Category / PG research

This part of the blog features news and information for postgraduate research students and supervisors

New paper by PhD student Sheetal Sharma

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, student research

Sheetal Sharma, PhD student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH), published her latest paper this week in the Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities [1].  The paper ‘Nepenglish’ or ‘Nepali English’: A New Version of English? raises the question whether we are beginning to see a new variant of English.

The paper is co-authored with Mrs. Pragyan Joshi from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kathmandu and BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.   Sheetal’s PhD research focuses on the evaluation of a large-sclae maternity care improvement intervention in rural Nepal.

The paper is based on listening to people in Nepal speaking English and reading their writing in English.  English is a living language and different native and non-native speakers develop English in slightly different ways. This paper argues that it is time to consider whether we should study the English spoken by native-Nepali speakers (Nepenglish) as a separately developing variant of English. The question is particularly intriguing since Nepali English bears such a similarity with Indian English, as both are largely based on originally Sanskrit-based languages. The focus is particularly on how native-Nepali speakers express themselves in English.

 

 

Reference:

 

  1. Sharma, S., Joshi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) ‘Nepenglish’ or ‘Nepali English’: A new version of English? Asian Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences 4(2): 188-193. www.ajssh.leena-luna.co.jp/AJSSHPDFs/Vol.4%282%29/AJSSH2015%284.2-21%29.pdf

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

Highlights from the World Confederation of Physical Therapy Congress, Singapore, May 2015

BU research, PG research

 

Around 3400 delegates from all over the world gathered in Singapore at the start of May for the World Confederation for Physical Therapy Congress.  With an impressive 572 platform presentations, 1,578 poster sessions, and 36 networking sessions there was certainly plenty of opportunity to be informed and stimulated by new ideas.

 

Three representatives attended from Bournemouth University (Judith Chapman, Carol Clark and Clare Farrance) who presented some of their current research (8 papers) around reflective practice, chronic pain, joint hyper-mobility and physical activity.  Clare commented that sharing research around these areas provided “a great opportunity to see where our research at BU sits within the clinical and academic physiotherapy situation worldwide”.

 

Other highlights included learning more about educational approaches for undergraduate students, the use of integrating technology to support people with long-term conditions, furthering international relationships and collaborations, and of course the amazing array of food in Singapore (including the chilli crab!).

 

Many thanks to the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and Santander PGR Mobility Awards for funding to make attendance at this valuable conference possible.

PG Researcher Development Workshops available throughout May

PG research

For all postgraduate Researchers – the following PG Researcher Development workshops are available throughout May:

  • Friday 1 May 2015 – ResearchPAD – A beginner’s guide
  • Wednesday 6 May 2015 – Creative Thinking
  • Thursday 7 May – IT Skills: Word – Structuring your Thesis
  • Wednesday 13 May 2015 – How to Conduct a Literature Review
  • NEW for 2014-15: Wednesday 13 May 2015 – Careers Series: Marketing yourself in person: Interviews
  • Thursday 14 May –  IT Skills: Excel – Introduction to Essential Features
  • Wednesday 20 May 2015 – Ethics: ethical systems, requirements and professional standards
  • Thursday 21 May – IT Skills: PowerPoint 2010: Create and Enhance your Presentation
  • Thursday 21 May 2015 – Interviewing in semi-structured interviews
  • NEW for 2014-15: Wednesday 27 May 2015 – Careers Series: Commercial Awareness
  • Thursday 28 May – IT Skills:  Introduction to Access
  • Thursday 28 May 2015 – Introduction to Focus Groups

See PGR Workshops – An Overview for further information about the workshops.  If any are of interest to you, booking is via myBU Graduate School PGR Community (don’t forget to log on with your student username and password)

Congratulations to the winners of the Research Photography Competition

BU research, PG research, Research communication, student research

‘Can you tell the story of your research in a single image?’  That’s the challenge we set BU’s academics and postgraduates earlier this year, and the overwhelming response saw researchers from all across the university downing tools to take up their cameras and think of unusual ways to illustrate their research.

The resulting images demonstrate not just the creativity of our academics and postgraduates, but also the fascinating range of research taking place at BU.

Researchers from all across the university, working in areas as diverse as dementia, archaeology, kayaking and 3D printing submitted images to the competition.

Thousands of BU students, staff and members of the public voted for their favourite images, and we can now reveal the winners.

Winner – Sarah Hambidge, ‘Care Farming: Providing Brighter Futures for Young and Old’

Sarah photo

Down on a farm, tucked away in the beautiful Dorset countryside, the therapeutic use of farming practices is being used to provide health, social and educational care services for a wide range of people. The farm offers the opportunity for people who are the hardest to reach, to utilise a rural environment to enhance their well-being and to achieve their potential. The farm has achieved many great success stories of people who have turned their lives around, been given confidence in their own value and become equipped with the learning they need to successfully engage in wider society. The challenge they now face is to show this model of care is successful to enable their work to continue and grow.

Historically, much of the awareness and research regarding mental health issues has focused predominantly on females, whilst males with mental health concerns have faced an element of negativity from society, despite being at higher risk of depression and loneliness, alcohol dependency, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and suicide. My study aims to explore the benefits of the care farm model as an alternative social care intervention on improving physical / mental health outcomes and the quality of life of young males with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties as well as older men with dementia, and the benefits of intergenerational interaction between the two groups.

Runner up – Rosa Spencer-Tansley, ‘What causes mental illness?’

Rosa photo

1 in 4 of us will experience mental health problems in our lifetime. The pathophysiology of mental illness involves a interplay of genetic and environmental factors and it is only the last few years that the aetiological picture has started to show. As a result uncertainty and oversimplified ideas regarding the causes of mental illness exist. This can exacerbate stigma and increase the emotional burden of mental illness amongst families. A major function of Psychiatric Genetic Counselling is to help affected individuals and families. This can help them successfully adapt to the condition as well as address and reduce feelings of shame, guilt, blame and stigma, thus having both informative and therapeutic values.

I will explore understanding amongst the UK about the causes of mental illness in order to evaluate the application of Psychiatric Genetic Counselling to the UK. This photograph captures 100 BU students’ answers to the question: “What causes mental illness?”

Runner up – Jordan Thomas, Stephanie Farrant, Robert Moore and Sulaf Assi, ‘On-spot Identification of Counterfeit Products Using Handheld Instruments’

Stephanie photo

The last decade has witnessed a change in the use of medicine products beyond diseases’ treatments to improve an individual’s life. Lifestyle products include medicines, cosmetic and herbal products which improve physical appearance and physical/mental performance. Counterfeit lifestyle products could be encountered anywhere across the wholesale supply chain.

The effects resulting from a counterfeit lifestyle product could range from ineffectiveness (at their best) to toxic/lethal effects (at their worst). As these products can be encountered anywhere, it is important to develop rapid, non-destructive and mobile technology for their identification. Handheld instruments techniques offer these advantages. Therefore, this project underlies developing methods for the rapid and non-destructive identification of counterfeit lifestyle products using handheld spectroscopic techniques.

In particular, the project involves building libraries which contain signatures of lifestyle products and materials commonly present in these products.

For one day only, you can view a full exhibition of all submissions in K101, Kimmeridge House on 28th April from 2pm – 4pm.

We regret to inform you ….

PG research, Publishing, Research Integritiy, Research news, student research, Uncategorized

It is always disappointing for an academic author to receive a rejection letter.   Today I received yet another one from Midwifery (published by Elsevier).   Sometimes I think academic publishing in good journal is not getting any easier over time.  Neither does the experience of having  over two hundred peer-reviewed academic papers make a rejection easier to deal with.  This was my third paper in a row that got rejected by Midwifery.  All three papers were rejected on resubmission, so a lot of extra work had gone into these papers after the initial peer review and the editor’s feedback.  These three papers where led by three different postgraduate students (Sharma, Baral & Burton) as first authors, and in each case co-authored by myself and different BU academics and/or from other universities.

Midwifery is the journal in which I have published more papers than any other journal (see top blue piece of pie in ‘Documents by source’) as reported on SCOPUS today (26 April 2015).  Moreover, I am co-author of one of the top five most downloaded papers in Midwifery for 2014 (see recent BU Research Blog), and this paper is also the most cited Midwifery paper since 2010!   Still I manage to have three papers rejected in a row.

What is does show to me is that the journal’s peer review system is robust (i.e. blind and impartial) because I am also a member of Midwifery’s editorial committee.  I think it is back to the drawing board and discuss with each set of authors what the next step should be for our papers.  To be fair we had a paper published already this year in Midwifery, namely:  Grylka-Baeschlin, S., van Teijlingen, E.R., Stoll, K., Gross, M.M. (2015) Translation and validation of the German version of the Mother-Generated Index and its application during the postnatal period. Midwifery 31(1): 47–53.

As an editorial board we try continuously to maintain a high quality of papers to be published in our journal, and we would like to encourage potential authors to keep submitting their papers to Midwifery.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

BU SDRC Contributions to WIT Contact & Surface 2015 International Conference

BU research, PG research, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, student research

BU SDRC Director Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor) organised a special session on “Surface Engineering” at the WIT 2015 Contact and Surface International Conference and contributed as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) as a reviewer during 2014-15.

SDRC Professor Mark Hadfield chaired the special session and also helped the conference as a member of the ISAC to support review process.

BU academics and researchers along with the SDRC international partners from Gazi University Turkey contributed presentations and have submitted the following extended full length papers to the WIT International Journal of Computational Methods & Experimental Measurements (CMEM), which are all currently under review for publication.

  1. Khan, Z., Pashaei, P., Bajwa, R., Nazir, M. H., & Cakmak, M. (2015). Fabrication and characterisation of electrodeposited and magnetron sputtered thin films. In Contact and Surface 2015. València, Spain. Retrieved from http://www.wessex.ac.uk/15-conferences/contact-and-surface-2015.html
  2. Saeed, A., Khan, Z., & Hadfield, M. (2015). Performance Evaluation of Surface Protection Applied to Large Vehicles. In Contact and Surface 2015. València, Spain: Wessex Institute, UK. Retrieved from http://www.wessex.ac.uk/15-conferences/contact-and-surface-2015.html
  3. Gultekin, A., Pashaei, P., Khan, Z., Ozturk, M. K., Tamer, M., & Bas, Y. (2015). X-ray and ab initio study of structural, electronic, elastic and optical properties in Be1-xZnxS alloys depending on Vegard’s law. In Contact and Surface 2015. València, Spain. Retrieved from http://www.wessex.ac.uk/15-conferences/contact-and-surface-2015.html
  4. Nazir, M. H., Khan, Z. A. (2015). Maximising the Interfacial Fracture Toughness of Thin Coatings and Substrate through Optimisation of Defined Parameters. In Contact and Surface 2015. València, Spain: WIT. Retrieved from http://www.wessex.ac.uk/15-conferences/contact-and-surface-2015.html

WIT is currently collaborating with BU in Corrosion research through a post doc programme Mark Hadfield (PI), Zulfiqar Khan (Co-I) led by Dr Adil Saeed as a post doc researcher.

Corrosion (experimental, modelling and simulation) and Surface Engineering (nano coatings) research within BU SDRC is conducted in collaboration with multinational industrial partners through match funding with significant in-kind experimental support.

For further details on current research activity in SDRC please visit the Centre webpage. If you have interests in these areas and would like to find more please contact Dr Zulfiqar Khan

Investigating and Visualising the Effects of Environment on Prey Detection Rates: A Key Variable in Human Evolution

BU research, PG research, Uncategorized

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

 

Speaker: Pete AllenInvestigating and Visualising the Effects of Environment on Prey Detection Rates: A Key Variable in Human Evolution

 

Title: Investigating and Visualising the Effects of Environment on Prey Detection Rates: A Key Variable in Human Evolution.

 

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 22 April 2015

Room: P302 LT, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract: This project utilises interactive 3D virtual worlds in order to determine the effect which the composition of the environment has on the ability of humans to detect prey animals within it.

The research focuses on the environments found in Europe prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, during the time period known as Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 (circa 30-55K years ago). By recreating various OIS3 environments virtually, we can investigate the effects of “openness” (degree of forestation), light levels, terrain and many other factors on prey detection rates.

 

Data is collected via experiments in which participants are able to navigate realistic 3D environments to search for prey animals. The search strategies they employ and the effect the environment is having on them can be recorded both from the software itself and via sophisticated eye-tracking technology. This data will inform us of the hunting strategies utilised by early human societies as they reacted to the changing landscape during OIS3.

 

This project makes use of Unreal Engine 4, a technology well suited to the creation of large, complex, interactive virtual worlds. UE4 is mostly associated with large-scale games development projects, but has the flexibility for use in this kind of research, often referred to as serious games.

 

 

We hope to see you there.