PROJECT

M2M + Symposium

Present your project in a 5 min flash presentation to a highly commited audience

7 July 2016 – Fit for Health 2.0 and Health-NCP-Net 2.0

Horizon 2020 Health Partnering Day

This Partnering event will be dedicated to consortium building. The main part of the day is dedicated to bilateral meetings between persons interested in the same call area.
A surrounding programme will provide information on support measures for Health projects and give researchers and entrepreneurs from the Health and ICT areas a platform to present their project ideas in 5-minute presentations.
Bilateral meetings will be arranged automatically by a sophisticated, user-friendly match-making tool following indication of interests in specific call areas by participants. Additionally, to bilateral meetings among potential project partners, participants will have the option to meet with representatives of support initiatives and members of the organizing projects for personalized support and information.

Focus

This Partnering event will target a wide spectrum of companies, universities and researchers from Europe and beyond interested in sharing new project ideas and finding collaboration partners and will be focused on the following challenge of the Horizon 2020 Health Call.

Main topics

  • Understanding health, well-being & disease
  • Preventing disease
  • Treating and managing diseases
  • Active ageing and self-management of health
  • Methods and data
  • Coordination activities
  • Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in health projects
  • Sustainable food security – health aspects

Why to participate

  • to facilitate the setup of Horizon 2020 project consortia
  • to present, discuss and develop new project ideas on Health at an international level
  • to initiate cross-border contacts

 

 

 

Digital entertainment students in ‘Research Jam’ to aid the work of Dementia Institute

BU research, conferences, Events

Students from the Centre for Digital Entertainment (CDE) took part in a two-day Research Jam to put their skills to the test to create apps or games with the purpose of enhancing the work of Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI).

The Centre for Digital Entertainment is a centre for doctoral training and collaboration between the universities of Bournemouth and Bath, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The intention of this year’s CDE annual event, also attended by academics and industry professionals, was to bring the focus back to the skills and knowledge the CDE Research Engineers are gaining during the four year programme, and inputting it into a creative process that could benefit society.

CDE Research Engineers During ResJamProfessor Jian Jun Zhang, Deputy Director of CDE at Bournemouth University, said, “This year we wanted to push our students a little harder and by using their expertise and teaming up with BUDI, we hope to have a societal impact through the work we are doing”.

The two day event, which took place in the beautiful Italian Villa, included a talk from the BBC’s Research and Development department and Dementia Friends training from BUDI, before students were split into groups and each asked to create an app, game or interface that would either raise awareness for, or assist people with dementia.

An integral part of the programme is the three year industrial placement.  Ian Stephenson, a Senior Lecturer in Computer Animation and part of the CDE, said, “These postgraduate students have been working in companies like the BBC and Double Negative, once a year we bring them together. This year we have partnered with BUDI to look at the topic of dementia. We want these young engineers to build something that addresses the issue of dementia in society – to put their technical skills to use for the benefit of society.”

The event started with presentations from the BBC’s Research and Development (R&D) department and Bournemouth-based company 3 Sided Cube, giving the students an insight into work processes around digital content creation before the teams got to work.  After seeing the presentations and collating information, the teams had a little under 24 hours to research, create and present their ideas.

The teams were asked to work on one of three main areas within the theme of dementia; physical stimulation to keep people with dementia active; social stimulation to increase interaction, and generational interaction, for people with dementia; or a piece of technology to challenge public view of dementia.

Becky Gregory-Clarke BBC R &DBecky Gregory-Clarke (pictured) from the BBC’s R&D team said, “The BBC R&D team has a strong link with the CDE through student placements and we’ve been ‘workshopping’ around the idea of dementia too, so it was great to come along and see these students at work. It’s really great for students to get involved in events like this because at the BBC we do things like this as a part of our work day too, so if you can get used to brainstorming and working like this now it can really hold you in good stead for your career in the future too.”

Claire Cutler, a member of Bournemouth University Dementia Institute said, “BUDI has a long history working with technology, and dementia is a massive issue in our culture at the moment, it is great to bring our understanding about dementia together with technology to develop something that could address real world problems.”The teams were given the opportunity to pitch their idea to a panel of experts, giving technical demonstrations to support their idea.  The pitches were assessed and awards were given in three categories, Best Pitch, Best Team Work and Best Product.  The winning team of ‘Best Product’ created a game to challenge the public perception of dementia and discussions are now taking place to see how this idea can be developed further into something for public use.

Zoe Leonard, CDE Research Events Co-ordinator said “The event has been a great success and there is much excitement around the outcomes.  It was a great cohort building exercise, whilst at the same time encouraging team building, communication, project management and presentation skills.  Not to mention the possible impact the ideas generated by the CDE Research Engineers, could have for those living with or dealing with dementia.

“We are all looking forward to seeing how these ideas can be developed and we hope to be able to run similar events in the future”.

For more information about the Centre for Digital Entertainment, visit their website, www.digital-entertainment.org or for information about Bournemouth University Dementia Institute visit http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/dementia-institute/.