2021 Archives - The School of Applied Sciences

Helping Elite Athletes Become Entrepreneurs

The Athletes as Entrepreneurs (AtLAS) training programme is a fantastic opportunity for high-level athletes who want to learn about starting a business in just five weeks. And it’s free!

The online course taught via MOOC starts on the 17^th of January and will finish on the 20^th of February. Attendees will learn about entrepreneurship through five modules and be supported by business experts and athlete entrepreneurs who will act as mentors. ENU lecturer, Dr Tom Campbell expressed his enthusiasm about the programme: “We are very excited to be able to offer this innovative new course to elite athletes considering a future in entrepreneurship. The training programme will be delivered in collaboration with experts from across Europe and is underpinned by research led by the team here at ENU”.

AtLAS is a flexible and hands-on course that is tailored to the specific needs of elite athletes with the single aim of upgrading their entrepreneurial skills, enabling them to develop viable business ideas. According to Dr Susan Brown from the School of Applied Sciences, the programme gives sportspeople the chance to acquire the competencies necessary for a business career: “The course provides an excellent opportunity for students to develop skills for the future while simultaneously building an entrepreneurial network”.

The programme is open to all athletes who are current or former national or international level competitors. Click here for more information and to sign up for the course.

The five modules will cover theory and practice in the following areas: the entrepreneurial individual, basic skills for entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial thinking & mindset, entrepreneurial process, founding a company. Upon completion, participants will receive an AtLAS training certificate that is worth 1 ECTS credit.

Solving single-use plastic waste with a dynamic duo

Science plays a vital part in all our lives. But what if Science were to suddenly be seen as, not a solver of climate change but as one of the significant polluters of planet Earth? Single-use plastic is the dilemma that faces every student and scientist working in labs today.

Even a small lab can get through vast stocks of single-use plastics. Gloves, pipettes, tubes, Petri dishes and vials are disposed of because they are contaminated and considered unrecyclable.

In 2018 lab technician Lisa McMillan and Technical Assistant Jo Brown decided they had to try to make the SAS labs’ plastic recyclable.

Like many groundbreaking ideas, Lisa and Jo’s research and development started in their own time; they began to formulate their approach on days off and after work.

At the start of 2019, they were ready to present to the University’s Staff Sustainability Network Group.

From this initial in-house presentation, Lisa and Jo moved on to share their work with colleagues from other universities across the UK. They started by presenting At the HeATED Regional Network Event held in Belfast. Some of the universities present included St Andrew’s, QUB, Edinburgh, Sheffield and Ulster.

Many more presentations and networking events are continuing to provide momentum for Lisa and Jo’s work. Their influence continues to grow, and in 2021 another impressive array of UK universities and institutes were present to hear about Lisa and Jo’s protocol at the EAUC Zoomscot share. The interest in their method had begun to widen to include the labs of Kings College London, the Institute for Cancer Research and the National Oceanography Centre. And the duo has also recently contributed an article on their work to Microbiologist magazine.

Back at their homes in Scotland, Lisa and Jo continue to fine-tune their protocol and work on new ideas. Every day in the labs of Napier University, they put into practice their first-ever safe recycling method.

Since they introduced the system in the SAS labs, they have sent an impressive 1500KG of single-use plastic that would otherwise have been sent to landfills to be recycled instead. If you have trouble visualising exactly how much plastic 1500Kkg represents, just think of 40 large external dumpsters.

Every year, a new cohort of students join Napier University. Every year, those students become increasingly aware and angry about the damage that plastics are doing to the planet. But one thing Napier students can be reassured about is that somewhere in the labs of the University a dedicated Lisa and Jo will continue to build upon their success and work towards creating more methods to make single-use plastics recyclable and ultimately to work towards reducing Science’s impact on the environment.

Contact

l.mcmillan@napier.ac.uk

j.brown5@napier.ac.uk

Pitch perfect. Falkirk’s visit to Sport Exercise Science Labs

In line with the Edinburgh Napier’s commitment to students gaining valuable first-hand experience, two postgraduate Sports & Exercise Sciences students were recently scheduled to work with Falkirk FC’s squad, to produce a pre-season assessment.

The Club’s players assembled at the state-of-the-art laboratories at Sighthill in June, to take part in a series of tests designed to record everything from their percentage body fat to their counter movement jump height.

The session was run by Laboratory Technician, Russell Wilson, and two Sport Performance Enhancement MSc students, Kieran McManus and Jack Brennan. They soon had the squad working hard:

Using the School’s new SECA portable body composition analysers to measure variables such as overall body fat percentage, resting energy expenditure, sectional skeletal muscle mass measurements and visceral adipose tissue.
Performing counter movement jumps and squat analysis using Kistler force plates. These provide information on jump height, relative maximal power and time spent in each phase of the jump/squat.
The club’s physio also requested hamstring force measurements, to establish pre-season baseline hamstring strength.

The following day, Kieran and Jack attended Falkirk’s stadium to assist with some additional testing. There, the students ran the players through some speed and agility drills, including straight sprint speed testing and the 5-0-5 agility test, using Witty timing gates to provide accurate velocity information.

Graeme Henderson, Head of Performance at Falkirk FC, was delighted with the sessions, which were also attended by Falkirk’s head coach, Paul Sheerin, and the club’s head physiotherapist, Rachel Gillen.

“The data will prove invaluable over the course of the season,” said Graeme. “It gives us an ability to provide a comparison throughout the season in relation to the physical levels we expect of our squad. It also helps with return to play protocols, should any player unfortunately suffer from injury, as we can compare to the baseline scores we now have.

“Throughout the process, the support we received from Edinburgh Napier has been excellent and highlights their ability to assist elite level athletes. The Master’s students provided insight in interpreting data, further underlining the world class level of academic learning provided at Edinburgh Napier.”

These interactions underline the University’s commitment to strengthening its existing relationship with the Scottish FA, who accredited a new undergraduate degree in Football Coaching, launched in 2019.

Marine coastal organisms benefit from oxygen fluctuations

Fluctuations of oxygen levels in marine coastal ecosystems are important to determine the response to climate change of marine fauna.

That is the finding of a paper published in June for The Royal Society, based on research involving Professor Karen Diele and Dr Marco Fusi, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Applied Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University. Both have been working with Dr Jenny Booth , who is the paper’s lead author, and Professor Christopher McQuaid of Rhodes University, South Africa. The experiments that led to the findings have been conducted in the aquarium facilities of the St Abbs Marine Station, on the south East coast of Scotland, in collaboration with Marine Station researcher Erica Chapman.

Coastal animals exist in habitats that are characterized by daily and seasonally fluctuation of environmental parameter:: for example, oxygen cycles vary between day and night and summer or winter.

Marine species evolve in this fluctuating environments and they have developed strategies to exploit cycling environmental change.

The team’s research – entitled Diel oxygen fluctuation drives the thermal response and metabolic performance of coastal marine ectotherms – published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that both velvet crabs and blue mussels normally exploit fluctuating daily oxygen supersaturation to cope with nightly oxygen undersaturation and overall to improve their thermal resistance.

The experiments that led to the findings have been conducted in the aquarium facilities of the St Abbs Marine Station (c) Jenny Booth

But as the environment alters at an increasingly fast pace, due to anthropogenic activity, the impact on natural feedback mechanisms is affecting the ability of these species to adapt to future thermal stress. The adverse impact is likely to be true for most coastal ectotherms, or animals that depend on external sources of body heat, as they rely on the same feedback mechanisms.

“The increasing metabolic demand of animals under warming are sustained by producing periodic oxygen supersaturation through coastal primary producers,” explains Marco Fusi. These are plants, algae and some bacteria that can photosynthesize.

“We demonstrate that the provision and resultant variability of oxygen by primary production are important drivers of the thermal responses of coastal animals, and the intensified response we see is foreseen to become increasingly important under future climate change,” adds Karen Diele.

This thermal response of both plants and animals results from the complex interaction of several factors, beyond temperature alone. “While primary producers will have their own specific responses to ocean warming and acidification, it is likely that coastal habitats such as seagrasses, kelp forests, mangroves and coral reefs will be important as refugia, where oxygen variation can drive the metabolic performance of animals in a changing world,” adds Marco.

“As primary producers, they are likely to have an increasingly important effect under climate warming; both on permanent residents and transient animals that use these habitats as nursery sites.

The disappearance of diverse communities of macroalgae in coastal waters is therefore a threat to biodiversity, not only through habitat loss, but also through reduced oxygen variability and the effects of this on animal thermal responses.”

The full paper can be read here

Building back better – the role of students

In the 4^th year of our BSc Physical Activity & Health, our students are given the opportunity to apply the knowledge they have acquired in their previous years – including the Gym Instructor, Personal Trainer and health coaching training – in a relevant workplace; for example, gyms, exercise referral schemes, or NHS supporting roles.

This placement lasts for one semester and is supported not only as part of their BSc programme, but by all of our employer partners that we link with through CIMSPA, our Chartered Institute.

We’re therefore keen to discuss how final year students studying for a BSc in Physical Activity & Health could contribute to supporting your organisation this autumn.

The Student Experience

Our current expectation is that placements will be virtual, with agreement for onsite activity being discussed as the placements approach, depending on Government guidance and organisation policy.

Students need:

Up to 80 hours of activity in the period from September to November 2021
A placement supervisor within the organisation to act as their point of contact
Regular weekly progress meetings as a minimum
A clearly defined remit or project brief for their role
Support to review their personal development during the placement.

Placement providers gain:

Access to a diverse, energetic, creative, ambitious and talented labour market
Engagement in the local community
Alignment of talent to meet their future organisational needs
Contribution to secure and sustained employment, and staff development.

On placement, students will see the hypothetical and real case studies they have studied throughout their programme come to life. They may work with GP referrals of real people and, through their reflective client reports, will gain experiential learning related to exercise behaviour, testing and prescription. Many case studies will have a clinical basis, and students can apply their knowledge of how complications such as obesity, depression, heart disease or cancer may affect their clients and how to best support them.

It’s a win-win situation!

To enquire about hosting a placement student this autumn, please speak to Kimberley Ritchie.

Direct Dial: 0131 455 2458

Email: sasplacements@napier.ac.uk

Behaviour change and motivation in physical activity & health

In 2020, 54% of adults in Scotland were not achieving the minimum levels of physical activity, based on our government guidelines.

Sadly, this leaves people more vulnerable to a wide range of chronic conditions, denying them the many benefits and protective effects of physical activity, such as: coronary heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes, mental health problems and social isolation.

Living more active lives also provides cost savings for our NHS, increased productivity in the workplace, and reductions in congestion and reduced air pollution through active travel.

Who wouldn’t want these benefits?

Regular physical activity is unarguably an easy route to a healthy life … if only all of us were reliably motivated to do what we know we should do … more often!

In our programmes, we recognise the complexity of human behaviour and place great emphasis on supporting our students to understand contemporary theoretical models of behaviour change and human motivation, and importantly, how to apply this knowledge through a range of techniques and approaches that motivate adherence to exercise.

For example, we teach and assess our students in a counselling approach (Motivational Interviewing) to ensure they can have conversations that compassionately support the motivation, confidence and autonomy that people need to meet complex health goals.

We also place a spotlight on understanding and addressing these issues in underserved populations in our country.

Learn more about our BSc Physical Activity and Health program.

Inspiring the nation to get more active

Together with CIMSPA and our employer partners, the School of Applied Sciences is developing a vibrant, UK-wide sport and physical activity sector (this includes a focused development board in Scotland), with the highest standards of service delivery now reflected in six professional standard endorsements for Edinburgh Napier’s BSc Physical Activity & Health.

What our BSc Physical Activity & Health is endorsed for:

CIMSPA professional standard – gym instructor
CIMSPA professional standard – personal trainer
CIMSPA professional standard – working with people with long-term conditions
CIMSPA professional standard – health navigator
CIMSPA professional standard – safeguarding and protecting children
CIMSPA professional standard – safeguarding adults and adults at risk

The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA) is the professional development body for the UK’s sport and physical activity sector, committed to supporting, developing and enabling professionals and organisations to succeed and, as a result, inspire our nation to become more active.

What does this mean our students can do … and what about their employability?

As well as a science degree that focuses on physical activity and health, students are provided with all the knowledge, skills and behaviours to meet minimum deployment standards in the health and fitness industry.
The professional standards have been developed in conjunction with employers and technical experts in order to match the demands of the role within the workplace.
As such, our CIMSPA endorsement for the professional standards detailed above, means that our program contains all the required learning and development requirements for competency in a role in the health and fitness industry.

World Food Safety Day focus on Tanzania with IDS

Over 60% of human diseases and 75% of newly emerging diseases are estimated to be transmitted from animals to man, known as zoonoses, writes Dr Nick Wheelhouse, Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier, who will host the session on 7 June.

While the Covid-19 pandemic has firmly placed the term zoonosis in the public mindset the majority of known zoonoses are endemic diseases. These infections have negative impacts upon the health, wellbeing and in many cases livelihoods of people throughout the world on a daily basis.

On World Food Safety Day (7th June) from 12pm-12.45 we are delighted to introduce speakers from the Institute of Development Studies (https://www.ids.ac.uk/) based near Brighton to talk about some of their work on food safety in Tanzania.

‘Rendering visible the hidden dynamics of meat safety amongst inspectors’ & slaughter workers’ in Northern Tanzania.’

The external speakers come from the Institute of Development Studies, which aims to deliver world-class research, learning and teaching that transforms the knowledge, action and leadership needed for more equitable and sustainable development globally.

Linda Waldman, Director of Teaching and Learning at the Institute of Development Studies

Linda Waldman is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Institute of Development Studies, and a research Fellow in the Health and Nutrition Cluster. As a social anthropologist, her research has focused on gender, civil society, ethnicity and identity in relation to poverty, pollution and health. She has published research on indigenous hunter-gatherer identities, farm workers and adolescence, environmental policy processes and sustainability, asbestos and social housing, digital health and accountability with research experience in Africa, India and the UK. Her most current research focuses on environmental health, zoonotic disease, and gender with a particular focus on bringing social science to bear on medical and policy processes.

Tabitha Hrynick is a Research Officer at the Institute of Development Studies where she has previously worked for the Hazards Associated with Zoonotic enteric pathogens in Emerging Livestock – or HAZEL – project studying risk perceptions of meat safety and meat safety management in Tanzania. She currently works for the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP) on disease epidemics and humanitarian crises, with a current focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, including COVID-19 vaccine confidence. Other areas of focus have included the governance of epidemics, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Tabitha is particularly interested in how political, social and cultural contexts shape health.

We are also delighted to have Dr Justine Alphonce Assenga join us from the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries in Tanzania to join in the discussion on some of the issues which will be discussed during the seminar.

To join us at 12pm-12.45 on 7 June please email n.wheelhouse@napier.ac.uk

School joins new UK Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network

A new national training centre in Scotland is to help drive development of opportunities emerging in vaccine manufacturing, as well as cell and gene therapy.

It is one of new three UK training centres that together form The Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network (ATSTN).

All partners in the Network will now work collaboratively to address a skills gap first identified two years ago. In 2019, The Skills Demand Survey conducted by the UK government’s Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) Catapult found rising concern among vaccine manufacturers and Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP) companies about their ability to recruit and retain skilled talent in the UK.

In fact, 83% of companies were concerned about their ability to capitalise on emerging opportunities, because skills anticipated to be essential were – at that time – missing.

Created as a direct response, ATSTN is being backed by £4.7m from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Innovate UK (IUK). Activity across all the UK partners will be coordinated by the CGT Catapult.

In Scotland, the Network’s delivery is being led by RoslinCT – a cell and gene therapy/ATMP Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) – via the RoslinCT Training Academy and The School of Applied Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University. Other delivery partners are North Ayrshire College, IBioIC, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Universities Life Science Alliance and Scottish Enterprise.

“The ATSTN is a truly collaborative initiative, developed by industry in partnership with academia, and the expertise from all three centres will create a wealth of learning resources,” said Professor Gary Hutchison, Dean of the School of Applied Sciences. “Development and delivery of our own courses for the National Training Centre is testament to the work we have been doing here at Edinburgh Napier over the last decade; delivering graduates who are work-ready and have the expertise and skills to enable the therapies of the future, including new vaccines.”

The Training Centre now aims to have its first ‘blended-learning’ courses available for delivery in Scotland by the end of 2021. Face-to-face content will be delivered at RoslinCT’s Edinburgh campus at their newly built state of the art facility.,

“We are delighted to lead the Scottish training centre,” said Janet Downie, Chief Executive at RoslinCT. “With the tremendous growth opportunities in both ATMP and vaccine manufacturing, we are all looking forward to working with The National Horizons Centre and the University of Birmingham to deliver this UK-wide training service.”

With their complementary capabilities and vast wealth of experience across GMP/GxP, manufacturing and bioprocessing, all three centres will deliver a range of specialist courses to upskill industry professionals. Further information can be obtained by contacting Nathan Barnett, Project Co-ordinator, Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network (ATSTN).

ENDS

Investigating the use of temporary accommodation to house asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 outbreak

A project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) rapid response to COVID-19, is to investigate the use of temporary accommodation to house asylum seekers during the Covid-19 outbreak. The Principal Investigator is Dr Taulant Guma, Lecturer in Human Geography at the School of Applied Sciences.

The re-housing of asylum seekers and refugees into hotels in Glasgow has been a growing social issue throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been mounting concern over the welfare of displaced individuals in the city and numerous reports of crowded living conditions and lack of available healthcare, which is leaving asylum seekers vulnerable to the Coronavirus outbreak and other social issues.

Recent moves by private sector firms to relocate asylum seekers into ‘safe environments’ have been widely criticized, particularly for the difficulties in maintaining physical distancing in new crowded, shared spaces thus increasing the risks of exposure to Covid-19.

Organisations and stakeholders representing asylum seekers have reported the fear and distress that this move has caused for asylum seekers.

Well-publicized incidents of violence and suicide by asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow hotels last year have illustrated the added pressures facing private firms who are responsible for their re-housing to implement more protocols to ensure duty of care.

In addition, this re-housing has also made it difficult for charities to provide support to affected individuals, who are moved often at short notice.

Statistical analysis has shown that BAME groups have been most affected by the Covid-19 outbreak in recent months. The role of housing vis-à-vis Covid-related risks is an area that has been identified as requiring attention in the UKRI’s call for research on BAME groups. Asylum seekers living in the UK in particular are one of the most marginalised groups in society, with most living in poverty, experiencing poor health with the pandemic placing them in one of the most at-risk groups.

The Edinburgh Napier study will adopt a digital ethnographic approach that is co-designed and co-produced with MORE (Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment), a grassroots migrant organisation run by people with experiences of asylum seeking, and the deliverables will be co-created with the partner organisation and migrant participants.

The year-long project will be headed by Dr Taulant Guma and his team includes Dr Gavin Maclean, and Dr Kiril Sharapov from the School of Applied Sciences; Dr Kirsten MacLeod from the School of Arts & Creative Industries; and Yvonne Blake and Robert Makutsa from MORE

The team will produce a social impact documentary, which will give a voice to asylum seekers’ experiences of housing during the Covid-19 pandemic in Glasgow.

“The film will have impact on several levels – through its process of production it will provide a space for dialogue and reflection allowing participants and community researchers to articulate and share the problems, issues and concerns they experience in what is an often lonely and hostile environment,” says Dr Guma.

“Our project will focus on this current and unfolding issue related to the provision of temporary accommodation for asylum seekers during the Covid-19 pandemic. It will examine what the situation is currently on the ground, how the crisis has accentuated the risk for those seeking asylum and develop responses with migrant communities to create a genuinely ‘safer environment’ for asylum seekers.”

The team’s key objectives are:

To identify factors and mechanisms which have placed asylum seekers living in temporary accommodation at greater risk of Covid-19 during this crisis.
To document the housing conditions and understand the impact of relocation from the perspectives and experiences of asylum seekers themselves.
To work with grassroots community groups to influence government policies and practices on asylum accommodation in order to address the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on those seeking asylum.
To influence media and public debate and raise awareness about the issues and challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees living in the UK.

For further information on this project contact T.Guma@napier.ac.uk