BU Research Blog

Category / Fusion

September 23, 2016

Fusion CCCP award into autism comes to a close

Festival of Learning, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Public engagement, Student Engagement, student research ngregory

Polly, Sarah, Jastine and Irma at the end of project dinner

A year ago, Dr Helen Bolderston and I began our Fusion CCCP award, examining visual and social processes in autism and borderline personality disorder. We quickly appointed two part-time RAs who were current MSc students on the Developmental and Clinical Neuropsychology programme. Due to their excellent skill sets, obtained during the undergraduate degrees at BU and whilst working as voluntary and summer RAs, Sarah Wellaway and Jastine Antolin were the obvious candidates. We were assisted by Level 5 Psychology undergraduates Pollyanna Sapsford, together with Irma Konovalova who joined us in the summer.

The first part of this project required us to write scripts for and film 32 short movies. More than twenty BU students were our actors and we had a couple of fun evenings in a dark and wet November filming these scenes in Poole House and the old Retreat (amidst the noise of angle grinders whirring as work on the new Fusion Building was underway!) It turned out that Polly was a superb Director, so I happily let her take charge of the filming, and what a great job she made of it!

Given autism was the topic of Sarah’s MSc dissertation, she took the lead in organising the administrative side of the project which involved recruiting volunteers with autism from the local area. We made some fantastic connections with local organisations including Dorset Adult Asperger’s Support Group, Autism Wessex and the Cambian Wing College, with Sarah playing a huge role in making that happen. Together with our connections with the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge and with Research Autism, we managed to recruit thirty participants with the condition (many of whom also took part in Sarah’s MSc experiment) and we are happy to report that almost all of them said they would love to come back and take part in future studies.

Polly and Irma’s final year dissertations are closely related to the Fusion project and will build on the insights they gained whilst working on this research over the last year.

Sarah, Jastine and I in a very hot and humid Barcelona!

The BPS Cognitive Section Conference: presenting our co-created and co-produced work

The autism branch of the study is almost complete and we hope to have the BPD side of the project wrapped up early in 2017. We presented our preliminary findings at the Festival of Learning this year and at the British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Annual Conference in Barcelona earlier this month. The Fusion award allowed not only me as presenter to attend the conference, but also Sarah and Jastine. It was a great way to end their time on the project as their contracts came to an end.

If anyone is in doubt about the benefits of involving students in their research, and in applying for Fusion funding, I can do no better than to let the students speak for themselves:

“My personal experience of being an RA for this project was invaluable. I have learnt a wealth of information and had first-hand experience in the organisation of a research project from beginning to end. The skills that I have acquired and developed during this time have been innumerable and I have also been given the opportunity to pass such skills to research apprentices. As part of this project I was also lucky enough to be able to attend the annual Cognitive Psychology Conference in Barcelona, which was not only an amazing experience but I also gained excellent tips from many professionals on delivering presentations as well as furthering my knowledge within fields that I had yet to learn about. And did I mention it was in BARCELONA!!” Sarah Wellaway

“It has been a huge privilege to be an RA and be part of a very motivated multidisciplinary team. This experience has expanded my knowledge and has provided me various research skills. It has also provided me opportunity to attend and take part in disseminating our research findings in a BPS conference abroad as well as exchanging ideas with academics who were experts in other psychological sub-fields. Overall, this experience has enabled me to attain personal and professional development, as it has increased my self-confidence and have provided me a set of abilities that will make me more employable in the future”. Jastine Antolin.

From my perspective as PI and an early career researcher, the last year has been incredible. We built a fantastic multidisciplinary team of academics, clinicians and students; we engaged external stakeholders like our participants with autism and the local support groups; we inspired a bunch of students by giving them invaluable experiences and skills for their future careers and on top of all that, conducted some cutting edge research in collaboration with one of the leading autism research centres in the world. It was hard work, but there is no doubt: it was certainly worth it!

Nicola Gregory, Lecturer in Psychology

September 20, 2016

New paper Dr. Catherine Angell on CPD in Nepal

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Fusion, international, Knowledge Transfer, open access, Publishing, Training, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Dr. Catherine Angell (FHSS) who just had her paper ‘Continual Professional Development (CPD): an opportunity to improve the Quality of Nursing Care in Nepal’ accepted in Health Prospect. The paper is co-authored with BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada both based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), Dr. Rose Khatri and Dr. Sean Mackay (also at LJMU), Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery and Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), and our colleagues in Dr. Sujan Marahatta and Associate Professor Chandra Kala Sharma. Ms. Chandra Kala Sharma is also the president of the Nepal Nursing Association (left in photo). Health Prospect is an Open Access journal, hence freely available to anybody in Nepal (and elsewhere in the world).

This paper is first of several based on a study aiming to improve CPD in Nepal and it is partly funded by LJMU and partly funded by BU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL). The CEL-funded part of the project centres on focus group research with representatives of the Ministry of Health & Population, the Ministry of Education, the Nepal Nursing Association and the Nursing Council, and Higher Education providers of Nurse Education (both form Government-run universities and private colleges). The focus group schedule will include starter questions to initiate discussions around the kind of CPD nurses in Nepal need, its format, preferred models, the required quality and quantity, and ways of checking up (quality control). In addition we will be asking a subgroup of nurses registered in Nepal about midwifery skills as midwifery is not recognised as a separate profession from nursing in Nepal. Hence there will be three focus groups specifically about midwifery CPD: one at MIDSON (the Midwifery Organisation of Nepal), one with nurses providing maternity care in private hospitals and one with nurses doing this in government hospitals.

The research is a natural FUSION project in the field of nursing & midwifery as it links Research in the field of Education to help improve Practice in Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

(CPD): an opportunity to improve the Quality of Nursing Care in Nepal, Health Prospect (Accepted)

September 5, 2016

Women Academics Centre Stage in Presidential Roles in Major International Professional Bodies and Conference Organisation

conferences, Fusion, international, Research themes Lisa Andrews

Women Academics Centre Stage in Presidential Roles in Major International Professional Bodies and Conference Organisation

3^rd International Sociological Association Forum of Sociology

10-14 July2016, University of Vienna, Austria

Professor Ann Brooks

Bournemouth University

This year’s Third ISA was held at the University of Vienna and shortly after Brexit, so I braced myself to face a barrage of jokes and recriminations about the UK vote. Well there was some gentle humour in the plenaries but the response was mainly one of pity. The conference was based in the opulence of the University of Vienna… . With its historical and contemporary position in relation to both European and global sociology this conference attracted 4,000 sociologists from across the globe. I usually find the ISA a somewhat unwieldy conference compared to the BSA and ASA but Research Committtee (RC) 32 Women in Society, has a wonderfully inclusive feel and gave coherence to the entire conference for me (see below). Increasingly some of the best conferences have women centre stage, including the ASA 2015 Conference in Chicago, with the then ASA President, Paula England, and the current ASA President and Chair of the 2016 Program Committee, Ruth Milkman (CUNY –Graduate Centre). The ASA Conference was held in Seattle in August 2016. The current ISA President is Margaret Abraham (Hofstra University, USA) who together with a team at the University of Vienna delivered a conference which did not disappoint.

A series of important and thoughtful plenaries addressed the global dimensions of the conference with the University of Vienna organising team providing an interesting European dimension addressing the Brexit issue. A generally favourable balance was achieved between global and European dimensions. The Opening Plenary featured a number of academics from the University of Vienna and they were clearly delighted at attracting over 5,000 sociologists to this impressive university as the conference base. The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Vienna, Ulrike Felt, provided an uplifting and impressive summary of the social sciences at the University Vienna and I can see the number of applicants for positions there escalating as a result. It was also great to see governmental support for the social sciences, with Barbara Weitgruber, Director General, Austrian Ministry of Science delivering a very positive statement in support of the social sciences. Margaret Abraham’s ISA Presidential Address, found here:

http://www.isa-sociology.org/forum-2016/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW44_sW4Jmc

was an important statement in equity and intersectionality and made an important contribution to this lively opening Plenary. Margaret is also an important contributor to the ASA Conference, particularly in terms of the International aspects of both conferences.

While the conference lacked the celebrity appeal of the ASA, it certainly did not lack in the seriousness of the debates. One of the most interesting debates came from the closing plenary chaired by Marcus Schultz (New School for Social Research, New York), with Asef Bayat (University of Illinois) ‘Imagining a Post-Islamist Democracy’, Akosua Adomako Ampofo (University of Ghana) ‘Black Lives Matter and the Status of the African World’, Todd Gatlin (Columbia) ‘What Kind of a World Can Weather Climate Change?’ and Alain Touraine (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, France), as discussant.

Research Committee (RC) 32 Women in Society

The size of the conference meant that affiliation to specific programs proved a favoured response. I am a member of RC32 Women in Society and the program was widely regarded as one of the best at the conference. The Program Coordinators for RC32, Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Josephine Beoku-Betts (Florida Atlantic) had worked to organise an extensive range of panels and roundtables including: ‘Human Trafficking: The Labour and Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children’; ‘Twenty Years after Beijing: A Cross-National Approach to Feminist Movements and the Implementation of the Platform for Action’; ‘Global Sociology and Feminist Perspectives on Care, Care Work and the Struggle for a Careful World’; ‘Knowledge Production: Feminist Perspectives in the 21^st Century’; ‘Gender, Law and the Courts: Local and Global Struggles Against Violence’; ‘ Intersectionalities of Power in Research: Strategies for Action and Justice’; ‘Gender, Culture and Technologies in the Knowledge Economy’; ‘Muslim Women’s Struggles for a Better World through Promoting Gender Equality’; and ‘The Cities We Want: Using Visionary Methodologies to Create Feminist Alternatives to Urban Planning’. My paper was in the ‘Precarity and Gender in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization’ and I focused on relational precarity as highlighted in the work of Lauren Berlant entitled: ‘Gender, Precarity and Sexuality: The Intersection of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Class in Relational Precarity in Neoliberal Society–the Influence of Lauren Berlant’. .

The double badging of sessions with RC32 with other RCs was a really valuable dimension of the conference, this was particularly the case for the RC02 Economy and Society led by the Program Coordinator, Heidi Gottfried, which included some excellent sessions including: ‘Gender Regimes or Gendered Institutions’ organised by Sylvia Walby. A particularly interesting session was the ‘Author Meets Critics: Crisis by Sylvia Walby’. Chaired by Heidi Gottfried and with discussants Stephanie Woehl (Vienna) and Christopher Chase-Dunn (California-Riverside). This proved to be one of the most coherent and intense social and political analyses including the focus on the EU and had anticipated Brexit. Sylvia’s response to criticism was powerful and wide-ranging and pointed to the next political crisis being in the EU not the UK. She also calls for a ‘regendering of the political project’.

This was a really fascinating conference, serious in its debates and commemorating the work and loss of John Urry.

Professor Ann Brooks

August 2016

August 30, 2016

Building Roman Britain: Project update

Fusion, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Student Engagement dpitman

The Building Roman Britain project is investigating the source of stone and ceramic materials (e.g. bricks, tiles, flues, etc.) from key sites in Roman Britain. Using Roman Bath and Fishbourne Roman Palace as our main sites, we have been using x-ray floresence (XRF) to profile these materials and to look for patterns in their production, distribution and use. Funded by HEIF 5+1, the current phase of work will soon be concluded, although it is hoped to carry on with our partners over the coming year, producing joint publications as well as museum displays and interactives.

Analysing a quarry near Bath

We have now completed over 2400 analyses, a full GIS plan of the Fishbourne ‘92 excavations, and numerous visits to both Bath and Fishbourne to undertake in situ analysis, using a portable XRF device. The team was ably assisted in this work by the appointment of an URA, Dominique Druce, who is now planning her dissertation around a related pXRF study.

In early April the team presented a paper at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) conference in Oslo that focused on the analysis of ceramic building material and presented some interesting interim results. The paper was well received and the methods and approaches outlined stimulated some very useful discussion.

With an ever increasing mass of data it was decided to begin processing and interpreting the data alongside some lab-based analysis, with the aim of identifying the most promising areas on which to focus our final investigations. However, we still found time to visit Fishbourne and examine some of the in-situ mosaics. Meanwhile, the preliminary examination of data drove a renewed focus on exploring quarry sites in the Bath area and we have since returned to the quarries at Brown’s Folly near Bath to conduct intensive, quarry-face analyses.

As an offshoot from the project, Derek Pitman (the project’s RA) took the pXRF kit to the Purbeck School’s science fair along with members of BU’s STEM outreach team, where he was able to show how scientific methods help archaeologists understand ancient materials. Continuing with the public understanding of science theme, we are now working with our partners at Bath and Fishbourne Museums to develop new, innovative display methods for our results that will include the use of video and digital media to communicate project results and STEM to a wider audience.

While the summer of 2016 sees our HEIF 5+1 funding coming to an end, the Building Roman Britain team will carry on into 2017 in order to help bring the HEIF phase of the project to publication and to build the next phase of further investigations into Roman building materials. This includes our project’s inclusion in a multi-million pound bid to the HLF for redisplay work at Roman Bath Museum as part of their Archway Project. For further details, see our research project page.

August 23, 2016

Bringing FUSION to Nepal

Fusion, innovation, international, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing, Research Integritiy, student research, Training Edwin van Teijlingen

We have written in many previous BU blogs about progress of our THET-funded project in southern Nepal (e.g. here AND here ). Today’s blog reflects on the use on BU’s unique FUSION approach in our project ‘Mental Health Training for Maternity Care Providers in Nepal‘.

Our BU-led project brings highly experienced health professionals, such as midwives, health visitors or mental health nurses, to Nepal to work as volunteer trainers. The training is aimed at community-based maternity care practitioners and addresses key mental health issues relevant to pregnancy and for new mothers and offers the required communication skills. These health professionals will bring their experience as health care providers as well as trainers in the field of mental health and maternity care/midwifery, mental ill-health prevention and health promotion. They volunteer for two to three weeks at a time to design and deliver training in southern Nepal.

The Centre for Midwifery & Maternal Health (CMMPH) collaborates in this project with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), the Department of Health, and Physical & Population Education at Nepal’s oldest university Tribhuvan University’s (TU). The project is supported in the field by a local charity called Green Tara Nepal. Our project is part of the Health Partnership such as Nepal. HPS itself is funded by the UK Department for International Development and managed by THET (Tropical and Health Education Trust).

Our maternal mental health project is a good example of BU’s FUSION approach as it combines EDUCATION (through the training of Auxiliary Nurse-Midwives in Nepal) by UK volunteers (representing PRACTICE) through an intervention which is properly evaluated (representing RESEARCH) is a perfect example of BU’s FUSION in action. Moreover, the project will be partly evaluated by FHSS’s Preeti Mahato as part of her PhD thesis research. This PhD project is supervised by Dr. Catherine Angell (CEL & CMMPH), BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada (based at LJMU) and CMMPH’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.BU’s focus on the FUSION of research, education and professional practice is a unique variant of the way UK universities (and many abroad) blend academic teaching, research and scholarship. FUSION is a key concept derived from BU’s strategic Vision & Values).

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

August 12, 2016

Successful outcomes of Fusion project – Social interaction in the event experience

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, international lmarques

After nearly a year, the Fusion project on Social interaction in the event experience led by Dr Lenia Marques (Department of Event and Leisure, Faculty of Management) came to an end. The main aim of the project was to develop tools to better analyse the experience of events for audiences, focusing in particular on the social interaction part of the event experience.

Participants in the ATLAS SIG Events, UOC, Spain

Overall, the project was successful, contributing to advances in research and also to reinforcing and expanding an international network in the field of events, and also feeding into leisure and tourism.

Several meetings took place between the partners of the project (U.K.,Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania) and also involved other partners along the way (Brazil and South Africa).The first results were presented in two conferences and the outputs will be published shortly.

Discussing preliminary results

The project shed new light on the different dimensions of the event experience, and in particular how audiences interact with each other in and beyond the event. This is only considered as a beginning, since the partners are continuing to using the tools and work together towards using the results and developing professional practice advice.

Board of Directors of the World Leisure Organization at the World Leisure Congress, South Africa

As principal investigator, I’m very satisfied with the outcomes and look forward to building on the work of the past year. This is also the time to publicly acknowledge all the partners who supported and gave valuable input to the project, as well as all the students, who in one way or the other, contributed to this project. To all those who assisted, a big thank you.

August 6, 2016

Multidisciplinary research: where Fusion meets REF

Fusion, PG research, student research Zulfiqar Khan

“We have developed multidisciplinary research within the Department of Design & Engineering, Faculty of Science & Technology at BU in collaboration with major international, national and regional industrial and HEI partners”, Associate Professor Zulfiqar Khan said. He added, “multidisciplinary research within NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling (NCEM) theme is a direct response to industrial needs in terms of enhancing design for durability & reliability, meeting the demands for generating energy from renewable sources and enhancing students learning experience through research informed education. New knowledge, created during this process, is shared with stakeholders and academic communities through relevant platforms.

Multidisciplinary research within NCEM is led by Zulfiqar and includes the development of nano coatings (nano composites and graphene; materials science and engineering) to increase service life of machines and equipment deployed in harsh operational and environmental conditions (design & engineering), understanding corrosion (materials science and mechanical engineering) issues to prevent structural failures within machines, automotive, locomotives, large structures & marine applications (preventative and predictive condition monitoring; MEMS, NEMS, Micro LPRs) and developing cutting edge solar thermal techniques to generate mechanical and heat energies from renewable sources (mechanical engineering; heat transfer and nano additives).

The objectives of this research are to develop state of the art novel and innovative energy efficient design for durability and reliability solutions applied in wide ranging industrial applications, bring about socio-economic benefits including impacts on cultural life via public engagement. This research is fully and match funded through a current portfolio of one postdoctoral research assistant and four PhD students by major industrial and HEI partners plus three PhD projects were completed early this year.

Majority of you would have had a chance to read through the Stern’s review of REF which was released in late July, “steps taken to promote interdisciplinary and other joint working internally and externally and to support engagement and impact, beyond that which is just the aggregate of individual units of assessment (para.88)”. “The proposal to allow the (tick-box) identification interdisciplinary outputs, as well as document the role of ‘interdisciplinary champions’ (para. 100)”

Zulfiqar said, “our vision of developing and engaging in multidisciplinary research which is industrially relevant, academically robust and has significant socio-economic value will play an important role in the REF 2021 and beyond and we are better positioned to lead in this area”. He has previously led the University Sustainable Design Research Centre between 2007-2015 and the centre received its REF14 Panel Feedback as, “Sustainable Design Research Group had the highest proportion of outputs judged to be internationally excellent”.

Fusion of research, education and professional practice is a key to lead to multidisciplinary research. BU Fusion of research, education and professional practice is at the heart of BU 2018 strategy. Zulfiqar said, “we have been and are currently delivering research informed education through the delivery of several UG/PG taught courses. This is a major contributor in enhancing students’ learning experience and enabling them to be more employable both in the country and globally.

He previously led the final year Design Engineering, Advanced Technology & Innovation 40 credit unit. Students participated in research activities which led them to publish journal and international conference papers including an invited Springer book chapter.

He developed a 20 credit Thermo fluids & Heat Transfer unit, taught in the second year of BEng/MEng course. Education in this unit is research informed and the unit is supported by laboratory experimentations. This provides an opportunity for the students to bridge the gap between theory and practice. He has also developed two new units Fluids and Thermodynamics L5/Year 2 MEng (Hons) Mech Engg and Thermofluids and Energy Conversion L6/Year 4 MEng (Hons) Mech Engg for recent IMechE accreditation. Education in these units will be supported by state of the art experimental techniques with in kind support from industrial partner and informed by current research in renewable energy technology within NCEM.

Zulfiqar is also leading first year Design Methods & Projects a 40 credit unit in the Design Engineering course. This unit has several projects that allow students to solve real world industrial problems and engage in research within corrosion, contact mechanics and materials science through a live project with The Tank Museum Bovington.

Both Fusion and multidisciplinary research are benefiting students in terms of their learning experience, solving immediate and challenging industrial problems, improving standard of life and bringing economic impacts including impacts on cultural life.

Some latest research activities are documented in recent publications, for further information you may contact Zulfiqar Khan.

August 5, 2016

Security by Design through “Human Centered” Specification Exemplars

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund Shamal Faily

A year ago, we received Fusion funding to build the Bournemouth-Athens Network in Critical Infrastructure Security. The aim of this project was to build collaborative links between the BU Cyber Security Research group and the Information Security & Critical Infrastructure Protection Laboratory at Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB). We built these links by working on a joint project, which we advanced through visits and other activities.

The aim of our joint activities was to build human-centered specification exemplars of Critical Infrastructure (CI) operating environments.
We depend on infrastructure associated with things like water, gas, electricity, or transport, but the criticality of such infrastructure is usually lost on us because it fades into the background of our everyday lives. The damage or loss of such infrastructure is only felt when it becomes unavailable, and its significance can range from mild annoyance if its means the trains are late, through to civil disorder and loss of life if we are unable to access clean water for a prolonged period. Despite their importance, there are no useful models of environments that people can use when developing or evaluating technology for CI. Our work aimed to remedy this by building specification exemplars for typical CI companies. In doing so, these would capture the human nuances associated with different aspects of CI, and help people identify possible security issues associated with new ideas before, rather than after, they are deployed in the field.

Together, a team of BU and AUEB researchers carried out work to build two specification exemplars of hypothetical CI companies. One of these was a UK Water Company (ACME Water). The other was a rail company in South East Europe (Balkan Rail). BU hosted researchers from AUEB and ran a number of workshops to identify different security aspects of these companies. In return, AUEB hosted BU undergraduate research assistants as they collected data from a Greek CI company, and ran workshops to develop and evaluate different aspects of the exemplars with AUEB researchers.

The exemplars have been made publicly available, and are modelled using CAIRIS – an open-source security design tool maintained by researchers at BU. To date, several publications have so far arisen from our preliminary work building [1] and applying the ACME Water exemplar [2, 3, 4]. We’re also using the exemplars as part of our teaching to provide case studies for Forensic & Computer Security lab exercises and seminars. Although the studies provided are hypothetical, they are grounded in real world data, and make visible to students the root causes of a variety of cybersecurity risks.

Looking forward, our work has gained the interest of a number of UK and international collaborators, and we’re looking for opportunities to build a library of human-cantered specification exemplars for many other, non-CI, environments. Such environments might include homes, and different types of ‘soft target’. Our long term aim is to make sure people don’t design security as an afterthought. Our work on BANCIS has made a small, but significant, step towards achieving this goal.

References

[1] S. Faily, G. Lykou, A. Partridge, D. Gritzalis, A. Mylonas, and V. Katos, “Human-Centered Specification Exemplars for Critical Infrastructure Environments,” in Proceedings of the 30th British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers, 2016.

[2] S. Faily, C. Iacob, and S. Field, “Ethical Hazards and Safeguards in Penetration Testing,” in Proceedings of the 30th British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Fusion, 2016.

[3] D. Ki-Aries, S. Faily, and K. Beckers, “Persona-Driven Information Security Awareness,” in Proceedings of the 30th British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Fusion, 2016.

[4] A. Partridge and S. Faily, “The application of useless japanese inventions for requirements elicitation in information security,” in Proceedings of the 30th British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Fusion, 2016.

August 5, 2016

THET-project planning meeting in Kathmandu

Fusion, international, Public engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

This week we had our latest planning meeting for the BU-led and THET-funded project in Nepal. The project has been running for over a year (following a six-month delay due to the terrible 2015 earthquake in Nepal). The project brings highly experienced UK health volunteers to train local community-based maternity care practitioners about the key mental health issues in pregnancy and after birth. The Centre for Midwifery & Maternal Health (CMMPH) works in collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), the Department of Health, Physical and Population Education at Nepal’s largest university Tribhuvan University’s (TU). Our project is part of the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS), which funds health partnerships to carry out capacity-building projects in low-income countries, including Nepal. HPS itself is funded by the UK Department for International Development and managed by THET.

Halfway through the project we had an update meeting at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu to discuss and plan the second half of the project which runs until the spring in 2017. The maternal mental health project is a good example of BU’s FUSION approach as it combines Education (through the training of Auxiliary Nurse-Midwives) by UK volunteers (representing the Practice-element of FUSION) in an intervention that is Research-based in both its design and evaluation. The next group of UK volunteers is due to go out to southern Nepal in September 2016. The photo on the top shows one of the UK volunteers (a midwife from Aberdeen) in action with the aid of a Nepali translator during the latest training session in Nawalparasi in May 2016.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (CMMPH) and Prof. Padam Simkhada (LJMU & BU Visiting Faculty)

July 13, 2016

Retaining Special Constables…Myth v Reality!

Business Engagement, Fusion lfarquharson

Hard at Work...Analysing Interview Data!

Hard at Work…Mapping Interview Data!

Dr Lois Farquharson is working on an exciting research project for Dorset Police and Devon & Cornwall Police which focuses on the lived experience of Special Constables and its impact on retention. This research is being undertaken jointly with Dr Iain Britton and Dr Matt Callender from The Institute for Public Safety, Crime and Justice (IPSCJ) at University of Northampton. We are also delighted to have a BU MBA student, Steven Kueberuwa, involved in the project.

Key areas which the project delves into in detail are:

Motivations and expectations when joining the force
Recruitment and training
Knowledge translation, development and pathways to independence
Worklife balance and impacts on ‘being’ a Special Constable
Relationships, support and morale
Organisational culture and environment
Job satisfaction and future intentions

Individual in-depth interviews have taken place with Special Constables across both constabularies from May through July. Today was our first workshop focusing on mapping the data – intense, but very enjoyable – watch this space for more info on findings and outputs in due course.

July 7, 2016

Book Launch in San Francisco

Fusion Christopher Pullen

I was delighted to launch my new book ‘Pedro Zamora, Sexuality, and AIDS Education: The Autobiographical Self, Activism and the Real World’ making a presentation at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. This book is the product of study leave through Fusion funding, that I worked on a little while back. At the book launch, it was wonderful that despite its been over 22 years since Pedro was last in San Francisco (and he passed a away a few months later) that so many people came to the event, and were interested in his story, including some that knew Pedro personally. Also it was flattering that representatives from the AIDS Memorial Grove attended the event that have an academic scholarship in Pedro’s name, and that I was interviewed by two journalists, including Brian Bromberger who published this review in the Bay Area Reporter. 9781604979237front

July 1, 2016

Taking Tear Gas on Tour

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Exchange, Post-award afeigenbaum

Our French samples of CS gas would leave our audience feeling sick, so for now we stick to power points when our tear gas research hits the road. Since the new year, members of Bournemouth University’s Civic Media team have had the opportunity to travel all around the country giving talks and workshops at UK Universities. Our Tear Gas project brings together academics, NGOs and digital designers to respond to the need for more publicly accessible information regarding tear gases’ effects on human life, animals and environments. We also consult and advise with organisation’s like Amnesty International on the policies and practices associated with the tear gas trade to help support human rights work around the world.

In February project lead Dr. Feigenbaum was invited to talk at the University of York as part of their Social and Political Sciences speaker series. Then it was over to the University of Sussex in early March, sharing two of our Fusion Funded BU Datalabs projects on Mapping Tear Gas and RiotIDs. Later in March, Dr. Feigenbaum headed into London for an invited talk on ‘Tear Gas and Other Media‘ at the University of Westminster. Then the whole team went up North in April for a RiotID workshop hosted by the University of Sheffield‘s Crick Centre as part of an ESRC Seminar Series. Postgraduate students and Senior Research Assistants Oz Demirkol and Daniel Weissmann, as well as URA Laura McKenna helped deliver a co-creation workshop alongside industry graphic design partner Minute Works and our NGO partner Omega Research Foundation.

To explore the innovative methodology our project employs, combining investigative and data journalism practices, in early May we teamed up with Kings College London‘s new Centre for Digital Culture to host a two-day investigative research workshop, bringing together academics, NGOs and journalist from around Europe. The event was co-sponsored by both MeCCSA Social Movement Network and the Political Science Association, as well as by our research groups at BU. Later that month we were back on the train headed for Keele University’s Media Environments workshop in May. Dr. Feigenbaum and Minute Works co-designed an interactive workshop using our Fusion model for how to turn research into information visualisations for making impact.

Then it was back to London in June for a double header of events on security and arms control at the University College London. First up was a paper presentation on the Wellcome Trust funded part of our research looking at the Communication of Medical Knowledge in Tear Gas History. This two day interdisciplinary and international event was hosted aat UCL’s Global Governance Institute. A symposium directly followed on History, Security and Arms Control that marked the end of Professor Brian Balmer’s AHRC project on the Biological Weapons Convention. Speaking to an audience of 50 academics, policy-makers and NGOs, Dr. Feigenbaum presented on ‘Communication Approaches to the History of Tear Gas’, highlighting how policy-based research can engage with new digital technologies, information design and digital storytelling to make meaningful interventions in arms control.

Up next, in July Dr. Feigenbaum and summer URA Lauren Weeks are heading to the International Association of Media and Communication‘s annual conference to present their paper on the project’s use of social media in addressing issues of policing and human rights. Then it’s time for a holiday!

Our Tear Gas project has brought Bournemouth University’s Fusion vision to universities around the country. This work grew out of two fusion-funded grant projects. It has benefited from Fusion’s cross-faculty collaborations, partner networking opportunities, and working with four URA students over the course of its three years. The fruits of this collaborative labour can be seen in the steady stream of invitations we receive to take our cross-partner, co-creation project on tour–sharing and inspiring about issues that matter.

June 27, 2016

Interactive-Digital Storytelling Project in the community

Fusion, innovation, Public engagement James Pope

For five busy days in May, Faculty of Media and Communication academics Jim Pope, Brad Gyori, Kay Stonham, and Rutherford worked with local youngsters to produce a fully-working, online interactive narrative. Using a bespoke software package (Genarrator) developed within FMC with Fusion funding, five young people at the AIM community arts centre, Kinson, created a twisty tale of cyber-romance.

The project was a collaboration between FMC, and the staff at AIM central, the Bournemouth hub designed to give opportunities for self-expression and personal growth via performing arts, to unemployed teens, at-risk children, young offenders, and local young people more broadly. Jim Pope liaised with AIM leaders, Celeste Engel and Richard Newland, to bring together five young people, three of whom were ‘NEETS’, to work as a group to create a narrative that would blend film, words, music, graphics, and online interactivity. With a varied skill set, Brad (scripting and filming), Kay (scripting) and Rutherford (photography) were able to catalyse the enthusiasm and abilities of the young people, and from a standing start a plot emerged: all the writing, filming, recording, photography, and Genarrator design was completed in the five days that were allocated at the centre.

With support from the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, we were also able to involve three of our BA Multi-Media Journalism students, who documented the whole week, and have produced a short video of the event. See the You Tube video here: https://youtu.be/PSSvcKL3GbU

See the finished interactive narrative here: http://genarrator.org/view/7jf4el44s70pvpgy

Given the success of this small project, Jim and the AIM team are discussing funding sources to develop a larger project which can give opportunities to more BU undergraduates and more young people from the community.

June 23, 2016

The Sun IS going to shine……

Festival of Learning, Fusion, Public engagement hcrossen

….so why not spend this Sunday enjoying

Life by the River

Members of the Public Health Cluster have been working in partnership with Tom Clarke from the RSPB over the last two years to to promote to the public the many health and wellbeing benefits there are from spending time outside enjoying the natural environment. The Team has also been working with Bournemouth Borough Council, Parks staff and supporting the development of a project based on a stretch of the River Stour. Heritage Lottery funding had enabled the creation of the Kingfisher Barn, a new visitor’s centre alongside the River Stour, near Throop. To showcase the work the project team Holly and Angela (BU), Tom (RSPB) and Bournemouth Parks staff have developed a Festival of Learning Event at the Kingfisher Barn with lots of outdoor activities for visitors of all ages. There will be an opportunity to discover how previous generations have lived their life by the river and there will be some lovely family photos showing how life was that have been generously provided by local families who have also shared their memories and helped Holly bring together the exhibition. There will be some messy things to do too so maybe pack some wellies if you would like to help create a cobb structure with Heidi a local artist who has been working with the Team. The event is this Sunday – 26th June at the Kingfisher Barn between 11am and 3pm.

June 19, 2016

Announcing the first WAN Book Launch

Fusion, Public engagement, Publishing, Women's Academic Network Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

First WAN book launch

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Heather Savigny & Jaeyeon Choe

The Women’s Academic Network (WAN) is heading towards its 3^rd birthday in the Autumn. During that time we’ve put on many events designed to inspire our members, air and discuss concerns, build confidence, offer support and undertake research. We’ve heard some extraordinary speakers like feminist godmother, Germaine Greer, and courageous polar explorer, Felicity Aston.

Now it’s time to celebrate our own remarkable female colleagues. So where better to look for inspiration than the University of Cambridge book focusing on insights from their female dons in The Meaning of Success. Consequently next academic year we are planning to create a WAN publication of what women’s success looks like at BU, which will be used for general use across the university and beyond.

To embark on this new journey we were delighted to hold the first WAN book launch in May to celebrate the recent and important publications of three WAN colleagues. Professor Candida Yates is the author of The Play of Political Culture, Emotion & Identity , a highly intriguing and original socio-political-psychoanalytic analysis of relationships made and manipulated between the viewer and the political media ‘personality’.

Dr Bronwen Thomas, Associate Professor, has produced a ground-breaking textbook entitled Narrative: the basics. This volume draws from her extensive teaching practice to bring together a wealth of theoretical material to explain the diverse forms of and models underpinning fictional narrative.

Finally, Dr Julia Round, Principal Lecturer, has produced a marvellously eye-catching monograph with obvious wide readership appeal: Gothic in Comics & Graphic Novels Here the interface between comics and the gothic is examined through multiple analytic lenses.

Which brings us most appropriately to an early preview about The Shelley-Frankenstein Festival, 7^thNovember ~ WAN is delighted to be part of the launch of this new and innovative Bournemouth-wide festival with 2 public engagement seminars planned at BU. Stakeholders include St Peter’s Town Centre Parish Church, Bournemouth County Council, AUB, Shelley Theatre, artists and musicians. More details to follow.

June 15, 2016

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

conferences, Fusion, PG research shodge

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!

June 15, 2016

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

Awarded & submitted bids, BRIAN, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Coffee Morning, conferences, Fusion, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, Research Ethics, staff profile pages, student research Mastoureh Fathi

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).

Category / Fusion

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Multidisciplinary research: where Fusion meets REF

Security by Design through “Human Centered” Specification Exemplars

Retaining Special Constables…Myth v Reality!

Book Launch in San Francisco

Taking Tear Gas on Tour

Interactive-Digital Storytelling Project in the community

The Sun IS going to shine……

Life by the River

Announcing the first WAN Book Launch

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

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