Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Thanks to the students, Alderney Hospital also expects to see a reduction in its food wastage figures which could lead to significant savings.
Click here to find out more about how the BU students carried out this transformation.
Mike Smith, Geograph.
Are you interested in conducting your research project in the NHS? Have you got plans to do so in the future? Or, are you simply interested in the prospect of doing this at some point during your academic or professional career?
If you are then there are additional requirements in order to make this a reality…however, don’t worry, because the R&KEO office can assist you in achieving these, helping to streamline the process.
Get in touch with researchethics@bournemouth.ac.uk with any queries you may have.
Please note that BU is required to act as the Sponsor for clinical studies conducted in the NHS, by its students or staff members. The Sponsor is defined as ‘the person or body who takes on ultimate responsibility for the initiation, management and financing (or arranging the financing) of a clinical research study.’
Get in touch with researchethics@bournemouth.ac.uk as soon as feasible if you think that your study will require BU to act as Sponsor.
Congratulations to FHSS students Folashade Alloh and Igoche Onche who found out today that their ‘Mental health in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC): Going beyond the need for funding’ has been accepted for publication by the editors of Health Prospect. The paper is co-authored by FHSS staff Dr Pramod Regmi, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Steven Trenoweth. Health Prospect is an Open Access journal.
More than 70% of the global mental health burden occurs in many low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). The paper discusses mental health issues in LMIC under different themes such as abuse and mental illness, cultural influence on mental health, need for dignity in care, meeting financial and workforce gaps and the need for national health policy for mental health sector. The paper highlights that mental health education and health care services in most LMIC is poorly resourced; however, there is an urgent need to address issues beyond funding that contribute to poor mental health. In order to meet the increasing challenge of mental health illness in LMIC, there is a need for effort to address cultural and professional practices that contribute to poor mental health among individuals. The authors argue that mental health should be integrated into primary health care in LMIC. Creating awareness on impact of some cultural attitudes/practices will encourage better uptake of mental health services and increase the ease of discussing mental health issues in these countries which will contribute to reducing stigma faced by mental health patients.
Congratulations to FHSS PhD students Preeti Mahato and Elizabeth Waithaka, FHSS academics Drs. Catherine Angell and Pramod Regmi and BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (Based at Liverpool John Moores University) on the publication of their latest paper: ‘ Health Promotion opportunities for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nepal’ [1]. The paper appeared in Health Prospect: Journal of Public Health.
Mahato, P.K., Regmi, P.R., Waithaka, E., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. . Health Promotion opportunities for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nepal. Health Prospect, 16 (2): pp. 13-17, May. 2018.
Available at: <https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/19903/16389>. Date accessed: 14 May. 2018. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v16i2.19903.
The final BU Loudspeaker Orchestra concert of this academic year took place in the Student Hall, Talbot Campus on Wednesday 2nd May 2018. This concert featured a range of electroacoustic music including work from undergraduate students, postgraduate researchers and staff at BU. The concert was a great opportunity for students, researchers and staff to collaborate on and co-create a live music event, and to present their music in a professional context.
Students from the BSc Music and Sound Production Technology course (Creative Technology) contributed a range of high-quality compositions. Many of these pieces were composed from field recordings; some from Bournemouth and Poole, some from London, and others from locations as far afield as Pune, India. The students also rigged the loudspeaker system, and then took part in a diffusion workshop (co-delivered by Ambrose Seddon and Panos Amelides, Creative Technology), learning and rehearsing some fundamental concepts for live multi-channel sound spatialisation in preparation for the concert. The programme also featured music from FMC PGR composer Antonino Chiaramonte and BU lecturer and composer Ambrose Seddon.
The sun setting over the Talbot campus buildings made for a fitting backdrop to the concert. Thanks to all who attended!
Surviving the advertising apocalypse with RAISA (Robotics, Artifical Intelligence, Service Automation)
This weekly series features photo entries taken by our academics, students and professional staff for our annual Research Photography Competition, which gives a glimpse into some of the fantastic research undertaken across the BU community.
A 2016 World Economic Forum report has predicted that more than five million jobs will be lost to automation and robots by 2020. This causes unease for people within marketing and creative firms who are already struggling to survive an ‘advertising apocalypse’ due to digital transformation of business, consumption and communication. This project founds that to avoid disruption and enable creative agencies focus on doing what they are great at – creative idea generation – relationship resources are critical to RAISA complex ecosystems where companies like Microsoft become an important partner for creative agencies for successful deployment of RAISA.
Elizabeth Falkowska is a final year undergraduate student in BA (Hons) Business Studies with Marketing. For more information about this research, please contact Dr Elvira Bolat.
Rebecca Weston, BU student midwife, on the publication of her article: ‘When all you want to do is run out of the room…‘ Rebecca published this reflective piece in May issue of the journal The Practising Midwife. She wrote it shortly after having been involved in “a traumatic, sudden and heart-breaking event in practice”. Reflection is certainly beneficial in experiential learning, developing critical thinking and integrating midwifery theory and practice.
It is my pleasure to wrote this BU Research Blog to congratulate Rebecca today on the International day of the Midwife.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
This week saw the pre-publication of ‘Qualitative evaluation of mental health training of auxiliary nurse midwives in rural Nepal’ in the international journal Nurse Education Today (published by Elsevier). The paper is a report of an evaluation of a THET-funded projectwhich run from 2015 to 2017. Bournemouth University led a team comprising Liverpool John Moores University and Tribhuvan University (the oldest university in Nepal). These three universities worked together on a training project of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nawalparasi focusing on key aspects of mental health and mental health promotion. The project was funded under the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS) which is managed by a London-based organisation called THET (Tropical Health & Education Trust).
Mental illness is increasingly recognized as a global health problem. However, in many countries, including Nepal, it is difficult to talk about mental health problems due to the stigma associated with it. Hence a training programme was developed to train auxiliary nurse midwives, who otherwise are not trained in mental health as part of their pre-registration training in rural Nepal, on issues related to maternal mental health. After the training programme a selection of auxiliary nurse midwives were interviewed to establish their views on the training, its usefulness and ways to improve it.
Preeti Mahato is a PhD student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) who undertook an in-depth evaluation of our project as part of her PhD research. This qualitative study has three themes emerging: (1) issues related to training; (2) societal attitudes; and (3) support for women. The ‘training’ theme describes the benefits and limitations of training sessions. ‘Societal attitudes’ describes society’s attitude towards mental health which is largely negative. ‘Support’ describes the positive behaviour and attitude towards pregnant women and new mothers.
The paper concludes that there is a need for continued training for auxiliary nurse midwives who are based in the community. This gives them the opportunity to reach the whole community group and potentially have influence over reduction of stigma; offer support and diagnosis of mental ill-health. There is still stigma around giving birth to a female child which can lead to mental health problems. It is imperative to increase awareness and educate the general public regarding mental health illnesses especially involving family members of those who are affected.
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Today on the second day of the 2018 BNAC (Britain-Nepal Academic Council) conference there was a very good representation of Bournemouth University (BU) research at Durham University. BU’s Professor Michael Wilmore presented his paper: Construction of ‘Community’ in Research on Nepalese Commons. In the morning FHSS’s PhD student Jib Acharya had an oral presentation on Impact of Healthy Snacks on Children’s Health: An Overview of a Pilot Study.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen presented joint work between BU, Liverpool John Moors University (LJMU) and the University of Oxford on the topic Skills transfer, employability & entrepreneurship of returnee labour migrants in Nepal. Bournemouth University was involved in this project through Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Nirmal Aryal and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
The final talk of the day (and of the conference) was by Prof. Padam Simkhada from LJMU. Prof. Simkhada is also Visiting Professor at the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health at Bournemouth University. He was presenting Debate on Educational Reform in Nepal: Outcomes of the International Conference on Quality of Higher Education in Federal Nepal on behalf of LJMU, Bournemouth University and Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Nepal. Earlier this year BU signed a Memorandum of Agreement with MMIHS in Kathmandu.
The second day of the conference was open by Professor Graeme Close & Mr Michael Naylor with a lecture on “nutritional strategies for competition and performance.”
Follow up with the oral presentations and free communications. I found particular interest in the research of Mr Chynkiamis on the effect of VitaBREATHE on exercise tolerance in COPD patients and in the feasibility study of Miss Thomas on the effect of 10 weeks postural stability exercise on balance in elderly care homes residents. I am glad that I had the chance to discuss with Miss Thomas part of the outcomes and the methods she used for my undergoing research on falls prevention.
Later in the afternoon, I had the opportunity to talk more about inspiratory muscle training (IMT) with Mr Hopkins and Mr Gibb who are looking at the effect of IMT on time trial performance in trained cyclists.
After, the workshop “psychological challenges for physical activity uptake” by Dr Melissa Fothergill intrigued me as I believe it is a crucial matter of discussion, especially if working with frail populations.
The final motivational lecture titled “creating your future” by Dr Steve Ingham closed the 2018 BASES student conference with tips and advice on how to progress in the sport science carriers.
Concluding, it was a great experience as not only I had the chance to improve my network and meet peers with a similar background as mine but most important because in these two days I had increased my awareness and motivations.
A special thanks go to my supervisors Professor Alison McConnell, Dr James Gavin and Professor Tom Wainwright who pointed me at this event.
The conference is now over, and by the time you read this post, I will be already on my way back to Bournemouth.
Thank you for reading,
Francesco.
Every year the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) organise the student conference, as an opportunity to discuss and exchange views on contemporary issues in sport and exercise science (including clinical exercise, biomechanics, performance, physiology and psychology).
This year the venue is Northumbria University, and the programme includes international speakers from the applied and research worlds.
The conference started with the lecture “not all that can be counted counts – why we should listen to Einstein?” by Mrs Esme Matthew & Miss Laura Needham, who brought they experience as members of English Institute of Sport (EIS) and their work with the UK Olympic team.
It was particularly inspiring to see how the lab works moved into the field of applied science and the relationship that bound researchers and athletes.
Next, after the usual coffè break, it was the time of free communications and oral presentation, where I had the opportunity to attend to the following:
Mr Dray, and his work on the effect of high-intensity interval training on obese men.
Mr Parmar about the difference in maximal aerobic speed in filed-based tests compared to laboratory-based treadmill tests.
Miss McNulty on low-volume, high-intensity priming activity.
Miss White and his work on plyometric training team gym gymnasts.
Mr Addey about the effect of unilateral strength training on recreation runners.
Then, it was the time for poster exhibition, where I presented my research titled: “The effects of 8 weeks of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) on the balance of healthy older people: a randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled trial”.
I was excited, and most important the comments and feedback collected satisfied my expectations.
In particularly I had the chance to discuss IMT with a couple of students from Portsmouth, that today are going to present their works on IMT in athletes.
I also met Mr Tahmosybayat, and his research on 6 weeks of exergaming compare to OTAGO exercise training in healthy older adults and we discussed the outcomes, methods and methodologies of our research.
After there was a range of workshops available from which I chose “a demonstration of how exergaming is used to improve postural control” by Dr Gill Barry at the sport central physiology lab.
Here members of the lab staff showed us their facilities in particular exergame, Kinect, and Biodex BioSway and how they measure balance in frail populations.
At the end of the conference, there was still time for the lectures on “contemporary recovery: translating research to application” by Dr Jonathan Leeder, Dr Jess Hill & Mr Luke Gupta. Who discussed how to optimising recovery following exercises, the efficacy of compression garments on recovery from strenuous exercises and sleep management in elite sports.
Then we moved to the home of Newcastle United FC, where before dinner we had a motivational/inspiring speech by Mr Nick Grantham specialist in athletic preparation, combat sports and strength training.
Concluding, it was a very productive day and I am looking toward tomorrow where there are going to be more lectures, oral presentations and posters oriented on frail populations and nutrition.
If you would like to follow the conference live use the Twitter Wall: http://bases2018.tweetwally.com/
Thank you for reading.
Francesco.
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science has announced that the final call in financial year 2018 for their Short Term Pre/Postdoctoral Fellowships is now open.
Please visit the JSPS London website for further information.
The deadline is: Friday, 1st June 2018 and fellowships must start between 1st November 2018 to 31st March 2019.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) is the leading research funding agency in Japan, established by the Japanese Government for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science.
Their Pre/Postdoctoral Fellowship for Foreign Researchers (Short Term) provides the opportunity for researchers based outside of Japan to conduct collaborative research activities with leading research groups at Japanese Universities and Research Institutions for visits of between 1 to 12 months. Eligible applicants need to be either within 2 years of finishing their PhD at the time of applying to start their fellowship in Japan or have obtained their PhD after 2nd April 2012. Eligible research fields are not limited.
Read the reports from former JSPS Fellows who have taken part in this programme.
BU staff wishing to apply should contact the relevant member of RKEO for their faculty.
Charlotte is a midwife and in her first year of doctoral studies in FHSS, exploring the impact that living on a low income has on women’s experiences of pregnancy, maternity care and parenting.
Charlotte recently applied to BU’s ‘destination summer school programme’ in Indonesia and her application was successful. The
programme will take place at the BINUS University in Jakarta, Indonesia in June 2018 and is designed for students from BU and BINUS University to work together on projects that address one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDG’s are a collection of 17 goals set by the United Nations for countries to work towards achieving. The goals are interrelated although each has its own targets and they cover a broad range of social and economic development issues. These include poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, water, sanitation, energy, environment and social justice. Charlotte says, ‘Collaborating with others on these projects will foster the development of my global mind-set and enhance my competence as a researcher interested in health and social sciences research’.
Charlotte applied to the programme for the opportunity to develop her knowledge of issues such as poverty and gender equality, both of which are relevant to her research topic. In order for Charlotte’s research to be impactful and authentic she believed it important to listen to and learn from others and hopes the summer school programme will assist her in achieving this. Charlotte will translate the knowledge gained from the experience into her own research and competence as an early-career researcher. Charlotte looks forward to being able to share these experiences with you all on her return.
Congratulations to two Faculty of Health & Social Sciences PhD students, Preeti Mahato and Elizabeth Waikhaka, who co-authored a paper published in the WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health. Their paper is called ‘Social autopsy: a potential health-promotion tool for preventing maternal mortality in low-income countries’.[1] Co-authors include Dr. Puspa Pant from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Health, University of the West of England (Bristol) and Dr. Animesh Biswas based at the Reproductive & Child Health Department, Centre for Injury Prevention & Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka.
The authors argue that verbal autopsy is used to attribute a clinical cause to a maternal death. The aim of social autopsy is to determine the non-clinical contributing factors. A social autopsy of a maternal death is a group interaction with the family of the deceased woman and her wider local community, where facilitators explore the social causes of the death and identify improvements needed. Although still relatively new, the process has proved useful to capture data for policy-makers on the social determinants of maternal deaths. This article highlights the potential role of social autopsy in health promotion.
Reference:
Last week I attended and presented e-poster at the RCOG (Royal College of Obstetrics & Gynaecology) World Congress 2018 in Singapore. The main congress programme run 22 to 24 March. RCOG president Professor Lesley Regan told in her opening speech that this Congress had more than 2,800 delegates and 150 speakers from 82 countries. Prof Regan also said that the Congress focused on the need for all to work in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology and to act as advocates for women’s health. Furthermore, she stressed that it is necessary to look beyond clinical aspects and provide safe, high-quality care to speak for the needs of the women, many of whom have no choice of their own.
The e-poster I presented ‘Study of rural maternity and childbirth care in a southern district of Nepal’ is part of my PhD study on maternity care in Nepal.
My e-poster
My poster was displayed on the morning of 22nd March (8:08– 8:16 AM) under the topic ‘early pregnancy and acute gynaecology’. Over the three days programme schedule, I also attended several plenary sessions, oral presentations and viewed many e-posters. Although there were many topics specific to clinical aspects of obstetrics and gynaecology, I was mostly interested in presentations related to contraception and fertility control, abortion, gender equality, reproductive and sexual health of marginalised communities, female genital mutilation, breastfeeding and so on. Overall, it was a great experience to learn about research in women’s health and maternity care and an opportunity to do networking with researchers with similar interests.
Finally, I would like to thank Santander Awards to provide me fund to cover my expenses to attend this congress and my supervisors for motivating me to apply for this conference.
Congratulations to Daisy Wiggins in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of her paper ‘The effect of a birthplace decision support tool on women’s decision-making and information gathering behaviours during pregnancy: mybirthplace study protocol’. The paper is published in the Open Access journal Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics and can be accessed by clicking here! The paper is co-authored by CMMPH’s Prof. Vanora Hundley, Dr. Carol Wilkins, as well asProf. Carol Bond (University of Wolverhampton) and the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Gill Walton.
Congratulations to all!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Wiggins D, Hundley VA, Wilkins C, Bond C, Walton G. The effect of a birthplace decision support tool on women’s decision-making and information gathering behaviours during pregnancy: mybirthplace study protocol. J Innov Health Inform.2018;25(1):001–006.
Congratulations to Mrs. Preeti Mahato on the acceptance of her paper ‘Qualitative evaluation of mental health training of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in rural Nepal’ by Nurse Education Today, an academic journal published by Elsevier. Preeti is currently registered as PhD student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). The paper is co-authored by CMMPH’s Catherine Angell and Edwin van Teijlingen as well as BU Visiting Faculty Padam Simkhada and Jillian Ireland. The paper is a result of the evaluation part of the ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’ project and written on behalf of this THET team.
Our THET project in Nepal is a collaboration between the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), Tribhuvan University (Nepal’s oldest university) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The project receives funding from DFID, and is managed through THET and supported locally in Nepal by a charity Green Tara Nepal.
| THET team:
Edwin van Teijlingen, Padam Simkhada, Shyam K Maharjan Preeti Mahato, Bhimsen Devkota, Padmadharini Fanning, Jillian Ireland, Bibha Simkhada, Lokendra Sherchan, Ram Chandra Silwal, Shyam K Maharjan, Ram K Maharjan, Catherine Angell, Flora Douglas.
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Sharing research through photography is a great opportunity to make often complex subjects much more accessible to all. This year over 1,500 people from all over the world voted in the competition, showing the power of images to engage and inspire. The research behind photos this year included areas such as archaeology, dementia and forensic science, among others.
The photography theme this year was people. The theme was open to interpretation, with photographers choosing to take an image of their research team, show people who might benefit or be affected by the research or even take a point of view shot. This year’s winners were announced in the Atrium Art Gallery on Tuesday 20 March, with prizes presented by Professor John Fletcher, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation. Details of the winners can be found below.
The photos are currently displayed in an art exhibition in the Atrium Art Gallery which demonstrates the creativity of our BU researchers and the diversity of research being undertaken. It’s a really enjoyable way to find out about research in areas within and outside your discipline or interests, and value the work and efforts. Do drop in and see the images, if you have a few minutes to spare!
The winners of the 2018 Research Photography Competition are:
By Shayan Bahadori (Orthopaedic Project Manager) and Mara Catalina Aguilera Canon (Postgraduate Researcher, Faculty of Media and Communication).
In recent years we have seen a decline in theatre operating training time for junior surgeons. Simulators have subsequently been increasingly integrated as training, selection and evaluation tools. To fully formally integrate simulation into orthopaedic training we require evidence that the simulators are valid representations of the operations they seek to replicate. This is one the current research focus at Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) and we pursue to validate and develop virtual reality orthopaedic simulators so that they may be adopted into mainstream clinical practice.
By Hai Luu (Postgraduate student, Faculty of Science and Technology).
Ciliates protozoa are a distinct group of unicellular organisms. They are abundant phagotrophic micro-organisms in soil, playing important role in food webs by controlling the abundance of smaller microbes and recycling organic matter. Ciliates are characterised by some specific traits. Firstly, ciliates are dikaryotic organisms due to having two different cell nuclei; one is responsible for reproduction; the other one carries out cell functions. Secondly, they use cilia for locomotion and feeding. Interestingly, ciliates can reproduce asexually and sexually. From an ecological and functional point of view, ciliates can be used as bioindicators of soil quality – and this is the aim of our research. We are investigating the species richness and abundance of ciliated protozoa in natural and agricultural soils in order to assess their potential as bioindicators of soil quality. Soil quality plays an important role in agricultural production in terms of both quantity and quality, this links closely to quality of human life. This image shows Colpoda cucullus, a terrestrial ciliate commonly found in soils around the world, which was taken as a point of view shot through a microscope.
Research group: Hai Luu, Professor Genoveva Esteban, and Dr Iain Green (Senior Lecturer in Biological Science). Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology.
By Dr Nicole Ferdinand (Senior Lecturer in Events Management) and her MSc Events Management student researchers: Diane Nthurima (pictured on the left), Cindy Chen (pictured on the right), Rui Bao, Yi-Hsin Chen, Simona Georgieva, Amelie Lonia, Anh Thu Pham, Taylor Treacy and Sharif Zandani.
The photo is a joint entry by the co-creators of the Carnival U which consists of 10 enthusiastic and one BU academic. Together they are embarking on a journey to create a unique a fusion project. The students are working together with BU academic, Dr Nicole Ferdinand, CEL Learning and Teaching Fellow 2017/18, to create 4 workshops which target other university students interested in Carnival. They will engage in action research as part of the development of their workshops as well as evaluate the overall effectiveness of their co-creation efforts which will form the basis of an academic research paper. The project will also leave an educational legacy for other students wishing to develop event management, marketing and digital literacy skills.
The exhibition will be open until Thursday, 29 March at 2pm, in the Atrium Art Gallery on Talbot Campus. Please do fill in one of our feedback cards in the gallery after visiting the exhibition.
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New weight change BU paper
One week to go! | The 16th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference
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Congratulations to three former BU staff
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
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Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars
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