Category / Technology & Design

BU featured by Kidney Research Charity

innovation, Research news

Bournemouth’s biomedical research features in this season’s Kidney Research UK ‘Update’ magazine (page 13). We share  this issue with Lauren Laverne (sort of)!

KRUK is one of Britain’s leading kidney research charities and has awarded us an Innovation Award to identify genes that underpin the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in diabetes. The innovative part of the research is that it uses the fruit fly Drosophila – a novel tool in the research armoury that has helped us understand the genetic basis of human development and behaviour as well as cardiovascular disease. Research at Bournemouth will use unique genetic tools to establish how insulin signalling maintains the expression of evolutionarily conserved genes that regulate kidney function in both flies and humans. This simple model organism has enormous power to help us identify new pathways of clinical significance to CKD – a condition that affects and kills thousands of people every year in the UK.

If you are keen to learn more about the research – email me at phartley@bournemouth.ac.uk

Smartphone device for diabetic tele-monitoring nominated for three awards

BU research

A smartphone device for monitoring sensation loss in patients with diabetes has been nominated for three awards at the Institute of Engineering and Technology Innovation Awards. The device, developed by Bournemouth University, the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch NHS Foundation Trust and Poole Hospital Trust enables patients to self-monitor their symptoms and wirelessly transmit their results to their consultants.

Over time, people with diabetes can develop nerve damage, caused by prolonged exposure to high blood glucose levels. Sensation loss needs to be monitored by medical professionals to try and limit further damage. The severity of the nerve damage will dictate the frequency of hospital visits, but it can be as often as monthly which is quite time intensive for both patient and consultant.

The device, created by Dr Venky Dubey and his Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Neil Vaughan, involved the development of a smartphone app and a 3D probe fitted to the phone. The 3D probe is designed to vibrate, according to the intensity set by the app, which helps to analyse the levels of sensation loss in a patient. This data, along with basic details such as weight and height, are recorded by the app and can be transmitted to a GP or consultant who can monitor the need for further treatment or check-ups. As well as being a considerable time saver for both patients and medical professionals, the device also helps to give patients more control over their care.

Commenting on the nomination, Dr Dubey said, “I’m very pleased that our device has been nominated for three awards as it recognises the hard work that went into the project and its potential to make a difference to patient care. Looking to the future, we hope to run clinical trials to test the device and gain patient feedback so that we are able to improve it further before its commercial potential is realised.”

The smartphone app and 3D probe have been nominated for three awards at the Institute of Engineering and Technology Innovation Awards. The categories the team have been nominated for are communication, healthcare technologies and measurement in action. The awards ceremony will be held on 18th November in London.

Symposium on Interagency in Technologically-Mediated Performance

Fusion Investment Fund, Uncategorized

29-30 January 2016

Thanks to Fusion Investment funding I will be co-running with Dr Paul Stapleton (QUB) a symposium exploring Interagency in Technologically-Mediated Performance. Despite a growing community of people creating digital musical instruments and a growing associated academic field, there has been little recognition within these communities of the associated approaches to a Philosophy of Technology that examines human-technology interactions from a variety of social, political and philosophical perspectives.

This event will bring together researchers and industry representatives from the fields of Philosophy of Technology and Digital Musical Instrument (DMI) design to establish an overview of best practice of new musical instrument creation and set out a road map for future research in this area. The symposium will feature talks by five keynote speakers that are all internationally recognised experts in their fields. Workshop and discussion will form a large part of the symposium in order to have time to fully establish an overview of best practice and to define the future research agenda.

The symposium will run 29th and 30th of January 2016. There will soon be a call for attendance, places will be limited so sign up quick if you are interested. There will also be a short concert on Friday 29th Jan from 17:30- 18:30 attendance for this is open to everybody.

Tom Davis

BU very well represented in this year’s ERCS Festival!

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, Publishing, Uncategorized

escrThe ESRC website lists its Festival events for 2015 and amongst the interetsing events is a record number of BU events! The full list can be found on the ESRC webpages, click here!

Pathways to impact: part deux!

7 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

This event aims to engage participants who attended a previous one-day ESRC Festival of Science event which took place in 2012 entitled, “Pathways to Impact: ageing, diversity, connectivity and community”.

Creatively mapping the coast

9 November 2015 | Bournemouth| Event

Festival of Social Science

Children will have the chance to take part in a creative mapping exercise using coastal artefacts and pictures to create their own sensory and emotional maps of the topic, starting with the question of ‘how does it make me feel to be here?’

Safeguarding vulnerable adults from financial scamming

10 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

Older people are increasingly at risk of falling victim to financial scams that target vulnerable people, including mass marketing fraud via post, telephone or email and doorstep fraud.

This event will give practitioners, agencies and members of the public, the opportunity to come together to learn more about the threats posed.

Church as place: ethnography

11 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

This event asked the question:

  • what meanings of place and space are constructed by secular or non-specifically religious and religious visiting of church buildings?

Creativity and dementia: making a connection

11 November 2015 | Poole | Event

Festival of Social Science

Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) will bring dementia awareness to life through running creative activities including a performance from the BUDI Orchestra – made up of people affected by dementia and musicians – poetry and technology such as IPads and Nintendo Wii.

Child deaths and poverty: disadvantaged British children!

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

Are British children disadvantaged compared to children in other Western countries? An analysis of data from global sources compares the standards of mortality, poverty and health funding for children and adults in Britain vs. those in 20 other Western countries.

Copyright reform: the implications one year on

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

One year ago, in October 2014, the UK Government introduced major changes to the Copyright Law with the aim of promoting innovation and creativity. These included a range of exceptions and limitations benefiting users as well as educational and cultural institutions.

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 1

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Fused all ways: transdisciplinary insider research

12 November 2015 | Poole | Event

Festival of Social Science

A group of researchers from Bournemouth University are researching the lived experience of students entering higher education from and in ‘non traditional’ contexts. By bringing together research, educational practice and students as research co-creators, a unique lens is created through which to observe the question.

Increasing fruit and vegetable intakes: Why? How? – Event 3

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

The 5-a-day campaign went global after a recommendation from the World Health Organisation that we should all be eating a least 400g of fruit and vegetables per day. Variations on this message are repeated in countries all across the world. But does the message cause more confusion than good?

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 2

13 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 3

14 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

BU and Precision Acoustics work together on high-impact NDT software programme

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Business Engagement, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, Research news

Aircraft engines

It is estimated that some 30% of airline engines worldwide are analysed using PA’s current-generation technologies to detect fan blade defects

A team from the Faculty of Science and Technology, led Professor Siamak Noroozi and Dr Richard Gunstone, have successfully obtained a Grant Offer Letter (GOL) for a high-impact KTP working with Precision Acoustics Limited (Dorset).

In this blog post we discuss some of the background to this KTP, and objectives.

Precision Acoustics (PA) manufactures acoustic measurement products for the medical and Non Destructive Testing (NDT) industries and is well established as a major supplier of equipment for the (MHz) ultrasound markets world-wide. PA has a close working relationship with the National Physical Laboratory, London, and academic establishments across the UK to further R&D.

The company’s core products are acoustics measuring devices. The company already has a significant share of the world market in this area, and is now embarking on innovative industrial NDT systems working on a number of precursor projects including with Rolls Royce. The longer term objective can only be achieved if PA introduces a software capability able to devise, maintain and develop a development process that has the expected attributes of resilience, performance and integrity, supporting product deployment. This is the principal focus for the KTP, capitalising on the capability in systems design, software, and assurance within BU.

The diagnostic systems work at PA are being developed and used in numerous applications, including malaria detection. It is estimated that some 30% of commercial airliners globally use the technologies developed by PAL for analysing defects in engine fan blades, for example. Due to the inherent nature of NDT systems and the potential application areas, these application areas are likely to have societal relevance and high-impact.

A great deal of effort has been spent in designing the project to be flexible and comprehensive. This has been made possible by the capable contribution of Norman Stock, the Faculty Business Relations Officer. He has worked closely with the academic staff and also the company to present a suitable proposal to Innovate UK, who are part-funding the collaboration.

In terms of project design, the KTP incorporates the new “KTP laydown” of an integrated MRes opportunity for the Associate, combined with expectations of research activity leading to co-authored papers. This provides a route for knowledge transfer of expertise from the university to the company, in a way that delivers advantages for all stakeholders.

We look forward to providing further reports on our collaboration with PA as time progresses.

In terms of advice for others considering KTP funding, Richard highlights a few relevant points:

“Engage early with the Business Relations Officer for your Faculty. Make sure deadlines are adhered to, including submission windows with Innovate UK. Finally, clarify the project plan as early as possible, including what is achievable in the project timescale – scoping is key”

Creative, Digital, Design – October briefing now live !

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

 

theme - creative-digital

This is a monthly publication that provides a digest of useful information about funding, financing, support and events to assist creative, digital and design businesses with their innovation and growth strategies.

You can sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox or alternatively follow the Knowledge Transfer Network group on social media.

This is a great way to get a quick heads up on what is happening in these sectors with links to further information.

Click here for more information.

 

 

Real-time Physics for Games

BU research, Featured academics

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

Speaker: Dr Wen Tang

 

Title:   Real-time Physics for Gamescompare-b

 

Time: 1:00PM-2:00PM

Date: Wednesday 14th October 2015

Room: KG03 LT, Kimmeridge House, Talbot Campus

 

 

Abstract: “Without accurate physics simulation, even the most beautiful game feels static and lifeless”- PhysX.

Developing fundamental computational algorithms and software pipelines that can truly unleash the power of physics simulation in computer games has been a major research activity in computer graphics.

This talk will present soft body simulation algorithms and a scalable software framework that are capable of handling simulation realism and computational efficiency to satisfy unpredictable user interactions and fast responses in computer games. Soft bodies such as cloth and solid deformable objects offer special visual effects in film, computer games, virtual reality and medicine. These objects are not only computationally expensive to simulate due to a wide range of material properties, but are also difficult to design and to control the simulation effects. This talk will also describe the latest research direction in how to develop institutive tools by deriving mathematic expressions using simple curves. Designers can then edit physics via direct modifications of curve profiles since they represent underpinning physical behaviour of the soft bodies.

 

We hope to see you there.

Team BU develop game based app in just 24 hours

innovation, PG research

photoWell done Team BU (Chi Zhang, Erika Borkoles, Sarah Collard, Gary Head, Barry Squires and Clare Farrance) for taking part in the Sport England hackathon* last weekend. We had just 24 hours to develop our concept and build a prototype app to help 18-25 year olds become more physically active.

We developed a location based game app called ‘Nudge’ and incorporated social gamification strategies to encourage sustained physical activity adherence. We also sought strategies to help those who are already active in this age group encourage their inactive peers to participate.

The hackathon was a great experience and an excellent opportunity to collaborate across BU faculties and services.

A special mention needs to go to Chi who programmed through the night to make sure we had a working prototype. Hiring an experienced flutter developer can save you a lot of time and money and enable developers to solve complex problems at the last minute.

The winning team will be announced at the Sports Technology Awards in April 2016 and awarded a bursary of £10,000 to help them build the app.

Well done Team BU and fingers crossed for next April!

 

* A hackathon is a portmanteau of the words “hack” and “marathon”, where “hack” is used in the sense of exploratory programming.

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

Software verification

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition has just launched with £580,000 funding available.

Innovate UK and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) are to invest up to £580,000 in technical feasibility studies to stimulate innovation throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) while focusing on the verification and validation* (V&V) of two classes of complex systems: cyber physical systems (CPS) and systems with emergent behaviours.

This competition encourages businesses to develop appropriate ‘links’ between the behaviour of a system in the physical world and the software implementing its planned interactions. It also seeks to stimulate development of new engineering methods for systems in which a machine – rather than a human user or operator – drives the decision- making process. Such systems can be trained to recognise complex patterns and to make intelligent decisions based on existing data. They are starting to be used in sectors such as automated and autonomous vehicles, and robotics and autonomous systems (RAS). Our aim is to ensure that small and micro businesses in the UK further develop their early capabilities in this area.

Projects are open to companies of any size, but must be led by a small or micro company, working in collaboration with one or more business or research partners.

View all details.

Go Team BU in Sports England Hackathon!

BU Challenges

Sport england

 

Ever heard of a hackathon? Nope, neither had I until a few weeks ago. Wikipedia reliably informs me that a hackathon is a “portmanteau of the words “hack” and “marathon”, where “hack” is used in the sense of exploratory programming”.

The challenge is to create an app that facilitates social change through sport at the Sport England Sport Technology Awards Hackathon. It will take place over 25 hours on 2-3 October 2015 during which time teams will have just 24 hours to develop their concept that will help a particular demographic group become more physically active.

The winning team will be awarded a bursary of £10,000 to help them build the app.

Our Team BU will be a collaborative effort across BU departments and services. We have five on our team so far:

  • Erika Borkoles, Sport and Exercise Psychologist from the Department of Sport and Physical Activity
  • Barry Squires, the Business and Partnerships Manager from SportBU
  • Chi Zhang a Postgraduate Researcher from Faculty of Science and Technology
  • Sarah Collard, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from Faculty of Health and Social SciencesTechnology awards sport
  • Clare Farrance, Postgraduate Researcher from Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Chi will be our star programmer with the rest of us supporting the conceptual and design elements.

We still have space for one more on our team. We’re particularly keen to find another programmer or anyone with skills in graphics design. Staff or students are welcome. If you’re interested please get in touch with Clare at: cfarrance@bournemouth.ac.uk

Wish us luck next week!

Funding available to support R&D – science, engineering and technology

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

Technology in the hands
SMART is a grant scheme which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge.
The scheme supports SMEs carrying out R&D which offers potentially significant rewards and that could stimulate UK economic growth.
Three types of grant are available:
  • Proof of market
  • Proof of concept
  • Development of prototype.
Any UK SME undertaking research and development may apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis for assessment by independent experts.

Hackathon Challenge – It’s not too late!

Technology awards sport

I’m still trying to get a team together for the UK’s first sport hackathon. The challenge is to create an app that facilitates social change through sport at the Sport England Sport Technology Awards Hackathon. It will take place over 25 hours on 2-3 October 2015 (3pm start on the Friday) during which time teams will have just 24 hours to develop their concept that will help a particular demographic group become more physically active.

The winning team will be awarded a bursary of £10,000 to help them build the app.

If you’re interested can you please get in touch with me, Clare at: cfarrance@bournemouth.ac.uk

Team registration closes on 7th September. Would be great to have a BU team there!

More details can be found at:

http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/news/06-08-2015/uk%E2%80%99s-first-sports-hackathon-launches