Archive for February 26, 2016

Radiography (ISSN 1078-8174) is an international peer reviewed journal of radiography and radiation therapy. In 2015, as the official Journal of the Society and College of Radiographers, Radiography was circulated in print to over 23,000 people.  In 2015 there were over 10,000 institutions in 116 countries that had a ScienceDirect account that included access to the Journal and during 2015 more than 200,00 articles were downloaded from this platform.

Each year, like many journals, Radiography’s editors select the best papers in their opinion. This is done objectively using set criteria. Last year, four papers were selected with one considered to be the best paper and three being highly commended / second place. Two of these four top papers were co-authored by Professor Peter Hogg and Dr Claire Mercer from the School of Health Sciences.

In first place was “Breast composition: Measurement and clinical use”, Radiography, Volume 21, Issue 4, November 2015, Pages 324-333, E.U. Ekpo, P. Hogg, R. Highnam, M.F. McEntee. The paper was worked up by a multinational team from Nigeria, UK, New Zealand and Australia and is an extensive critical review of the relationship between breast cancer and breast density. It explains the value of breast density estimations using mammography and how such estimations can be used to help classify women into low and high risk groups for cancer development and therefore screening.

Joint second place is “A 6-year study of mammographic compression force: Practitioner variability within and between screening sit

The CIOB’s Bowen Jenkins Legacy Research Fund will award construction research projects with up to £10,000 each. 

University of Salford is amongst the six projects to be awarded for its: ‘Long-term Sustainability of Post-disaster Housing Reconstruction Projects’ by Dr Bingunath Ingirige (UoS) and Dr Gayan Wedawatta MCIOB (Aston University).

Throughout August 2015 the third research summer school for optimising radiation dose and image quality (‘OPTIMAX 2015’) was held in Groningen, The Netherlands.

Fifty three people participated, including PhD, MSc, BSc students and tutors from physics, radiography and nuclear medicine. Throughout the summer school five empirical pieces of research were conducted in multinational teams and these will be presented at the European Congress of Radiology, Vienna, Austria in March 2016.

Aside this important outcome was the production of an open source book (OPTIMAX 2015, Multicultural team-based research in radiography, a holistic educational approach) which can be downloaded for free (http://usir.salford.ac.uk/38008/). The book contains 11 chapters. These chapters include the five empirical pieces of research and also five review chapters. The review chapters are based upon information sessions delivered as group work and lectures during the first summer school week.

The next OPTIMAX summer school will be held throughout August 2016 at the University of Salford.

Scientists have opened a door to faster, cheaper telecommunications after proving a new link between silicon chips and ‘rare-earth’ metals used in internet signalling.

Silicon is the ‘gold standard’ semiconductor at the heart of the computer industry but lacks the ability to produce, detect and amplify the light signals that are sent down optical fibre. For the amplification of these light signals, we rely on rare-earth elements, which were thought to not interact optically with silicon.

However physicists at Salford and the University of Surrey have made a novel discovery by showing for the first time, that light can be generated by an electron ‘jumping’ directly between silicon and rare-earths.

“The electronic data in silicon chips needs to be converted into light to send down optical fibre, then back to electronic data, by separate devices. If the conversion between electronic and light signals can happen on a silicon chip, it would streamline the way data travels around the world,” explains Dr Mark Hughes, lecturer in physics at Salford.

‘Channel Tunnel factor’

“It’s the Channel Tunnel factor. Instead of having to change from a train to the ferry and then back to the train, you would have one single train journey. It would be a major step forward.”

Rare-earths usually give off light at very specific colours or ‘wavelengths’, and silicon doesn’t usually give off any light at all. However, the physicists implanted the rare-earth elements cerium, europium and ytterbium into silicon and found that not only did it give off light, but the wavelengths emitted by the rare-earths had been shifted to those that can be used in optical fibre. The shift in wavelength showed that there must have been a jump or ‘transition’ of an electron from silicon to the other elements

We are very delighted to present our latest conference – the Future of Human Resource Summit and Exhibition hosted by the University of Salford.

The University of Salford is committed to actively improving the well-being of workforce, enhancing the effectiveness of human recourse management practice, as well as promoting the organisational performance and business competitiveness. We want all employees, regardless of experience, qualification or circumstance to achieve their full potential in their workplace.

UPRISE Research Fellow, Dr Sophie King, has recently returned from a research design workshop in Kampala in support of a collaborative international initiative which is asking ‘what shapes state vision, commitment and capacity to reduce urban poverty in Ugandan towns and cities?’

The research is being co-produced with the Ugandan Alliance – a partnership between the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (an affiliate of the international social movement Slum/Shack Dwellers International – SDI) and their support NGO ACTogether Uganda.

A recently-published book, which looks at the sociology of work and employment, boasts a number of varied connections to the University.

The principal editor of The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Work and Employment is Stephen Edgell, who was appointed lecturer at the University in 1970 and is currently a (semi-) retired Research Professor of Sociology here.

In 1988, Stephen visited Wayne State University (WSU), in Detroit, to help set up a staff and student exchange programme – which still continues today. It was at WSU that he met Professor Heidi Gottfried, who is co-editor of the handbook.

The other co-editor, Edward Granter, obtained his PhD in Sociology from Salford in 2008 and published it as a book entitled Critical Social Theory and the End of Work. He is now a lecturer in People, Management and Organizations at Manchester Business School.

The Handbook shows how the contours of work and employment are changing dramatically and is intended to help researchers, teachers, students and practitioners understand the impact of these changes on individuals, groups, organizations and societies.

The Handbook also features other contributions from academics and alumni of the University. Professor Abigail Gregory, Associate Dean Internationalisation, School of Arts & Media, contributed a chapter on work-life balance. She is Professor of Comparative Sociol

In August 2015 some BSc radiography students from the University of Salford went to Groningen, The Netherlands, to participate in an intensive 3 week residential summer school to conduct team based multinational research into diagnostic imaging. Participating countries included South Africa, UK, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway, UK and The Netherlands. There were almost 60 participants. Five research teams were formed.

Dr Anya Ahmed, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, Social Work and Social Sciences and Diversity and Inclusivity Lead in the Salford Institute for Dementia has been awarded a Joint Health and Well-Being Innovation grant from Salford City Council. The funds will enable her to conduct a study on promoting diversity and inclusiveness in dementia services.

The project aims to improve access to dementia services for Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in Salford, increase carer identification and registration, and raise awareness of the needs of Salford’s diverse communities.

Dr Ahmed said: ‘It is timely to conduct this study as Salford’s minority ethnic population has increased and diversified over the last decade. Although the National Dementia Strategy emphasises that health and social care staff should take account of BME dementia needs, service providers report challenges in ensuring BME people are included. We also see lower levels of dementia awareness and higher levels of stigma associated with the condition among minority communities.”

This study builds on Dr Ahmed’s previous diversity and inclusiveness research in dem

Congratulations to Dr Antonia Wood who recently completed her Ph.D. titled: Challenging Occupational Norms: An Ethnographic Study of Female Prison Officers in a Women’s Prison.

Having gained a first class Honours degree in Criminology from Manchester Metropolitan University, she went on to gain further knowledge in the subject by completing the MRes in Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies at The University of Manchester. Following a successful application and interview she took the role of Graduate Teaching Assistant (now known as Graduate Teaching Student) and embarked on her PhD journey under the guidance of Dr Elaine Crawley and Dr Muzammil Quraishi at the University of Salford. In summary, her PhD thesis was based upon an ethnographic exploration of female prison officers in a women’s prison in the North-West of England. The findings make contributions to debates around staff-prisoner relationships, mental illness in prison and gendered empathy.

At the University of Salford she had the opportunity to present h