Bangor International June 2014

BANGOR INTERNATIONAL June 2014 Bangor University scientists take part in world-wide ocean health check Scientists at Bangor University joined forces with marine scientists across the world on 21 June to take part in an ambitious global research project – Ocean Sampling Day.

Bangor University Lecturers Receive Top UK Teaching Award

The School of Biological Sciences joined 150 research organisations from Iceland to Anatartica and from Moorea (French Polynesia) to South Africa to study and health check the world’s oceans.

Scientists across the globe took samples of seawater on the mid-summer’s day to form the biggest marine research initiative that has ever taken place on a single day.

Professor Peter Golyshin’s team at the School of Biological Sciences sampled the Menai Strait on Ocean Sampling Day. Professor Golyshin explained: “The research findings will help us to better understand the sea at the microbial level, to determine the composition of microbial communities, their diversity and their contribution in maintaining marine environment health.”

Research colleague Dr Tran Hai added: “Today, scientists have the expertise, the tools but not the data and I am proud that Bangor University can contribute to this world event by sampling the UK coastal waters.”

This worldwide effort is coordinated jointly by Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany and University of Oxford, UK. It is funded by the European Union.

Professor James Intriligator

Peggy Murphy

Professor James Intriligator and Peggy Murphy of Bangor University’s College of Health & Behavioural Sciences have been made National Teaching Fellows.

This is the most prestigious award that can be made to recognise excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning.

College of Health & Behavioural Sciences commented: “The fact that the Schools of Healthcare Sciences and Psychology have members of staff who have been awarded this prestigious Award reflects the fantastic teaching and learning that students experience across the College. As a College we are determined to deliver the best possible student experience, with research informed teaching designed to provide both academic and employability knowledge and skills. External recognition, such as this, highlights the high standards we achieve at Bangor University.”

Awarded by the Higher Education Academy, the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme recognises and rewards excellent learning and teaching and is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland (DELNI).

Prof Nicky Callow, Dean of the www.bangor.ac.uk/international

They both join Dr Charles Buckley of the School of Education and Dr Fay Short of the School of Psychology as members of Bangor University to receive this award.

Research News

Mexican Ambassador visits Bangor University

W Wuster

Identifying mechanisms that affect changes in snake venoms Every year, snakebites kill up to 90,000 people, mostly in impoverished, rural tropical areas.

This statistic is surprising when one considers that antivenoms are available, however, the truth is that the efficacy of antivenom is largely restricted to the snake species that was used in manufacture, and they are often ineffective in treating snakebite by different, even closely related species.

Writing in PNAS (doi.10.1073/pnas.

1405484111) Dr Nicholas Casewell and Wolfgang Wüster of Bangor University and colleagues identify the mechanisms by which the variations in venom occurs between related snake species and also the significant variations in venom toxicity that occurs as a result.

The findings underscore challenges to developing broad-spectrum snakebite treatments.

The paper’s authors suggest that gene and protein expression influences venom content across species. Changes in the composition of venom toxins between snake species also caused differences in venom function, by affecting the ability of different venoms to cause haemorrhage and coagulation.

More importantly, antivenom produced by immunising sheep with the venom of one species of saw-scaled viper was ineffective at neutralising the venoms of the Saharan horned viper, puff adder, and another species of saw-scaled viper, highlighting how changes in venom composition can adversely affect snakebite therapy.

L-R: Bangor University's Vice-Chancellor Prof. John G Hughes, Romayne Wheeler, Romeyno Gutierrez, Mexican Ambassador, His Excellency Diego Gomez Pickering, Matthias Wurz, Bangor University PhD student & Cor y Traeth's Music Director The Mexican Ambassador, His Excellency Diego Gomez Pickering attended a concert at Powis Hall, Bangor University on 15 June, the concert was organised to help raise funds for one of Mexico's oldest cultures, the ancient Tarahumara of Sierra Madre.

The concert was kindly supported by the Mexican Embassy in the UK and featured American-born pianist and composer Romayne Wheeler, invited

by Cor y Traeth's Music Director, Austrian-born conductor and music researcher Matthias Wurz, the internationally acclaimed musician was joined by one of the long-standing male-choirs of the Isle of Anglesey.

"I have known Romayne Wheeler for many years now, and I collaborated with him in the past, I am glad to be able to use my international music contacts and it brings music-making much closer to the communities.” said Matthias Wurz, who was born in Vienna and was a member of the famous Vienna Boys Choir.

The proceeds of the concerts will be donated to the Tarahumara Relief Fund, a Mexican-based non-profit organisation set up by Romayne Wheeler to help improve the living conditions of Tarahumara, whose traditional life is threatened by global warming and Western civilisation. The fund also built and runs a Health Centre at the remote village of Retosachi, thus providing essential health services for 400 families.

New International Student Ambassadors Appointed

Research News

Pioneering new method of plant breeding A pioneering new method of plant breeding is improving the livelihoods of over 5M households in India and Nepal.

Bangor University’s International Student Ambassadors The International Education Centre held an informal lunch on the 11th July to celebrate the achievements of our current international student ambassadors and to also welcome our newly appointed international ambassadors. Bangor University currently has 30 international student ambassadors who support international students from the application process right up to their graduation day.

Alan Edwards, Head of International Student Support said, “The International Student Ambassador scheme is a very important part of the University’s work in offering a welfare and support service which is both welcoming and informative. The Ambassadors are students who have already been through the process of adapting to life in a new country and culture and can therefore give prospective students advice on what to expect, as well as being able to offer support to students who are already here. They play an important role in helping new international students to settle in to life at Bangor and are a valuable source of advice and information, especially during the first few weeks of term.

Many prospective students commented last year that they found it very helpful to be able to contact an Ambassador and obtain information on what student life is really like at Bangor. As students themselves, the Ambassadors can provide a better perspective on what being a student here is like. In addition, several students have said they would not have settled in so well if they hadn’t met the Ambassadors when they first arrived. The social events organized by the Ambassadors also went a long way in helping students to make friends at Bangor. These events and trips gave them an opportunity to meet others from their home country as well as students from all over the world in a friendly and relaxed setting.”

For further information on the international student ambassadors scheme, see here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/studentlife/features/ambassadors.php

The novel approach, selective plant breeding, was originally developed by Prof John Witcombe at Bangor University to meet the identified needs of resource-poor farmers in the more arid regions of Gujarat, India. He works with indigenous farmers and consumers, introducing properties that are desired by farmers into rice and maize varieties and incorporating on-farm varietal testing and farmers' experiences. This method has produced new varieties of rice and maize which are highly adapted to the requirements and preferences of local farmers, which in turn improves their adoption and spread among the farming community.

In India, two 'Ashoka' rice varieties alone (200F and 228) are estimated to provide benefits of £17M annually to the poorest farming households. These varieties are popular for their high yield, grain quality, superior taste and fodder yield.

Their early harvest provides food during lean periods and their pest and drought resistance results in low cost and labour requirements.

In real terms, these direct benefits can allow farmers to plant additional crops or devote time to non-agricultural activities, providing extra income and permitting them to send their children to school.

Bangor attends Libya’s first Higher Education Forum

Bangor University opens up students to Brazilian Music and Culture

L-R: Wedad Elmaalul, PhD student from Libya studying in Bangor University & Noor Al-Zubaidi, International Officer for Bangor University

Bangor University attended the first Libya Higher Education Forum in London in June. The forum included academic Chancellors and Deans, leading scholars, and experts from Oil and Gas companies.

The forum provided a dynamic hub for Keynote speakers from both Libya and the UK, including the Libyan Cultural Attaché. The forum included panel discussions, one-to-one sessions, interactive workshops with decision makers and key leaders in Libyan education. Dr Madhi Gibani, consultant Physician & Nephrologist at Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board was a key speaker in the event. Dr Gibani is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate medical teaching and also works closely with the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences at Bangor University, he highlighted aspects of living and studying in the UK/Bangor in his speech. Dr Gibani was awarded the MBE in 2013 in recognition for his distinguished service to medicine with special reference to developing an outstanding home therapy program in the region.

This event highlighted the importance for UK universities to facilitate the placement process for the 16,000 Libyan students who have been awarded Libyan Government sponsorships to pursue their higher education studies across different disciplines.

Right: Dr Jochen Eisentraut, of Bangor University in Brazil With the World Cup here, Bangor University students can opt to sign up to learn about the world of Brazilian music, dance and culture.

As the eyes of the world turn towards Brazil for the FIFA World Cup this summer, one North Wales academic is preparing to give students at Bangor a taste of the country’s vibrant music and culture.

Dr Jochen Eisentraut, a music lecturer at Bangor University, has visited Brazil to investigate the growing interest among Westerners in the country’s culture, from samba to capoeira.

Bangor University students keen to learn more about that culture will get the chance to sign up for a module on Brazilian music and culture when they return after the summer break.

Dr Eisentraut said: “Brazil is a country of fascinating cultures, cities and landscapes, there is great beauty and wealth. Most of all though, I see it as a part of the world which is full of excitement, energy and dynamism.”

Dr Eisentraut is the first from Bangor University to gain a British Academy International Partnership and Mobility Grant.The grant, worth £10,000, enables academics to link with a university abroad for research and teaching.

Dr Eisentraut has previously carried out fieldwork in the Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia, and the grant is helping him forge links with the Universidade Federal da Bahia, where he has given seminars and workshops and participated in many discussions with students and staff.

Dr Eisentraut said: “I also teach an introduction to music cultures which gives students a taste of the incredible richness of the world’s music. We look at Arabic, Japanese and Hungarian music for instance and what they mean to people. We now have an exciting new collection of exotic instruments so the students will be able to get hands-on experience.”

Celebrations for ELCOS Students

Supercomputers used to model disaster scenarios

Chris Headland (left), a PhD student at the School of Computer Sciences, Bangor University with the students that will be participating

Students from across the globe came together at Bangor University recently to celebrate their achievement of passing pre-sessional English for Academic Purposes courses.

Twenty five students in all completed the 2013-14 full-time pre-sessional courses of English for academic purposes which developed the students’ level of English language use and study skills for entry to Bangor University in the coming academic year. The courses were run by the English Language Centre for Overseas Students (ELCOS) which is part of the University’s International Education Centre (IEC).

The students came from China and the Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq and Kurdistan and the majority of those who were awarded with a certificate were postgraduate. All will be back in Bangor in October for their academic programmes.

Professor Carol Tully, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience presented the certificates and said: “The students have worked very hard on these intensive academic courses and we’re very proud of their achievements. We look forward to welcoming them back to Bangor in September.”

Bangor welcomes visiting Professor from Shanghai Jiaotong University In May Bangor Law School welcomed a Visiting Professor from one of China’s leading universities.

Professor Fan Jinxue, from the Law School of Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, will spend a year at Bangor. He holds a Professorship in Constitution and Jurisprudence, a PhD from Wuhan University and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Renmin University. He is one of the most prestigious and influential scholars in Chinese constitution and has published widely in this field. Before joining Shanghai Jiaotong University, Professor Fan was a Professor at Shandong University Law School, where he also served as the Vice Dean.

The Law School welcomes Professor Fan to Bangor and wishes him well during his one-year stay.

Undergraduate students from the School of Computer Science at Bangor University will be using supercomputers to run programmes that can predict how lethal disease might spread, or how people are likely to react in a disaster.

The project will see the students develop an agent-based modelling toolkit, specifically designed for use on a High Performance Computer. By using a HPC system to program, the students will be able to run thousands of simulations simultaneously, allowing them to improve the accuracy of the predictive models through aggregated results. These agent-based modelling toolkits (computer models) can run on normal computers but with very limited results.

The high performance computers speed things up so thousands of simulations take hours, rather than weeks to run. This means that averages can be taken from a larger number of scenarios, enabling more accurate prediction.

The project supervisor is Chris Headland, a PhD student at the School of Computer Science, who himself is researching this area of computing. He said: "I am delighted that HPC Wales will be supporting the development of this idea. It will be great research and work experience for our students, I'm looking forward to helping them."

www.bangor.ac.uk/international

Country Representatives Bing Li

Sukhjinder Bhatti

Maggie Parke

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388207 Email: b.li@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388874 Email: s.bhatti@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388416 Email: maggie.parke@bangor.ac.uk

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka International students in the UK

Argentina Brazil Canada Chile

Sarah Jones-Morris

Noor Al-Zubaidi

Michael Rogerson

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388843 Email: s.jones-morris@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 382879 Email: n.al-zubaidi@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 382879 Email: m.rogerson@bangor.ac.uk

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Brunei Russia Indonesia Singapore Kazakhstan Thailand Malaysia Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon

Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Libya

European Union Countries

Mainland China Hong Kong Japan Vietnam

South Korea Taiwan Philippines

Oman Saudi Arabia Turkey UAE Qatar

Upcoming Visits for 2014 We shall be visiting the following countries during 2014: Bangladesh Bahrain Brazil Cameroon China Ghana Hong Kong India Indonesia Iraq

Kuwait Malaysia Nigeria Pakistan Saudi Arabia Singapore Thailand Turkey USA Vietnam

Please do contact us if you would like one of our international oďŹƒcers to visit your school or if you need any advice.

W: www.bangor.ac.uk/international E: international@bangor.ac.uk

Colombia Mexico USA

International Summer School: Ocean Sciences 14 - 25 July 2014

A unique opportunity to study marine science in a setting where the ocean is just outside the door. Students will spend time in the laboratories at Bangor and on the Prince Madog research vessel.

For further information please visit here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/international/summerschool/os-programme.php

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