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New paper on Nepal by FHSS’s Dr. Nirmal Aryal

international, Publishing, writing

Many congratulations to Dr. Nirmal Aryal, postdoctoral researcher in FHSS for his new publication ‘Blood pressure and hypertension in people living at high altitude in Nepal’ in Hypertension Research [1]. Hypertension Research is a prestigious journal published by Nature (Impact Factor of 3.4).

This is the first study of its kind to collect cardiovascular disease and risk factors related information at four different altitude levels above or equal to 2800 m and from ethnically diverse samples. This paper highlighted that despite known hypoxia-induced favourable physiological responses on blood pressure, high altitude residents (>2800 m) in Nepal might have an increased risk of raised blood pressure associated with lifestyle factors and clinicians should be aware of it. The authors previously published a systematic review paper summarizing global evidence on the relationship between blood pressure and high altitude [2].

This publication is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41440-018-0138-x and pre-refereed version is available in BURO.

Well done!

Dr. Pramod Regmi & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

References:

  1. Aryal N, Weatherall M, Bhatta YKD, Mann S. Blood pressure and hypertension in people living at high altitude in Nepal. Hypertension Res 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41440-018-0138-x[published Online First: Epub Date]|
  2. Aryal N, Weatherall M, Bhatta YKD, Mann S. Blood pressure and hypertension in adults permanently living at high altitude: a systematic review and meta-analysis. High Alt Med Biol 2016; 17: 185-193.

BU leads the development of eHealth gamification toolkit

The EU has countersigned the grant agreement for a BU led H2020-MSCA-RISE-2008 project on the development of a gamification toolkit for eHealth and mHealth product. The project consortium comprises six partners, including BU, the University of Malaga, a large hospital network in Spain, and three leading SMEs in the EU specialising in IoT, data science and mobile apps. The project team will investigate evidence-based gamification techniques to enhance the efficacy of eHealth and mHealth products, lower the cost of the innovation process and reduce the risk to people from adverse consequences.

Professor Wen Tang, Director of Centre for Games and Music Technologies based in the department of Creative Technology Faculty of Science and Technology, will lead the consortium and her team at BU with a total of 837,2000 euros grant support from EU, of which 197,800 euros to BU.

PROGRAMME RELEASED for FMC Postgraduate Researcher Conference 5 Dec 2018

conferences, PG research

We are two weeks away from our Second Annual Faculty of Media and Communication PGR conference. Below you will find the programme for the conference showcasing the diverse areas of research within our PGR community that will be presented throughout the day.

Official registration for the conference on December 5th is available via Eventbrite. Registration is open for all FMCers, free, and closes November 27th. There are a limited number of tickets for the beer tasting option for Dr Sam Goodman’s Keynote, so if you are interested in securing one of those spots please register as soon as possible. Over half of those tickets have already been claimed:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/second-annual-fmc-postgraduate-researcher-conference-2018-tickets-51544624359

However, if you are not apart of the FMC and interested in these presentations don’t fret! We would love to have your presence, insights and participation on the day. If you are interested in any of our programming and have any questions please contact Alexandra Alberda (she would love to hear from you) at aalberda@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Conference Programme

9:00 – 9:30am: Registration Check-in and Wristband Collection

9:30 – 10:00: Introduction

Prof Iain MacRury, Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice

Prof Candida Yates, Professor for Culture and Communication

Jo Tyler, PGR Broadcast Podcast

Welcome from Conference Committee – Alex, Steve and Mel

 

10:00 – 11:20pm: Panel 1 – Beyond the Image: Animation and Video Games

Chair: TBD

10:00am: Bibi Ayesha Noormah Soobhany – The Machine Brain

10:20am: Nurist S. Ulfa – Revisiting Consumption Play: Digital Virtual Consumption among Child Consumer

10:40am: Alex Tereshin – Automatically Controlled Morphing of 2D Shapes with Textures

11:00am: Valentin Miu – Real-time 3D Smoke Simulation with Convolutional Neural Network-based Projection Method

 

11:20 – 11:40 am: Tea and Coffee and Comfort Break

 

11:40 – 1:00pm: Panel 2 – Augmented Reality and the Body

Chair: Jill Nash

11:40am: Miguel Ramos Carretero – Efficient Facial Animation Integrating Euclidean and Geodesic Distance Algorithms into Radial Basis Function Interpolation

12:00pm: Ifigeneia Mavridou – Designing a System Architecture for Emotion Detection in Virtual Reality

12:20pm: Mara Catalina Aguilera Canon – Interactive real-time material removal simulation for acetabular reaming training in Total hip replacement procedures

12:40pm: Farbod Shakouri – Connected Tangible Objects for Augmented Reality Narratives

 

1:00 – 1:15pm: 3MT Presentations

Chair: TBD

1:00pm: Aaron Demolder – Shared Perceptions: Recording 3D Video to Improve Visual Effects

1:03pm: Sydney Day – 3D Facial Reconstruction from Obscured Faces using Trained Neural Networks

1:06pm: Robert Kosk – Synthesizing Space-Time Features for Ocean Heightfields Enhancement

1:09pm: Jack Brett – Gamification of Musical Learning Experiences

1:12pm: Jo Tyler – The Aurality of the Antihero  Adaptation as curation for graphic narratives

 

1:15 – 2:00 pm: Lunch FG06 (for registered attendees)

  • You are encouraged to check on the Doctoral College Live Exhibition over in Kimmeridge House during this time.

 

2:00 – 3:40pm: Panel 3 – History Repeating Itself: Broadcasting Political Tensions

Chair: TBD

2:00pm: Hua Li – Democracy in the News!

2:20pm: Sara Aly – The Dynamics of Meso-public spheres: Media Usage in Egypt during the Uprisings

2:40pm: Searchmore (Itai) Muridzo – Managing Public Service Broadcasting in Turbulent Times: A Case of Zimbabwe’s 2017 Coup

3:00pm: Ícaro Joathan – The evolution of the permanent campaign: a general review of the criteria to measure this type of strategy

3:20pm: Ian Robertson – With God on Our Side: A Comparative Study of Religious Broadcasting in the US and the UK 1921-1995: The Impact of Personality

 

3:40 – 3:50pm: Tea and Coffee and Comfort Break

 

3:50 – 5:10pm: Panel 4 – Environments of Now: Media Perspectives

Chair: Salvatore Scifo

3:50pm: Rehan Zia – Light, Time and Magic

4:10pm: Kenneth Kang – Switching around the Constants and Variables in International Environmental Law

4:30pm: Daniel Hills – Agents’ understandings, procedures and engagements with consumer emotional state as a targeting tool within the advertising industry: A Practice Theory approach

4:50pm: Siobhan Lennon-Patience – Jaywick Fights Back – Poverty Porn or Community Resilience?

 

5:10 – 5:30pm: Comfort Break and Keynote Set-up

 

5:30 – 6:30pm: Keynote – Dr. Sam Goodman

Critical Drinking: Approaches to Interdisciplinary research practice through British Beer Culture

Chair: Alexandra Alberda

UK drinking culture is currently at the height of its renaissance. The market in craft beer and spirits is buoyant, with a raft of new independent bottle shops, breweries and distilleries opening each year, whilst supermarket alcohol aisles are heaving with a range of new options as ‘Big Beer’ conglomerates try to ride the wave of this unexpected trend. The high-street pub is likewise transformed; though many rural pubs are closing as stricter legislation on drink-driving comes into force, those in urban centres have been regenerated (for good and ill) into spaces that are increasingly egalitarian when it comes to gender, though conversely exclusive in terms of class, and wealth. However, these developments and the popularity of the drinks they advocate are not as modern as they initially appear, and in fact draw on the iconography, tastes and sensibilities of the British past, especially those of the British Empire. Through focus on the interrelation between history and the present-day, this session asks pertinent questions of a significant contemporary cultural movement. It considers Britain’s various regional, national and international drinking communities past and present, and the questions around gentrification, masculine/gendered and national identities, health, well-being and excess that exist within them, as well as analysing the links between cultural history and representation within a contemporary media context.

This talk will also illustrate how the field of ‘Drink Studies’ offers a means of bridging the fluid boundaries of humanities research across a range of disciplines, and for both scholarly and public audiences. Drawing on research conducted at the British Library India Office Archive and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the talk will draw focus on the advantages of interdisciplinarity through the lens of drinking, arguing that the development of flexible theoretical approaches to traditional subjects offer researchers new ways of working within historical studies, medical humanities, and contemporary media, culture and society. In addition, the talk will be accompanied by three tasters of modern British beers that have been chosen to pair thematically with the subjects under discussion, and to illustrate that how researchers approach a subject can be as impactful as the research itself.

Dr Sam Goodman

Senior Lecturer in English & Communication, JEC (FMC)

sgoodman@bournemouth.ac.uk

@drsamgoodman

 

6:30 – 7:30pm: Reception in FG06

 

 

Je-S outage – are you working on a research council application?

Guidance

The UKRI Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) service will be unavailable between 9pm GMT on Friday 23 November to 8am GMT on Monday 26 November due to essential database maintenance.

If you are working on an application to the research councils, you will need to be aware of this and may want to download any essential documents (for your application or help text/guidance) before 9pm on Friday.

UKRI apologise for any inconvenience.

Open Event: Creativity and Marginality

conferences, international

You are warmly invited to participate to the final dissemination event of our AHRC e-Voices: Redressing Marginality International Network, titled Creativity and Marginality. The event will take place on December 5 (4pm-8pm), Lawrence Lecture Theatre and The Lees Gallery.

The Creativity and Marginality Symposiumwas conceived of, following a series of workshops and events held in the UK, Kenya and Brazil, as part of the AHRC E-Voices: Redressing Marginliaty Network (evoices.cemp.ac.uk). This network focuses upon marginalized groups across different geographical regions that are using technologies in a range of ways to bring voice to their experiences of marginality.

In this symposium BU academics across faculties will present their own research which resonates with the theme: addressing creativity in practice, research method and outcome and with socially marginalized groups. The symposium will be followed by the opening of an exhibition featuring a small selection of pieces presented at the ShiftEye Gallery in Nairobi Kenya. It will also include some pieces from other projects. Finally the evening will conclude with a screening of the documentary Aji-Bi: Under the Clock Tower (2015) by Moroccan director Rajaa Saddiki. A film about a group of Senegalese migrant women working as hairdressers and stranded in Casablanca.

Check the program and register here!

Technical assistance for grant applications – workshop places available!

Funding opportunities

In the UK, £4.7 billion is being expected to be invested in R&D over the next 4 years. Will you be ready to apply?

Much of this funding will be available to academia, in partnership with business, through Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund competitive grants. Writing these grants is an art in itself, because word counts are tight and the demand for detail high. And then there is the human factor – convincing five under-pressure assessors that your idea is novel, experimental, leading edge, etc. These are the people who will score you and ultimately decide whether you make it to the fundable zone…

BU’s Research & Knowledge Exchange Office is hosting a technical writing workshop, where the art of writing these grants will be unpacked by a successful bid writer, who has won them, spoken with the assessors to learn how to win even more of them, and is almost in daily contact with the funder, Innovate UK.

The workshop, on 10th December 2018, will include discussions on:

• Knowing your funder – vital background on what makes Innovate UK tick…
• Knowing your assessors – vital tips to improve your score…
• Unpacking the application questions – what you must write and how you must write…

After the workshop attendees will have the opportunity to have a one-to-one session with the bid writer to discuss project ideas and to explore suitable grants.

This workshop directly supports and is targeted towards those academics proactively working within the context of BU2025 Actions: 28, 29 and 30.

To attend, please see further information available on the BU staff pages and review the calendar of events for further opportunities.

new paper published  Volchek, K., Liu, A., Song, H., & Buhalis, D. (2018) Forecasting tourist arrivals at attractions: Search engine empowered methodologies. 

new paper published  Volchek, K., Liu, A., Song, H., & Buhalis, D. (2018) Forecasting tourist arrivals at attractions: Search engine empowered methodologies. Tourism Economics. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354816618811558

Abstract

Tourist decision to visit attractions is a complex process influenced by multiple factors of individual context. This study investigates how the accuracy of tourism demand forecasting can be improved at the micro level. The number of visits to five London museums is forecast and the predictive powers of Naïve I, seasonal Naïve, seasonal autoregressive moving average, seasonal autoregressive moving average with explanatory variables, SARMAX-mixed frequency data sampling and artificial neural network models are compared. The empirical findings extend understanding of different types of data and forecasting algorithms to the level of specific attractions. Introducing the Google Trends index on pure time-series models enhances the forecasts of the volume of arrivals to attractions. However, none of the applied models outperforms the others in all situations. Different models’ forecasting accuracy varies for short- and long-term demand predictions. The application of higher frequency search query data allows for the generation of weekly predictions, which are essential for attraction- and destination-level planning.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, attractions, forecasting, Google Trends, search engine, tourist demand

Highly topical BU article on BREXIT

international, NHS, open access, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Rosie Read and Prof. Lee-Ann Fenge in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences who just published in the academic journal Health and Social Care in the Community.  Their paper is called ‘What does Brexit mean for the UK social care workforce? Perspectives from the recruitment and retention frontline’ [1].  You can’t have a more topical academic paper and it is freely available on the web through Open Access!  

The paper is based on research on research they undertook last year on the impact of Brexit on the social care workforce.  A key finding is that, irrespective of whether they employ EU/EEA workers or not, research participants have deep concerns about Brexit’s potential impact on the social care labour market. These include apprehensions about future restrictions on hiring EU/EEA nurses, as well as fears about increased competition for care staff and their organisation’s future financial viability. This article amplifies the voices of managers as an under‐researched group, bringing their perspectives on Brexit to bear on wider debates on social care workforce sustainability.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Read R, Fenge L‐A. (2018) What does Brexit mean for the UK social care workforce? Perspectives from the recruitment and retention frontline.
    Health Soc Care Community [online first] :1–7.    https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12684

 

 

PhD success

Congratulations to Dr Billy Senington on achieving the all important sign off from the examiners for his post viva modifications of his PhD thesis, titled:

An investigation into the spinal kinematics and lower limb impacts during cricket fast bowling and their association with lower back pain.

A lot of new findings in this area and a really significant contribution to knowledge.

Well done to Billy.

Supervisors: Dr Jonathan Williams and Professor Raymond Lee (Ex).

Training opportunity – completing and submitting your IRAS application

NHS, Research Ethics, Training

Are you currently in the process of designing, setting up or planning your research study, and would like to extend your project into the NHS?

Yes? Then you may want to take advantage of this training opportunity.

Oliver Hopper (Research & Development Coordinator, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital) and Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor, R&KEO)  will be running a training session on how to use, and complete your own application within the IRAS system.

IRAS (Integrated Research Application System) is the system used to gain approvals from the NHS Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Authority, before rolling out your study to NHS Trusts. To support this, the session will include the background to research ethics and the approvals required for NHS research.

The session will also be interactive, and so as participants, you will have the opportunity to go through the form itself and complete the sections, with guidance on what the reviewers are expecting to see in your answers, and tips on how to best use the system.

The training will take place in Studland House – Lansdowne Campus, room 102 on Wednesday 5th December, at 09:30am – 12:30pm.

Get in touch with Research Ethics if you would like to register your interest and book a place.

Research Council Development Scheme – applications now open

Funding opportunities

BU is introducing the second round of the Research Council Development Scheme which is a coordinated, targeted set of activities designed to inspire and equip BU researchers to achieve greater success with Research Council funding.

The aim is to:

  • Increase awareness of the Research Councils opportunities
  • Equip researchers with the confidence and skills to apply for the Research Councils funding in line with their career stage
  • Fast-track the development of a portfolio of proposals by facilitating proposal writing, setting next steps and allocating support

Due to the wide range of opportunities offered by Research Councils, the RCDS will feature a range of activities which may be generic in scope or targeted to a cohort as follows.

  • E cohort – early career researchers and those new to Research Councils (learning aims: first grants, fellowships, general mind-set and approach)
  • M cohort – mid-career researchers and those with some Research Councils experience (learning aims: project leadership and moving up to larger grants/collaborations)
  • P cohort – professorial level and those with significant Research Council experience (learning aims: high value, strategic and longer-larger funding)

As the RCDS is being piloted, this first cohort will have access to the ‘gold standard’ of a mix of development activities:

  • As a group and within targeted cohorts: training, workshops, structured proposal writing sessions and opportunities to build peer-to-peer support.
  • 1:1 support for scoping/identifying funding streams and planning/starting proposals.
  • Hands-on work to develop proposals through the scheme, including bid surgeries.

The criteria for membership, expectations of membership, and the training and development timetable for the RCDS can be found in the scheme document. Those wanting to participate in this great opportunity will need to submit an expression of interest to: researchdev@bournemouth.ac.uk stating:

  • Why they are applying to the RCDS
  • What (if any) Research Council Bidding experience they have to date
  • Which targeted cohort they consider themselves to be in: E, M or P
  • Do they have a funding proposal in development? If so, to provide details of the proposal (this is not essential to be a member)

Please submit your expression of interest by 18th December 2019. RKEO will then send a membership agreement form to potential members, where they will agree to attend the training sessions and submit proposals to the research councils. As this scheme is part of the RKEDF, potential members will need to seek approval from their Head of Department or departmental nominated approver.

Please read through the scheme document and if any clarification is required then contact Rachel Clarke, Research Facilitator, RKEO. This scheme is a fantastic opportunity to accelerate your research council funding track record.