BU Research Blog

Category / Creative, Digital & Cognitive Science

October 25, 2016

ESRC’s Festival of Social Science- What is the Internet Hiding from you?

BU research, Events, Public engagement hjones

Date: Tuesday 8 November 2016

Time: 2:30pm-5pm

Location: Executive Business Centre (EBC), Bournemouth University, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB

As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, BU’s Dr Nava Tintarev and Dr Paolo Palmieri will host an information session and focus group to talk about their research into digital privacy and discuss people’s opinions on the use of their personal data

As many of us may be aware our personal data is used to filter our Facebook timeline and that Amazon personalises our suggestions. With an exponential growth of information, many online systems filter and adapt what information we are exposed to. However as users, we have not always agreed to this personalisation and we’re often left unaware whether our personal data is being used to benefit us. There is also a risk that if personalisation gets ‘too good’; this can narrow down our exposure to new things. We’re left to wonder how our personal information is being used.

Imagine a tourist visiting a city and looking for new places to explore. A recommender system would suggest several places to visit and a certain sequence to visit them in. To give good recommendations, the system needs to consider the relationship between suggested items. For example, the tourist may not want to visit more than two museums in a day, and they would not want to go from one museum straight to another one, so there should be something else to visit in-between.

Working together with adults of different backgrounds and degrees of technological experience Dr Nava Tintarev hopes to understand what factors influence a good explanation for these sequences, through the focus group and better understand how people feel about this personalisation.

One scenario is when there is no best option and the sequences have taken into account trade-offs. For example, someone travelling in a group may not see their top preference within the sequence, because the system took into account the preference of others in the group.

The second scenario in which explanations can really help is when the recommendations contain unexpected, but risky items. Often recommender systems suggest safe items, for example suggesting the latest Star Wars movie to a Star Wars fan, or inferring from a user’s consumption habits that they are similar to users that like the newly released Jurassic World movie. The problem is that even though these systems suggest novel items, these recommendations are predictable. They miss out on what potentially could be the greatest strength of recommender systems: helping users discover new items and new interests they didn’t realise they had.

It is vital to understand people’s concerns. Dr Nava Tintarev’s research looks specifically at the use of explanations to help users make good decisions about recommendations of sequences of items. It is important that they are confident that they can trust these systems. Through her research, she hopes to help users gain a better sense of how their personal data is being used. This event will help you gather a better understanding of how big data companies use personal data and the challenges they face.

The 14th annual Festival of Social Science takes place from 5-12 November 2016 with more than 250 free events nationwide. Run by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Festival provides an opportunity for anyone to meet with some of the country’s leading social scientists and discover, discuss and debate the role that research plays in everyday life. With a whole range of creative and engaging events there’s something for everyone including businesses, charities, schools and government agencies. A full programme is available at www.esrc.ac.uk/festival You can also join the discussion on Twitter using #esrcfestival.

This event is running twice on Tuesday 8 November to allow as many people as possible to attend. I if you would like to attend the 14:30-17:00 session please book your free place here. If you would prefer to attend in the evening there is a session running 18:00-20:30 for which you can book your free place here.

To find out more about the ESRC Festival of Social Science and all the events taking place please visit www.bournemouth.ac.uk/esrc-fss you can also email Joanna Pawlik or Naomi Kay to find out more.

October 24, 2016

Event: The Game Changer: Reloaded

Business Engagement, Events, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team jcodling

Date: Wednesday 16 November

Location: The Fusion Building, Bournemouth University

Event information:

Building on the successful Game Changer event held earlier in the year, Bournemouth University and NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group present The Game Changer Reloaded – promoting innovation and fostering collaboration across Dorset. Join Richard Dolan, Dr Phil Richardson and Professor Jim Roach and a diverse collection of speakers to learn more about the art of the possible and the power of innovation to transform health services within the region.

Timings:

Session 1 – 9.00 am -3.00 pm: Speakers from BU and external organisations share their innovation journeys throughout the day providing inspiration and ideas to those attending as to how to get involved.

Session 2 – 3.15 pm – 4.15 pm: Facilitation and networking: This session offers the opportunity to share ideas and develop future collaborations. There’s also the chance to begin to consider research ideas that could subsequently be progressed in order to obtain external funding in the future.

Each session will need to be booked separately.

Throughout the day there’s a pop-up innovation exhibition for guests to enjoy and to share and refine ideas.

It’s free: book now for The Game Changer Reloaded

This event forms a number being run at the university as part of the Festival of Enterprise.

Need help with networking? – why not book onto the business engagement and networking session on 2 November for some hints and tips that you can put into practice.

October 19, 2016

A Cloud Based Intelligent Safety Transport Framework for Schools

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Research communication djohn

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

Speaker: Manoharan Ramachandran (PhD student within the Creative Technology Department).

Title: A Cloud Based Intelligent Safety Transport Framework for Schools

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 26^th October 2016

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

Abstract: Safety in school transportation systems is a critical issue which involves children who are the most vulnerable users of them. Statistics show that in Great Britain (GB) alone 1191 children were injured in 371 coach crashes between 2005 and 2015. Though coach journeys are considered as the safest mode of transport for children, the coach accidents are the one which resulted in a high number of fatalities per accident. England has more than 25000 schools and each school at least make 2 trips per year which is equivalent to 50000+ trips made every year. Schools rely on coach operators to provide vehicles for school trips and home to school services. In the last eight months alone (Jan – Sept 2016), 102 coach operators’ licenses have been revoked without public inquiry in England due to operator’s non compliance. Around 8.3 million pupils are enrolled in England schools. There are no specific safety models available to ensure the safety of children who travelling through coaches. Parents have to spend a considerable amount of time on the streets and making phone calls seeking information about the coach whilst waiting for it, due to the unpredictable nature of the traffic, particularly during the winter months. Proper selection of coach operator, vehicle and real time vehicle tracking & monitoring can considerably mitigate safety risks and the problems of school transport. Most of the existing literature so far has focused on the economy and the shortest routes to transport children, but they do not consider the safety aspects of the coach operator, vehicle and the driver. In this research, two case studies have been conducted in four sectors of stakeholders to identify their problems and needs in school transportation. The outcome will be discussed at this seminar.

We hope to see you there.

October 19, 2016

BU Researcher Dr Firend Al Rasch has released a book: Asian Case Studies- Lessons from Malaysian Industries

BU research, Research communication, Research news hjones

BU’s Dr Firend Al Rasch has recently published a book around his research into Asian industry and their significance to the world of trade and commerce. The book ‘Lessons from Malaysian Industries’ is one of a series of Asian case studies and explains how these industries can stay relevant among other key players in the Asian market.

This section of the series explores Malaysia which is relatively small in comparison to its other Asian-Pacific neighbours, such as India and China. In 2010, the country set a target to become a high-income nation by 2020. Dr Rasch analysed a number of Malaysian companies from a number of industries, including palm oil, electrical, electronics, business services, oil and gas etc. He discusses how Malaysia is at a disadvantage as it’s unable to compete with its larger neighbours, nor is it able to grow to the high-end market value of Singapore.

In the wake of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) the economic landscape is becoming ever more competitive and has the potential to force many businesses to become non-existent. The study recognises how Malaysia needs to identify its strongest market niche and use this to maximise its income in order to remain relevant in the global market.

The book has used research methods that enable the reader to understand the reasoning of how Malaysian companies build their company structure and how they discuss moving forward. For example, Dr Rasch, has examined case studies such as VADS Berhad, a fully integrated Connectivity/ICT/BPO Solutions Provider which represents the issues a typical Malaysian company faces.

As well as this, the book has analysed financial data, to present the importance of financial structure. He has also looked at a breakdown of the company’s marketing strategies, to understand how they sell themselves. The methods of data collection of real companies, give the reader real-life perspective of how companies run and how the industry can survive in such a diverse and important trade region.

To get yourself a copy of the book head over to Amazon

If you’d like to ask Dr Rasch anything, then get in touch.

October 12, 2016

Farewell, but not goodbye

Global engagement, international John Oliver

The Advances in Media Management (AiMM) research cluster recently said farewell, but not goodbye to Jorge Sanz-Llopis, a senior PhD student and Assistant Lecturer at University of Navarra (Spain).

Jorge has spent three months conducting research and refining his thesis as part of his International Doctorate programme. Dr John Oliver, who leads AiMM, said that “we were delighted to help Jorge develop his research and look forward to continuing our relationship with the University of Navarra”.

Jorge said of his experience “I had the opportunity to discuss various academic issues with AiMM colleagues and compare different perspectives of media business theory and practice. I want to thank BU for this amazing experience”.

October 5, 2016

3D Character Body Expression: A New Posing Approach

Featured academics, PG research, Public engagement, Research news djohn

We would like to invite you to the latest Creative Technology research seminar.

Speaker: Jose Fonseca

Jose is new member of staff teaching on the Games Technology/Games Programming courses, and this is an opportunity to learn about his PhD research.

Title: 3D Character Body Expression: A New Posing Approach

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 12^th October 2016

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

Abstract: Creation of 3D character animations is a complex and time-consuming process, and the character animator has to simultaneously consider a multitude of factors in order to create high quality expressive animation. Therefore, the main focus of this research is the process of animating the 3D character’s body expression and the animator’s practice, particularly the Posing phase of the animation process. Although posing is not one of the 12 Principles of Animation, it can be considered as the superposition of a subset of those principles that the animator has to keep in mind, while creating key-poses for any specific movement of an animated character. Hence, Posing is regarded as an intricate process, making it rather challenging for the animator to avoid involuntary neglect a large number of characteristics. This aspect of the 3D animation process is extremely important for the final creative result of the animation, in terms of character’s expression, because if the key-poses are not well defined, the computer may not be able to generate sufficiently expressive animation.

In this talk I present a new posing approach to 3D character animation, as a conceptual guideline which promotes the arrangement of the body parts into naturalistic patterns of expression. This is achieved by combining the concepts of Power Centre, Line of Action, Contrapposto and Serpentine Line in a systematic way, around a conceptual flow of force. These comprehensible high-level concepts make Posing and the animation process less complicated and more accessible. This allows animators of different levels to create more believable character body expressions in an easier and less time-consuming fashion.

We hope to see you there.

October 3, 2016

CIPPM’s AHRC-funded Project Copyrightuser.org publishes Episode II of the Award-Winning ‘Game is On!’ Film

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Featured academics, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Transfer, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research communication, Research news, Research themes, Student Engagement cippm

Copyrightuser.org – is a collaboration between the Law Department’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University (BU) and CREATe, University of Glasgow, has produced Episode II of the ‘Game is On!’ Series.

The project led by the Principal Investigator for Bournemouth University, Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Associate Professor in Law and Co-Director of CIPPM was initially funded by BU’s Fusion Investment Fund in 2012. Since 2013 the project has been successful in securing AHRC funding under the leadership of Dr. Mendis and in November 2015, won the AHRC Innovation in Film Award.

Game is On! by Copyrightuser.org is a s a series of short animated films that puts copyright and creativity under the magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes, providing a unique, research-led and open access resource for school-aged learners and other creative users of copyright. Drawing inspiration from well-known copyright and public domain work, as well as recent copyright litigation, these films provide a springboard for exploring key principles and ideas underpinning copyright law, creativity, and the limits of lawful appropriation and reuse.

Episode I of the ‘Game is On!’ Series titled The Adventure of the Girl with the Light Blue Hair won the AHRC Innovation in Film Award in November 2015 and was shortlisted for a BUFVC Learning on Screen Award in April 2016 and has been recently used by Into Film to develop the educational resource ‘Exploring copyright for clubs’.

The accompanying Case Files – an important feature of the ‘Game is On!’ series – for Episode I was authored by CIPPM’s Co-Director, Dr. Dinusha Mendis and CIPPM PhD Candidate, Ms. Hayleigh Bosher.

Episode II titled The Adventure of the Six Detectives is also accompanied by a number of Case Files, authored by CREATe researchers Megan Rae Blakely and Andrea Wallace and offer points of discussion around many of the most pressing copyright questions and concerns faced by screenwriters: http://copyrightuser.org/the-game-is-on/episode-2/

The short films are written, directed and produced by Professor Ronan Deazley (Queen’s University Belfast) and CREATe producer Bartolomeo Meletti (currently seconded to the British Film Institute) with Art Direction / Design by Marco Bagni, illustrations by Davide Bonazzi and music by SFX:Sarco.

October 3, 2016

BU Academic Presents AHRC Funded 3D Printing Research Through a Treasure Hunt Theme

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, conferences, Events, Featured academics, Knowledge Exchange, Post-award, Public engagement, REF Subjects, Research communication, Research news, Research themes cippm

Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Associate Professor in Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) presented a poster at the 107th Society of Legal Scholars Conference 2016 capturing the research carried out for the Going for Gold Project.

The AHRC-funded ‘Going for Gold’ project explores the intellectual property implications of 3D scanning, 3D printing and mass customisation of ancient and modern jewellery, with a particular focus on the cultural and business sectors. In so doing, the project considers the copyright, design, licensing and contractual issues faced by key stakeholders in these industries.

The poster (illustration below) showcases the research carried out in the cultural sector (ancient jewellery), in collaboration with museums and points out the challenges faced by the museums as well as the opportunities which lie ahead in embracing this technology.

The research is led by Dr. Mendis in collaboration with Museotechniki Ltd and Uformia Ltd and the research team will produce Practice Guidelines on the adoption of 3D scanning, 3D printing and mass customisation within the cultural and business sectors.

This project builds on the research carried out for the UK Intellectual Property Office Commissioned Project on the IP implications of 3D Printing which was completed in 2015, leading to the publication of three reports.

September 29, 2016

New inter-interdisciplinary media & health paper

BU research, Global engagement, international, open access, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

The week saw the publication of multi-disciplinary paper ‘Media, Health & Health Promotion in Nepal’, co-written by Faculty of Media & Communication academic Dr. Ann Luce, Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen and Bournemouth University (BU) Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (who is based at Liverpool John Moores University) [1]. The paper appeared in the latest issue of the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, an Open Access journal which is part of the Journals Online Project.

The paper paper ‘Media, Health & Health Promotion in Nepal’ offers insight into the media and health promotion in Nepal as well as advice to health promoters, health policy-makers and practitioners about collaborating with the media to get health messsage out to people across the country. The paper is freely available online, which was an important feature in our decision to publish in the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences as this reduced the cost barrier for underpaid health workers and underfunded project to accessing information. We have also written a short piece about the topic (and the paper) on the site: Media & Midwifery

BU has a long history of conducting health research in Nepal [see for example 2-9] and it has a growing number of publications in the inter-disciplianry field where health and media overlap [10-18].

References:

van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Luce, A., Hundley, V. (2016) Media, Health and Health Promotion in Nepal, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 2(1): 70-75. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/15799/12744
Milne, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Ireland, J. (2015) Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 15:142 biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/15/142
Acharya, J., van Teijlingen E., Murphy, J., Hind, M. (2015) Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal, Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare 1(2): 97-118. http://dspace.chitkara.edu.in/jspui/bitstream/1/560/1/12007_JMRH_Acharya.pdf
Subedi, Y.P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2016) Where is Nepal in the Demographic Transition within the wider context of the Nutrition Transition? Open Journal of Social Sciences 4: 155-166. http://file.scirp.org/pdf/JSS_2016052310320947.pdf
Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. (2016) Birthing centres in Nepal: Recent developments, obstacles and opportunities, Journal of Asian Midwives 3(1): 18-30. http://ecommons.aku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=jam
Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Angell, C., Simkhada, P. (2016) Dirty and 40 days in the wilderness: Eliciting childbirth and postnatal cultural practices and beliefs in Nepal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 147 https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0938-4
Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Belizán, J.M., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sicuri, E. (2016) Measuring What Works: An impact evaluation of women’s groups on maternal health uptake in rural Nepal, PLOS One 11(5): e0155144 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0155144
Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen E., Simkhada, P., Porter, AM, Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal, International Journal of Social Economics 41(8): 705-713.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, RS, Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14. nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375
Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2012) Media use for Health Promotion: Communicating Childhood Immunisation Messages to Parents. Journal of Health Promotion 4(1): 1-9.
Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2013) Childhood Immunisation in Nepal: Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour & implications for Health Policy. Health Science Journal 7(4):370-383
Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health. In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.
Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2012) Media use for Health Promotion: Communicating Childhood Immunisation Messages to Parents. Journal of Health Promotion 4(1): 1-9.
Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2013) Childhood Immunisation in Nepal: Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour & implications for Health Policy. Health Science Journal 7(4):370-383
Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health. In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.
Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0827-x
Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A. and van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.

September 22, 2016

Creative Europe Showcase conference – Thursday, 27 October, 2016

EU, Funding opportunities, Global engagement, Info Days Emily Cieciura

The Creative Europe Showcase Conference is a flagship event organised by the European Commission to highlight the results and achievements of funded projects. it will be held at Bozar, Brussels, Belgium

The event will gather policymakers and stakeholders from the sector. It aims to demonstrate the impact of Creative Europe-funded projects both on the ground and at the European level.

The conference will address the priorities of the Creative Europe programme as well as the forthcoming 2018 – European Year of Cultural Heritage.

Creative Europe is the EU programme supporting cultural and creative sectors. These sectors embody Europe’s immensely rich and diverse heritage, and contribute to the development of our societies. Creative Europe will soon be celebrating its 3rd year of activity.

Sessions:

The conference will consist of 1 full day of presentations and debates. 4 moderated panels will focus on the following topics:

Capacity building
Audience development
Intercultural dialogue and social inclusion
Cultural heritage

The panels will be made up of project organisers and participants. Each panel debate will be followed by a question and answer session.

Register:

Registrations will open in mid-September. See more information on the website or follow on twitter – @europe_creative

September 20, 2016

Reading Communities: Past and Present – AHRC conference, Senate House, London

BU research, conferences bthomas

Simon Frost and I recently took part in this event organised by an AHRC project based at The Open University which follows on from previous research leading to the establishment of The Reading Experience Database (RED). The event brought together book historians, literary scholars and researchers working on the borders between literature and media and cultural studies to explore a variety of examples of reading communities from Quaker reading groups and records of readers in the borrowing records of national libraries, to online book clubs and LARPs (Live Action Role Playing events).

This was a good opportunity for us to promote the work of the BU based Digital Reading Network, and CsJCC, based in the Faculty of Media and Communication. Simon’s paper reported on the findings of his BU Fusion funded project looking at contemporary book retailing, which was conducted in collaboration with the university bookseller John Smith’s. Simon’s paper provided a fascinating comparison of the retail landscape using past and present photographs of the same Southampton street where Gilbert’s bookshop is based. He boldly proposed replacing the term literary work with ‘Net Work’ to capture the idea of the work as an event which consists of people, places and bibliographic objects. The proposal plays into wider global HE strategies to study English for its social impact.

My paper provided a comparison of two online reading communities. The first, a Jane Austen community called The Republic of Pemberley, brings together devotees of the writer who engage in scheduled Group Reads of her work, using the website to report back and share their reading with other community members. I also discussed how readers use social media platforms such as Twitter to share their reading, for example using the hashtag #mytolstory as they embarked on reading Tolstoy’s epic novel inspired by the recent BBC adaptation. My paper drew on an article Julia Round and I recently published in the journal Language and Literature on online moderators, which was one of the outputs from our AHRC funded projects, Researching Readers Online and the Digital Reading Network.

The day provided an excellent opportunity for us to expand our networks, and establish new contacts. In particular, we were very excited to connect with researchers from the University of Malmo in Sweden whose research and philosophy for teaching English in a media context is closely aligned to our work here at BU.

September 20, 2016

BU at ATLAS annual conference

BU Challenges, BU research, conferences, Events, Research communication, Research news lmarques

BU had a strong presence at the ATLAS (Association for Tourism and Leisure Education and Research) annual conference which took place in the historic town of Canterbury, between 13-16 September, on “Tourism, Lifestyles and Locations”.

BU has been a member of the ATLAS network for many years and Dr Lenia Marques was one of the founders of the Special Interest Group on Events back in 2010. The group is very active and has several ongoing projects and collaborations amongst its members.

Several BU academics presented and discussed their research in Canterbury. Dr Hanaa Osman and Dr Lorraine Brown presented a piece of research which touches upon the status of women in tourism and which provoked debate on intercultural issues. Dr Anya Chapman presented her work on piers, which are so important for UK coastal destinations, such as Bournemouth. Dr Jaeyeon Choe presented her research on tourism and quality of life in Macao and we should congratulate her on her first attendance as the ATLAS Asia representative on the board.

Dr Lenia Marques presented her research on events and communities and practice among expats in a panel organised together with the Department of Events and Leisure and the Department of Tourism and Hospitality dedicated to “Lifestyle and communities: sharing in the digital era”. The panel, put together by Dr. Lenia Marques, Juliette Hecquet and Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, aimed at discussing new trends in the fields of leisure and tourism connected to lifestyle and the sharing economy.

Overall, the discussions at the conference were animated and friendly, raising some of the big issues of our time. Collaborations, projects and further developments will surely continue in the run-up to the next ATLAS annual conference to be held in Viana do Castelo, Portugal (12-16 September 2017) under the theme “Destinations past, present and future”.

September 19, 2016

Horizon 2020 Funding for virtual factory research at BU

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, EU, international Paul de Vrieze

Uber, Amazon, AirBnB, Netflix… The Internet has had many impacts to the economy. Not only to the consumer market, but widely across the service sector. There is a large amount of integration and automation to enable things like instant order confirmations. Work in these aspects of business processes is quite well established in the service sector.
Manufacturing is a key part of the economy. To remain competitive or become even more so, automation that supports innovation is also essential for the manufacturing sector. BU will be leading, under direction of Drs L. Xu and P. de Vrieze, an international consortium on a project receiving €1.2 mln in funding to address these challenges.

Advanced ICT supported manufacturing is currently gaining a lot of traction with initiatives such as Industrie 4.0 in Germany, Factory of the Future in Italy and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult the UK. Part of this development is advanced coordination of manufacturing allowing for increased flexibility and reduced costs. A virtual factory ensures exchange of data between smart machines, systems, software and design within the manufacturing chain. Manufacturing processes become more simple through plug-and-play techniques.

To enable this, the “vF Interoperation suppoRting buSiness innovaTion” (FIRST) project provides new technology to describe manufacturing assets and to compose and integrate existing services into collaborative virtual manufacturing processes. The project will see collaboration between internationally recognised academics and industry in Europe and China. As such the consortium will take advantage of it various backgrounds to address the issue from a variety of perspectives.

The FIRST consortium is a competitive consortium with large know-how and expertise in complex software systems and manufacturing automation. The research base of the academic partners will be used as foundation for innovations to contribute to virtual interoperation of smart manufacturing in the area of Factory of the Future/Manufacturing 2.0 to improve the competiveness of our industrial partners and sustainability of the European manufacturing sector. Within this research programme, 6 industrial researcher will get the opportunity to gather knowledge in academia while 22 academic researchers will absorb knowledge in industry. The consortium will provide new knowledge for GK, an enterprise software vendor and KM, a manufacturing software vendor, inform newer training in the area of big data, cloud computing to both GK and KM, and promote innovation, while the academic partners will translate their research to facilitate better understanding virtual factories.

September 13, 2016

TV, Film and Photoshoot Networking Event

Business Engagement, Events, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team jcodling

When: Wednesday 21 September 2016

Time: 6.00pm – 9.00pm

Where: Aruba Beach Restaurant – Pier Approach, Bournemouth, BH2 5AA

Book your tickets here.

About:

Dorset Film Office aims to support, develop and build a strong creative community. Don’t miss out on ethe Dorset Film Office launch.

Need to find out about more opportunities?
Want to find more work in your local area?
Looking to increase lead generation?
Looking to raise brand awareness?
Looking to grow your network and forge new relationships?
Want to create strategic alliances?

Click here fore more information or phone 01202 980000

Book your free ticket to secure your place: Dorset Film Office Launch

September 9, 2016

Public Health England Physical Activity Tool

BU research, Research communication Lisa Andrews

Public Health England has launched a Physical Activity Tool which brings together data at the local level for the whole of England on physical activity, including walking and cycling, as well as data on related risk factors and conditions such as obesity and diabetes. The tool also presents trend data and enables easy comparison of local authority data, allowing users to compare regional neighbours and local authorities with similar characteristics. The tool aims to help promote physical activity, develop understanding, and support benchmarking, commissioning and service improvement.

The data is grouped into three domains:

Key indicators – a summary overview of physical activity including a number of key outcomes from the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF).
Related conditions – such as cancers, diabetes, obesity, hypertension and depression. Regular physical activity can reduce the risk of these.
Supporting information – population demographics, life expectancy and deprivation.

In addition PHE has also published a data spreadsheet: Physical activity levels among adults in England 2015, available on the PHE Obesity website. It presents physical activity measures (inactive, low activity, some activity and active) and key demographics from the Active People Survey at national, regional, upper and lower tier local authority and County Sports Partnership level.

September 5, 2016

How can augmented reality and virtual reality transform the retail journey?

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team jcodling

Startups, innovative retailers and experts with an understanding of the retail landscape to get involved with the Visa Retail Pit Stop This takes place on 6 – 7 October.

Attendees will get the opportunity to investigate how virtual reality and augmented reality, ambient data capture, mobile and sensor technologies can improve the customer experience. Register your interest before 13 September.

Submit your interest for the Visa Retail Pit Stop

September 5, 2016

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

BU research, conferences, Fusion, Global engagement, Impact, international, Research news, 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 31, 2016

Everything has to be excellent!

Fusion Investment Fund, Research news John Oliver

In 2015, I was awarded a prestigious Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford- Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ). The next question was how do I fund such an initiative? Having looked at the various Fusion Investment Fund strands, the Santander Scheme appeared to be the most appropriate since it provides BU staff with travel and subsistence funds to support individual staff mobility and networking in the development of research, education and or professional practice.

During the fellowship period I conducted British Academy/Leverhulme funded research into the successful digital transformations of media firms. This work integrated three primary areas: business models, organisational strategy and dynamic capabilities in a longitudinal analysis (1995-2015).

Being able to conduct this research at one of the world’s greatest institutions has been an incredible experience. Whilst I have undertaken small project work with the RISJ over the past few years, there was a world of difference in living and working at the University. Academic work at the University of Oxford is a ‘lifestyle’ and one based on the pursuit of academic excellence. The work doesn’t stop at 5pm as there are numerous talks and lectures by distinguished people every night of the week!

The RISJ is a part of Green Templeton College which is a postgraduate college whose provision centres on health and management disciplines. At first, one might think that this is a strange combination, but their researchers were able to help with me some innovative work that I’m currently doing with the Boston Consulting Group in New York.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of my stay was the university’s focus on conducting research that aims to produce both conceptual and instrumental impact (vanity based research is clearly not on their radar). There is also a real ‘simplicity’ about the University of Oxford. You can see it everywhere, from the clean toilets, the pristine gardens, the student dress codes and the quality of their research. That ‘simplicity’ can be summed by saying that “everything they do has to be excellent!”

Dr John Oliver

Associate Professor of Media Management

Faculty of Media & Communication

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