Category / Research communication

See your spine move in real-time motion at the AECC

BU research, innovation, Research communication, Research news

The Centre for Biomechanics Research (CBR) of the AECC University College, Bournemouth are seeking volunteers for their latest research study, investigating spine biomechanics in near real time.

CBR are currently looking for volunteers to help us with our latest piece of research into understanding the back in motion. We need over 100 volunteers to come forward to take part to ensure the project is a success so we can establish a database of spine mechanics in healthy adults. This is the biggest study of its kind and those who volunteer for this research study will get the chance to see their spine move in real-time.

Currently we focusing our recruitment for a sub-study comparing a commonly used skin based marker system, for measuring the spine in motion, to the gold standard of bone tracking using low dose video x-rays. For this study 15 females volunteers are needed to take part.

To find out more about this study please visit the study web-page here.

Who are we looking for?

For this research study, we are looking for people who:

  • Are over 30 and under 70 years of age
  • Have not had low back pain that has prevented normal activity for at least 1 day in the past year
  • Have not had an abdominal/pelvic/lumbar spine surgery in the past 2 years
  • Have not had any medical radiation exposure in the past year or exposure in the past 2 years with a
    dose of greater than 8mSv (defined as CT scan of Chest, Abdomen or Pelvis or Interventional procedures under radiological control i.e. angiography).
  • Have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 30
  • Are not pregnant
  • Willing to participate and able to freely give informed consent.

Next steps

If you are interested in being involved in this project please visit the study web-page here or you can also learn more about this project through the participant information booklet here.
If you would like to register your interest please download the pre-study form here.
For any questions, or to send us your completed pre-study form, please contact us at cbrstudies@aecc.ac.uk

This study has received a favourable ethical opinion from HRA South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee. 
REC reference: 10/H0106/65.

SciVal – Research Performance Tool Training

BU research, Events, Impact, Research assessment, Research communication, Research Training, Training

Elsevier, the manufacturers of SciVal, will be coming to BU to deliver a number of workshops on their research performance online tool.

SciVal shows bibliometric data for individuals and organisations and is used by some funders and organisations when assessing research grants, informing research evaluation and identifying collaborators worldwide.

27th February 2020 at Talbot Campus

There are two sessions running during the day as follows:

09:30 – 11:00 SciVal for REF purposes

11:30 – 12:30 SciVal Introduction (for Researchers and Professional Support Staff)

13:30 – 14:30 SciVal Introduction (for Researchers and Professional Support Staff)

15:00 – 16:30 SciVal for REF purposes

To register book your place for one of these workshops, please e-mail Organisational Development stating which session(s) you wish to attend.

If you have any queries, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

 

Performative Social Science reaching wider audiences

BU research, PG research, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized

A Chapter on Performative Social Science for the International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods by BU’s Dr Kip Jones has achieved 1500+ reads on ResearchGate.

Performative Social Science (PSS) is an arts-led method of research and dissemination developed by Jones at Bournemouth University over ten years and is recognised internationally. Recently lauded by Sage Publications, they described PSS as pioneering work that will ‘propel arts-led research forward’ and be a ‘valued resource for students and researchers for years to come’.  

Performative Social Science (PSS) is positioned within the current era of cross-pollination from discipline to discipline. Practitioners from the Arts and Humanities look to the Social Sciences for fresh frameworks, whist Social Science practitioners explore the Arts for potential new tools for enquiry and dissemination.

‘Kip Jones brings the genre of what he calls performative social sciences forward with wide-ranging theoretical, academic, and artistic products in a various media that takes up how social scientists can use art for investigation and dissemination.’ —“Embodied Methodologies, Participation, and the Art of Research” by Madeline Fox  

Dr Kip Jones, Reader in Qualitative Research and Performative Social Science retires from Bournemouth University at the end of February, but will continue with PhD supervision on a part-time basis. He has four potential publications in discussion with publishers, including a volume on PSS. 

Health Research Authority email addresses are changing

BU research, Clinical Governance, nhs, NHS, Research communication, Research Ethics, Research news

All email addresses at the HRA are changing in the coming weeks and this change will be complete by March 2020.

HRA staff email addresses will be standardised as firstname.lastname@hra.nhs.uk. A full list of contact email addresses for the Research Ethics Committees is now available here.

If you use the HRA staff member’s @nhs.net email address to contact them after they have moved to their new email address, you will receive a response containing their new details but your email won’t be automatically forwarded.

If you are unsure which contact information to use for the individual or service you require, please contact the HRA mainline on 020 797 22545 or use their contact form.

Make sure to check your junk mail if you are expecting emails from the HRA or an NHS REC as they often are sent there instead. Please add them to your safe senders list if this is the case to make sure you don’t miss any important study emails!

NIHR Podcast on Dementia Research

BU research, Impact, Knowledge Exchange, nhs, NHS, Research communication, Research Ethics, research integrity, Research news

The NIHR have recently released another of their podcasts in their Health Research Futures series, this time from Professor Martin Rosser.

Professor Rosser founded Join Dementia Research, a national system for linking patients and public to research studies. He is also the Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network for Dementia and Neurodegenerative diseases.

In this podcast he discusses dementia research and its importance in the clinical research landscape.

 

 

Guidance available to support researchers attending an NHS REC meeting

BU research, Clinical Governance, Guidance, nhs, NHS, Research communication, Research Ethics, research integrity

Two new links have been added to the Clinical Governance blog under the ‘Useful Links and Documents’ section which give further information and guidance as to attending an NHS Research Ethics Committee meeting for your project. The links are also provided below-

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Learning to Observe: Approximating Human Perceptual Thresholds for Detection of Suprathreshold Image Transformations

Events, Research Centres, Research communication, Research news

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar for the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.

Title: Learning to Observe: Approximating Human Perceptual Thresholds for Detection of Suprathreshold Image Transformations

Speaker: Dr Carlo Harvey (Birmingham City University)

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 29 January 2020

Room: F310 (Fusion Building)

Abstract: Many tasks in computer vision are often calibrated and evaluated relative to human perception.

This talk presents a technique to directly approximate the perceptual function performed by human observers completing a visual detection task. Specifically, we present a novel methodology for learning to detect image transformations visible to human observers through approximating perceptual thresholds. To do this, we carry out a subjective two-alternative forced choice study to estimate perceptual thresholds of human observers detecting local exposure shifts in images. We then leverage transformation equivariant representation learning to overcome issues of limited perceptual data. This representation is then used to train a dense convolutional classifier capable of detecting local suprathreshold exposure shifts – a distortion common to image composites. In this context, our model is able to approximate perceptual thresholds with an average error of 0.1148 exposure stops between empirical and predicted thresholds. It can also be trained to detect a range of different pixel-wise transformation.

We hope to see you there!

NIHR resources – Patient and Public Involvement and Social Media Toolkit

BU research, Clinical Governance, data management, Guidance, Knowledge Exchange, nhs, NHS, Research communication, Research Ethics, research integrity, Research news, Research Training, Training

Two resources are now available on the NIHR Learn website for researchers –

  • Patient and Public Involvement: Inspiring New Researchers – an online course developed by the Department of Health and NIHR. It is intended to help researchers to understand the benefits of good Patient and Public involvement into their research.
  • Social Media Toolkit – a combination of practical resources on how to get started and real case studies from how colleagues across the NIHR Clinical Research Network are currently using social media to support their work.

To access the above resources you will need to have access to the NIHR Learn website. Once you have an account select the tab ‘Health Research Innovations’ and then click on ‘NIHR Endorsed Learning’. Both courses are free and do not require an enrolment key.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.