Tagged / PhD

New publication on essential fatty acids in donor human milk in the UK

PG research

Congratulations to FHSS PhD student Isabell Nessel who published part of her integrated PhD thesis in the Journal for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition last week.

The paper “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2-Centre Cross-Sectional Study” resulted from a collaboration between BU (Isabell Nessel, Prof Jane Murphy, Dr Simon Dyall – now at the University of Roehampton), Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Prof Minesh Khashu), and St. George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Dr Laura De Rooy) (1). Full text can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jpen.1773

This paper shows for the first time that donor human milk in the UK has very low levels of essential fatty acids, which are important for brain and eye development. Furthermore, donor human milk has higher lipid degradation than preterm and term breast milk. This could have important implications for preterm infant nutrition as exclusive unfortified donor human milk feeding might not be suitable long term and may contribute to the development of major neonatal morbidities.

This study followed from a narrative review Isabell and her supervisors Prof Minesh Khashu and Dr Simon Dyall published last year, which suggested that current human milk banking practices might have detrimental effects on essential fatty acid quality and quantity in donor human milk (2).

Isabell

inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Reference

  • Nessel, Isabell, et al. “Long‐Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Donor Human Milk in the United Kingdom: Results From the LIMIT 2‐Centre Cross‐Sectional Study.” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition(2020).
  • Nessel, Isabell, Minesh Khashu, and Simon C. Dyall. “The effects of storage conditions on long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, lipid mediators, and antioxidants in donor human milk–a review.” Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids(2019).

Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships – internal expression of interest

Funding opportunities

The Leverhulme have launched their Doctoral Scholarships scheme offering UK universities funding of 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. As a university we may submit one application only and therefore the university will be coordinating expressions of interest from Academic Staff.

By 11th February 2020, those who are interested in making an application to the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships are invited to submit the following expression of interest – Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI  to Alexandra Pekalski .

Further information about the scheme is available from the Leverhulme Trust. Applicants are advised to check the eligibility criteria very carefully.

Purpose of funding

The Leverhulme will fund 15 doctoral scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. Each award funds 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships at that institution, with 5 scholarships to be offered in each year of the first three years of the grant.

Each scholarship is for a fixed sum of £90,000 for each student for up to 48 months of full-time doctoral study. This covers:

  • maintenance (at research council levels)
  • tuition fees

Any remaining funds are to be used for the Leverhulme Scholar’s research and training expenses.

While the scholarships may be held by students of all nationalities, the Trust has a particular interest in supporting UK or EU students.

Process for selecting applications to be submitted

Should you be interested in applying, please note that your expression of interest application will be assessed by Doctoral Funding Panel. Further details of the assessment criteria can be found within the  Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI . Candidates can expect feedback by 25th February 2019.

Timetable

21-01-2020 RDS advertise Expression of Interest (EoI)competition for call
11-02-2020 EoI deadline (EoIs to be sent to RDS)
13-02-2020 Papers (applications) sent to Doctoral Funding panel (RDS to administer)
20-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel meeting (virtual)
25-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel decision and feedback disseminated to applicants
25-02-2020 RDS to contact Leverhulme to provide the Trust with the principal applicant’s name, departmental affiliation and email address. Access will then be granted to the Leverhulme Trust Grants Management System
March/April/May-2020 Applicants develop proposals with the support of RDS and Doctoral College
22-05-2020 Application finalised for APF financial sign-off by UET
05-06-2020 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Deadline

If you have further questions or queries please contact Alexandra Pekalski (apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Lisa Andrews (andrewsl@bournemouth.ac.uk  ). For queries relating to Doctoral colleague support please contact Fiona Knight (fknight@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Julia Taylor (jtaylor@bournemouthac.uk).

2020 BU PhD and MRes Matched Funded Studentship Competition – Call for Proposals

Funding opportunities, PG research

The BU Matched Funded Studentship Competition, which has run annually since 2006, provides an important role in growing PGR numbers, building and strengthening of a greater number of external relationships, providing a stronger Fusion learning experience for our PGRs.

Call for submission of up to 46 matched funded PhD studentships is now open and has been split into three strands:

  • PhD Studentship Strand 1 Allocative Matched Funding (up to 9 matched funded studentships)
  • PhD Studentship Strand 2 Competitive Matched Funding (up to 31 matched funded studentships)
  • PhD Studentship Strand 3 DTC Pump Priming (up to 6 matched funded studentships).

In addition, for the first time this year, BU is offering a limited number of MRes Studentship Competitive Matched Funding (up to 3 matched funded studentships).

Application Process

At this stage, academic staff are invited to submit proposals for matched funded Studentship projects which, if successful, will be advertised to recruit PhD candidates for a September 2020 start.

Full details, including the BU Studentship Allocative Process and Proposal Form, can be found on the Doctoral College Staff Intranet .

Submission Deadline:

Applications should be submitted to the Doctoral College via email to phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk no later than 5pm on Monday 13 January 2020.

If you have any questions about your application please speak with your Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice (DDRPP) or the Doctoral College Academic Managers: Dr Fiona Knight (for FST or FHSS enquiries) or Dr Julia Taylor (for FM or FMC enquiries).

Please ensure applications contain all relevant information (project proposal signed by Faculty DDRPP; letter of support from matched funder; due diligence form signed by Faculty DDRPP) as incomplete applications will not be considered.

BU’s Research Principles

Putting the BU Studentship Scheme into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding Panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).

There are eight funding panels:

  • HEIF Funding Panel
  • GCRF Funding Panel
  • Research Impact Funding Panel
  • Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  • ACORN Funding Panel
  • Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  • Charity Support Funding Panel
  • SIA Funding Panel

Please see further announcements regarding each initiative.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the BU Studentship Funding Panel, please refer to:

Principle 1: encouraging the development of research team(s)

Principle 2: supporting research development, funding and impact that are both disciplinary and increasingly multi and inter-disciplinary as exemplified by the SIAs

Principle 3: focusing on the development of critical mass within the University, as per the honeycomb model

Principle 7: taking into account disciplinary norms when providing opportunities.

Paper from Creative Technology Department Accepted in Premier Conference

Congratulations! Dr Feng Tian, from Creative Technology Department (SciTech), has got a paper accepted by the Thirty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-19). It saw a record number of over 7,700 submissions this year. Of those, 7,095 were reviewed, and only were 1,150 papers accepted, yielding an acceptance rate of 16.2%.

The paper, “Orderly Subspace Clustering”, is a joint publication with Feng’s PhD student, Jing Wang, who graduated from Creative Technology in 2017. Congratulations to Jing as well!

BU Briefing – Parametric investigations to enhance thermal performance of paraffin

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

Research and development in clean energy technologies is a direct response to the need of generating 50% of energy requirements through renewable sources by 2050 as set by the EU initiative. Renewable energy sources have significant potentials to address key issues in terms of depleting natural energy resources, rocketing energy prices and security.

This paper introduces a two-dimensional finite element computational model which investigates thermal behaviour of a novel geometrical configuration of shell and tube based latent heat storage (LHS) system. It also presents an insight into how to augment the thermal behaviour of paraffin based LHS system which helped inform novel design solutions for wide-ranging practical utilisation in both domestic and commercial heat storage applications.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Professor Zulfiqar Khan at zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk or Kamran Tabeshf at KTabeshf@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

BU Briefing – Understanding Afghan healthcare providers

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

This paper focuses on the perspectives of Afghan healthcare providers on their roles, experiences, values and motivations, and the impact this has on the quality of care for perinatal women and their newborn babies.  To understand their perspectives , the researchers undertook a six-week observation – including interviews and focus groups – to analyse the culture of a maternity hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.

This research study offers multiple insights into Afghan healthcare provider behaviour and reveals complex interrelated issues that affect care in this setting.  It is one of few international studies that explore care from the perspective of healthcare providers in their cultural and social environment.  It reveals that understanding the context of healthcare is crucial to understanding behaviour and the underlying problems to quality of care.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Professor Edwin van Teijlingen at evteijlingen@bournemouth.ac.uk or Immy Holloway at ihollowa@bournemouth.ac.uk. 
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

First PhD in Project Management from the Faculty of Management

PG research, student research

Yogarajah Nanthagaopan has successfully completed the first PhD in Project Management from the Faculty of Management. He was supervised by Dr Nigel L. Williams and Professor Stephen Page and his thesis was titled: A Resource Based Perspective on Project Management in NGOs. Dr Nanthangaopan has returned to his native Sri Lanka and is the current Head of Economics and Management department and Coordinator for the BBM in Project Management degree program at the Faculty of Business Studies, Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

Alternative Career Pathways after your PhD – 8 June

Guidance, PG research, Training

Live online event on the 8th June 2017

The academic jobs market is becoming more challenging and competitive post-PhD. With the number of PhD holders increasing, there is enormous pressure on the academic job market and declining academic job prospects for doctoral graduates.

What can I do after my PhD? It is a difficult decision for any PhD student on whether to pursue a career in academia, or consider alternative careers. In our dedicated live Q&A we are bringing forth a panel of experts who have moved outside of academia, to share their top tips and advice on alternate career pathways following PhD studies.

To help all those who are considering options after doctoral studies, jobs.ac.uk is holding a FREE 60-minute live video event via a live YouTube Q&A called ‘Alternative Career Pathways After Your PhD’. Find out more and register today.

More details are at: http://bit.ly/altcareersevent

PhD student from Creative Technology got a paper accepted in a premium conference

PG research

Jing WANG, a PhD student in the department of Creative Technology, SciTech, just got a paper accepted by 26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAi 2017). IJCAi (http://ijcai-17.org/), is a premier AI conference in the world. Jing’s paper, co-authored with Feng Tian (SciTech), Hongchuan Yu (FMC) and Changhong Liu (SciTech), “Multi-Component Nonnegative Matrix Factorization”, is one of the papers accepted, out of 2540 submissions, after going through an extremely selective review (acceptance rate: ~25%).

Congratulations to Jing, who is currently a 3rd year PhD student. Apart from this paper, she has also published several papers in the journals like IEEE Trans. on Cybernetics, Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, etc. and the top conferences like IJCNN, ICONIP, etc.

Standing up for Science media workshops- applications now open!

PG research, student research

Early career researchers- this is your chance to find out how your voice can be heard in the media!

Sense about Science will be running Standing up for Science media workshops for early career researchers to learn from scientists who have or are actively engaged with the media. You can also hear from respected science journalists who will teach you how the media works, how to respond and comment. As well as hearing what journalists want and expect of scientists. The first workshop of 2017 will be on Friday 7 April, at the University of Manchester. 

The workshop is open to early career researchers and scientists (PhD students, post-doctoral fellows or equivalent) in all sciences, engineering and medicine and is free to attend. The event will discuss science-related controversies in media reporting with practical guidance tips for working with the media.

Apply by 9am on Tuesday 21 March or click here for more information.

Faculty of Management: PhD students of the year 2016

PG research, student research

Great news; two PhD students from the Faculty of Management, Department of Tourism and Hospitality have won PhD student of the year 2016.

SPyke

 

Sarah Pyke; Institute of Travel and Tourism (ITT) PhD Student of the Year 2016 was awarded her prize at the House of Commons on July 20, 2016. Her research ‘A Systems Theory Approach to the Well-being Effects of Tourism’ was supported by the National Coastal Tourism Academy (NCTA) and was part of the ESRC Destination FeelGood project. It extends the forefront of the tourism discipline and makes a unique contribution to knowledge by using Hagerty’s systems theory approach (a model extracted from the public health sector and for the first time applied in a tourism context) to quantitatively measure the well-being effects of tourism on the individual.

 

sprice

Sarah Price; EUROCHRIE, (the biggest Hospitality Conference in Europe) PhD Student of the Year 2016 was awarded her prize in Budapest, October 2016. Her research ‘Trust in Foodservice’ was supported by the EU project FoodSMART and identified key factors that consumers look for when selecting meals in workplace canteens. The project offered her the opportunity to be part of an International research team and take secondment periods in both France and Austria.

Many congratulations to you both – we are very proud of you

Fundraising for the Hearts Milk Bank at BU

PG research, student research

On the 17th of November, The World Prematurity Day, there was a fundraising cake sale for the Hearts Milk Bank.

cake-saleThe amount raised will help to either

– feed 14 babies for a day

–  or feed 3 babies for 5 days, the average time they need donor milk

– or buy enough containers for 55 mums to start donating milk

– or buy almost 3  transportation bags.

The Hearts Milk Bank is therefore 1 step closer to provide donor milk for babies born too soon or too sick!

 

I would like to thank anyone who has made this cake sale possible, the bakers and the buyers, the great people who donated money, SUBU, and the people helping me on the day. You are awesome!

Gillian Weaver, co-founder of the bank contacted me to say “We are so grateful to you Isabell and to everyone who supported your cake sale on World Prematurity Day. You raised a fantastic amount and we will put it to very good use helping to ensure that all premature and sick babies get access to safe and assured supplies of donor milk irrespective of where they are born in the UK. We know that this not only helps to prevent tiny babies from life threatening illnesses but also supports their mothers whilst they build up their own breastmilk supply. The Hearts Milk Bank (the bank with a difference) will also be a biobank of breastmilk samples for much needed research into breast cancer so your support for us is doubly valuable!”

ukamb_logo2If you would like to learn more about donor milk visit the website of the UK Association for Milk Banking.

gkjo6pcssbgobqmecfa6If you would like to learn more about the Hearts Milk Bank or would like to donate, please click here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hearts-milk-bank-saving-tiny-babies-helping-mums-cancer

 

I learned about donor milk as part of my PhD thesis at BU, focusing on the effects of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the perinatal period. If you are interested in our research please contact me at inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk

Many thanks, Isabell

Winner of “The strength of young graduates contest”.

PG research, student research

 

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-39-06

 

Last Friday a postman knocked at my parent’s house in Italy.

He carried a parchment, from The National Strength and Condition Association.

On it is written that my Master Degree Thesis won “The strength of young graduates contest” as second best Italian research in its field.

The study of 2015, is titled: “THE BIOMECHANICS EVALUATION IN STUDYING THE MOTION – COGNITION RELATIONSHIP” and can be summarised as follow:

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-37-15using a system of 8 QTM cameras and a force plate, I measured the effect of different tasks upon the static balance in 20 young volunteers.

To do so, I asked them to perform four tasks in a randomised order, while I was recording their centre of pressure (with force plate) and centre of mass (with 3D motion capture system).

Tasks were:

  • Open Eyes (OE). The participants were instructed to hold a steady position, standing up with their feet together, for 30s.
screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-37-59
  • Closed Eyes (CE). Same position as OE, but participants were instructed to keep their eyes closed for 30s.
  • Cognitive Dual Task (COGN-DT). Holding the same steady position, I asked them to countdown aloud, backwards in threes from a number that I randomly chose.
  • Motor Dual Task (MOT-DT). Same position, but for this task volunteers were instructed to move their fingers (of the right hand) and touch their thumb alternately, for 30s.

What the result told us was that the COGN-DT was causing more perturbation, followed by the CE task.

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-07-37-44Special thanks go to the people who helped me at the MotionLab in Naples (Giuseppe Sorrentino, Laura Mandolesi and Pasquale Varriale), and to my current supervisors (Alison McConnell, Tom Wainwright and James Gavin) who believed in me by giving me the opportunity to be here today.

Looking forward, with hope to collect more milestones.

Thanks.

World Prematurity Day – 17th November – Cake Sale

PG research, student research

Would you donate a cake/cupcakes?

 

picture3Date:   17th November

Time:   11.30-13.30

  Venue: BoHo Lounge, Ground floor, Bournemouth House

Cake drop off on the morning of the 17th in R304 or B112a

 

picture1Preterm born babies are at high risk to develop a wide range of complications.

Some of these complications can be prevented by feeding babies with human breast milk.

Therefore, the WHO recommends human donor milk as best alternative if mother’s own milk is not available!

 

picture2The HEARTS MILK BANK is currently crowd funding to buy the needed equipment to start providing donor milk for babies born too soon or too sick, to improve their chance of survival and health!

All money from the cake sale will be directly donated to the Hearts Milk Bank!

 

 

If you want to donate a cake or receive  more information please contact

Isabell Nessel inessel@bournemouth.ac.uk