News: March 2016

Safety=Design: Saving thousands of lives and millions of pounds

A project launched in collaboration with Bangor University has the potential of saving thousands of lives by simplifying the way symptoms are identified by healthcare staff and patients.

Publication date: 30 March 2016

Bangor University subjects make the grade in world table

Newly published analysis of the 2016 edition of the influential QS World University Rankings , which saw Bangor University soar 60 places to 411th position worldwide, now provides further information on rankings for different subject areas among the world’s best universities.

Publication date: 23 March 2016

PhD Studentships for September 2016

Bangor Business School invites applications from suitably qualified individuals wanting to pursue doctoral studies. We are offering PhD Studentships for research projects in the disciplines of Financial Studies and Business Management .

Publication date: 22 March 2016

Bangor Researcher joint winner of the BBC NewsHACK award

Dewi Bryn Jones from the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr was one of the winners of the Audience Facing award at the BBC’s #newsHack: Language Technology , together with BBC Cymru Fyw, BBC Connected Studio, and BBC Digital in London on the 15 and 16 March 2016. The challenge at the event organised by the BBC News Labs was how to help improve journalism in a multilingual environment in order to take advantage of news and information in other languages, and read content in a number of different languages.

Publication date: 22 March 2016

OPSWISE – Improving the care of older people

A study led by Bangor University has provided a fresh insight into how health services for older people are carried out.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

Life for the Cherokee and the history of the Trail of Tears

In a three-part series on S4C, Professor Jerry Hunter travels to America to learn more about the history of Welshman Evan Jones and the Cherokee community of today. Evan Jones a'r Cherokee starts on Wednesday, 23 March.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

How will interacting with robots affect us? £1.5m ERC Grant

Robots and other types of artificial agents, such as avatars, are set to become increasingly commonplace in the near future - we’ll interact with them in workplaces, public spaces, and our own homes, as well as in education, health and care settings. Technologists have worked hard to develop useful machines to perform complex tasks in social settings, such as lifting patients from hospital beds, providing companionship for individuals with depression or dementia, or teaching children algebra.. But do we know whether long-term interactions with such robots might have any effect on us?

Publication date: 17 March 2016

Social Science research improves quality of life and care for people with dementia

Research by Bangor University, which was carried out in several care homes in north Wales, is featured in a booklet launched in the House of Commons on Tuesday 15 March. The latest issue of the Campaign for Social Science’s ‘Making the Case for the Social Sciences’ briefings focuses on a number of research projects on dementia at universities in the UK.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

Welsh Food Banks on the increase

Wales now has 157 foodbanks which support people at risk of not being able to feed themselves and their families (data collected July 2015) compared to 16 in 1998. These new statistics come from a research project by Bangor University Social Sciences PhD student David Beck.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

'Bowling together? Civil society in a North East Wales village' - Bangor WISERD research team

'Bowling together? Civil society in a North East Wales village': a guest lecture by Bangor University's WISERD research team

Publication date: 9 March 2016

Zebrafish and humans have new biomedical friend in the spotted gar

Th e genome of a slowly evolving fish, the spotted gar, is so much like both zebrafish and humans that it can be used as a bridge species that could open a pathway to important advancements in biomedical research focused on human diseases.

Publication date: 9 March 2016

ESRC Impact Acceleration Account grant to fund collaborative project with North Wales Police

Innovation and learning within North Wales Police will be the focus of a new collaborative project led by Bangor Business School, thanks to the award of a major research impact grant.

Publication date: 7 March 2016

Ethiopian ‘Church Forests’ are a crucial resource deserving of world heritage status

Nearly all of the natural forest cover has been lost in the highlands of Ethiopia, except for small areas of sacred forest surrounding the many individual churches of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church. The first study to assess the conservation value of these forests has shown that the Ethiopian ‘church forests’, as they are known, play a crucial role in the protection of many species in this global biodiversity hotspot. Although these forests are managed individually, together they form an important network of habitats spread right over the vast area of the central and northern highlands of Ethiopia.

Publication date: 7 March 2016

Getting Welsh GPs to act more quickly on cancer symptoms

A research project at Bangor University will look at early cancer diagnosis - a priority area for the Welsh Government, as late presentation of cancer is thought to significantly contribute to the relatively poor survival of Welsh cancer patients compared to the rest of the UK. The award had been made to Professor Richard Neal from the University's North Wales Centre for Primary Care Research , himself a practicing G.P and a world-leader in the field of early cancer diagnosis.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Bangor University leading the world of marine renewable energy research

Dr Simon Neill of the School of Ocean Sciences was primary chair of a series of marine renewable energy sessions at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans last week – the world’s largest ocean science event.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Dementia: “illness” label may lower mood

North Walians have taken part in research which has just been published and indicates that people who perceive dementia symptoms as an illness feel more negative than those who see it as an inevitable part of getting older.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Why scrapping the €500 note may not help counter terrorism

The president of the European Central Bank has said that the bank is considering scrapping the €500 note as the big bill is being increasingly seen as “as an instrument for illegal activities”, according to ECB president, Mario Draghi. But there is little proof that scrapping the €500 note will improve chances of clamping down on nefarious transactions. An article by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo , Professor of Business History and Bank Management , Bangor University and Marybeth Rouse , Bangor University was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

Publication date: 1 March 2016