Dr Juliane Kaminski and her dog, Ambula

Domestic dogs are much more likely to steal food when they think nobody can see them, suggesting for the first time they are capable of understanding a human’s point of view.

Many dog owners think their pets are clever or that they understand humans but, until now, this has not been tested by science.

Dr Juliane Kaminski, of the University of Portsmouth’s Department of Psychology, has shown that when a human forbids a dog from taking food, dogs are four times more likely to disobey in a dark room than a lit room, suggesting they take into account what the human can or cannot see.

Dr Kaminski said: “That’s incredible because it implies dogs understand the human can’t see them, meaning they might understand the human perspective.”

This is the first study to examine if dogs differentiate between different levels of light when they are developing strategies on whether to steal food. It is published in the journal Animal Cognition. The research was funded by the Max Planck Society, Dr Kaminski’s former employer.

Dr Kaminski said: “Humans constantly attribute certain qualities and emotions to other living things. We know that our own dog is clever or sensitive, but that’s us thinking, not them.

“These results suggest humans might be right, where dogs are concerned, but we still can’t be completely sure if the results mean dogs have a truly flexible understanding of the mind and others’ minds. It has always been assumed only humans had this ability.”

The research is an incremental step in our understanding of dogs’ ability to think and understand which could, in turn, be of use to those who work with dogs, including the police, the blind and those who use gun dogs, as well as those who keep them as pets.

Dr Kaminski ran a series of experiments in varied light conditions. In each test, a dog was forbidden by a human from taking the food. When the room was dark, the dogs took more food and took it more quickly than when the room was lit.

The tests were complex and involved many variables to rule out that dogs were basing their decisions on simple associative rules, for example, that dark means food.

There is no evidence on how well dogs can see in the dark, but the results of this research show dogs can differentiate between light and dark.

Dr Kaminski said: “The results of these tests suggest that dogs are deciding it’s safer to steal the food when the room is dark because they understand something of the human’s perspective.”

Dogs’ understanding may be limited to the here and now, rather than on any higher understanding, Dr Kaminski said, and more research is needed to identify what mechanisms are controlling dogs’ behaviour.

In total, 42 female and 42 male domestic dogs aged one year or older took part in the tests. They were chosen only if they were comfortable without their owners in the room, even in complete darkness, and if they were interested in food. “Some dogs are more interested in by food than others,” Dr Kaminski said.

Previous studies have shown chimpanzees have a sophisticated understanding and seem to know when someone else can or can’t see them and can also remember what others have seen in the past. It is not known how sophisticated dogs’ understanding is in comparison. Many earlier research papers have found that, for dogs, a human’s eyes are an important signal when deciding how to behave, and that they respond more willingly to attentive humans, than inattentive ones.

Professor David Smith will be talking at the University of Portsmouth on February 20.

Professor Smith’s work involves remodelling seascapes from the past in order to understand why tsunamis happen and what we can learn from them.

Professor David Smith

The UK has been hit by two major tsunamis in the distant past.

In the 18^th century an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal caused the south coast of England to be hit by a large wave, centring on Cornwall where the waves were up to three metres high.

The other large tsunami to affect the UK occurred approximately 8,000 years ago, in 6,100 BC, when a giant underwater landslide off the coast of Norway meant the Scottish coast was hit by a series of waves. This tsunami is generally considered to have been the cause of the UK’s detachment from Denmark and The Netherlands.

Professor Smith will look at the causes of these tsunamis, and the likelihood of such events reoccurring in our lifetimes.

The event is organised in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society.

Date: Wednesday 20 February 2013

Time:6.00-7.00pm, followed by a drinks reception

Venue: Portland Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth PO1 3AH

Tickets are free, but by ticket only from eventbrite

Humour is ‘social glue’ for police and ambulance crews

Black humour, drawn from shared experiences, helps ‘glue’ ambulance crews and police officers together, with firefighters likely to be on the receiving end of the jokes, according to new research.

Dr Sarah Charman, of the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, examined the role of dark humour in the workplace of ambulance crews and police officers and found it provides comfort and creates a bond that crosses the occupational divide.

She said: “Emergency workers frequently find themselves in unpleasant and unpredictable situations at odds with the heroic status and image presented in television dramas.

“They regularly deal with death or near-death. They face messy and mortifying situations the rest of us never have to encounter.”

Dr Sarah Charman

Humour acts as social glue and what makes one person laugh can make someone else recoil, she said. Shared humour requires a degree of shared experience.

“By normalising a situation through humour, a stressful encounter can be made more manageable – humour allows people to control feelings of fear or vulnerability,” she said.

“For these people, it is often a case of if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. Both have a tension-reducing effect but it’s not socially acceptable for professionals doing their job to cry.”

The unexpected finding of the research was that while all three emergency services enjoy a camaraderie and mutual respect, firefighters are often not included and are even the target of jokes, being referred to as ‘water fairies’ and ‘drip stands’.

According to the research findings, which incorporated the views of 45 ambulance staff and police officers, firefighters ‘sleep on the job’, ‘are fed on the job’, ‘cut car roofs off unnecessarily’ and ‘hose away vital evidence’. The fact firefighters tend to be held in high esteem by the public, especially women, was also mentioned.

One police officer said: “You could say we’re not ramming it down people’s throats that we rescued a cat out of a tree.”

The humour directed at firefighters was, nonetheless, seen as light-hearted banter and, as one ambulance crew member said: “Ultimately, we are all protective of each other, we just don’t like to admit it.”

Dr Charman said one of the reasons for the apparent divide might be ambulance crew and police officers have more in common. Although their role and function is ultimately very different, both have jobs that rely on patient, calm communication skills.

She said: “What makes academics marking undergraduate essays laugh; what makes shop assistants dealing with customers laugh; and what makes ambulance crews and police officers dealing with the public laugh is culturally defined – it is based on shared experiences at work and the nature of the work.

“Risque humour demands a high degree of trust and confidence between colleagues and has the potential to be career threatening, but the humour between ambulance crews and police officers is seen by them as unremittingly positive.”

The camaraderie emerged on the job. In interviews they used phrases about the other which included, ‘in tune with’, ‘like-minded’, ‘have a natural affinity with’, ‘reciprocal respect’, ‘friendly’ and ‘fun’.

Shared gallows humour was the single most important factor in the work they did together and was mentioned by nearly all those interviewed, who described it as ‘inappropriate’, ‘warped’, ‘bizarre’ and ‘slightly sick’. Both parties also described a tacit mutual understanding, an unspoken agreement to not use such humour with friends, family or members of the public.

Dr Charman said a mutually defined ‘joke book’ written for and by members reinforces combined cultural identity; acts as glue in a way outsiders might see as trivial; helps build a strong reliance on each other’s skills and qualities in difficult situations; and fosters a strong degree of trust and rapport.

She added that further research was needed to give a voice to the firefighters, to understand their position within this tripartite relationship.

The research is published in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.

Kristina Angelova with Fleur Emery of Grasshopper at the 2010 Enterprise Challenge Awards

Kristina Angelova, who is studying BA (Hons) Business Studies, was nominated by her employer Bradbeers, where she spent her third year working on placement as an e-commerce and digital marketing manager. She is one of only four finalists in the Best Student Contribution to a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise category.

In their fourth year, the awards recognise and celebrate the achievements of employers, universities and students involved in undergraduate placements and internships. Stephen Davies, part-owner of Smith Bradbeer & Co, which has several department and furniture stores in the south of England, said: “Kristina is highly respected by me and her co-workers. During her time here, she has had an amazing impact on the company. She is hard working, dedicated and a great person to have in your team.”

Emma Winter, Kristina’s supervisor at the University during her placement, said: “She really is incredibly driven. Yet she has the ability to remain level headed, keep a sense of humour and be thoroughly likeable as well. I hope she inspires other students.”

Kristina was previously nominated for the award of Most Employable Young Talent in the UK at the Google and Entrepreneur Country Young Masters Awards 2012, and was runner-up in the 2011 Business Champions team competition, organised by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bright Futures. She was also the 2010 winner in the Rising Star category at the Enterprise Challenge Awards, organised by the University of Portsmouth.

The awards ceremony takes place on Friday February 15 in London.

Professor Mike Tipton

Scientists at the University of Portsmouth are looking into why more athletes die during the swim compared to the cycling or running sections of a triathlon. They also want to know why these swimmers die during the competition itself but not during training.

Of the 38 athlete deaths in American triathlons between 2003 and 2011, 30 occurred during the swim. None of those who died had any pre-existing health problems.

Professor Mike Tipton, who runs the Extreme Environments Laboratory in the University’s Department of Sport and Exercise Science, believes these deaths could be caused by a phenomenon called Autonomic Conflict. This is the first time this concept has been applied to competitive swimming.

Autonomic Conflict takes place when the body’s cold shock response and diving response are activated at the same time. The cold shock response speeds up the heart rate and causes hyperventilation, whereas the diving response slows the heart rate down to conserve oxygen.

In an online commentary written for the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Professor Tipton said: “Normally the two responses don’t happen at the same time, but when they do, the heart can go into abnormal rhythms, which can cause sudden cardiac death.”

The cold shock response can be caused by anxiety, competitiveness and the body entering cold water. The diving response is caused by facial wetting, extended breath holding and water entering the nasal passage. Although many of these factors are present to some degree during training, anxiety and competitiveness are more likely during the competition.

According to Professor Tipton, the confused mass swim in the competition, not present in training, can also require extended breath holds and cause more water to enter the nasal passage.

“The increase in these factors makes Autonomic Conflict more likely during the competition than in training,” he said.

Professor Tipton conducted earlier research with Professor Mike Shattock from King’s College London that linked submersion in cold water to Autonomic Conflict and sudden cardiac death. This included experiments using isolated rat hearts, the results of which were published in the Journal of Physiology last year. He has also conducted experiments involving helicopter underwater escape training. The results were published in the journal Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine in 2010. He intends to do further research to determine how open swimming deaths could be prevented.

He said: “Possible solutions involve the prevention of swimmers coming together at the start or during the race, by introducing wave starts and longer distances before turns.”

Professor Jim Smith, Professor in Environmental Physics at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Professor Jim Smith

, will be giving a talk entitled “From Chernobyl to Fukushima: predicting the consequences of nuclear accidents”.

The Fukushima disaster was the biggest nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

In the wake of the Chernobyl accident, large areas of land became highly contaminated with radioactive caesium, causing long term evacuation of tens of thousands of people and bans on foodstuffs from the affected areas.  Following Fukushima the current situation is similar, though smaller areas of land are affected.

Based on his extensive experience studying the environmental impacts of the Chernobyl accident, Professor Jim Smith will discuss the risks of radiation to human and environmental health.

Dr Rob Strachan, Head of the School of Earth and Environmental Science, said “Jim has gained international success and respect in his field, and his work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Nature. I have no doubt that the talk will be insightful and forward thinking.”

Using research carried out in the years after Chernobyl, Professor Smith will try to predict when people will be able to return to the Fukushima contaminated lands and what will happen to these areas if they remain uninhabited.

Professor Smith has been working in and around Pripyat, the location of the Chernobyl disaster, for over ten years and has gained a substantial reputation in the field.

He is a former member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Expert Group on Chernobyl and is currently Chairman of the UK Coordinating Group on Environmental Radioactivity (COGER).

Date: Wednesday 6 February 2013

Time: 6.00-7.00pm, followed by a drinks reception

Venue: Portland Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth PO1 3AH

Admission is free but by ticket only from http://jimsmith.eventbrite.co.uk/

Portsmouth continues to attract quality undergraduate students

The University of Portsmouth has seen a six per cent rise in applications for undergraduate courses starting this autumn, compared to last year.

The rise is more than double the 2.8 per cent rise in applications nationally.

The University received 26,503 applications by the UCAS deadline of January 15. UCAS announced the figures for 2013 entry today.

Those hoping to study at Portsmouth have shown a particularly strong interest in traditional subjects including the sciences, accounting with finance and law.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, Professor John Craven, said the rise in applications for places to study at Portsmouth was excellent.

He said: “We continue to attract well qualified undergraduate students and we are particularly pleased to see a resurgence in those interested in studying subjects which employers value highly.

“Portsmouth continues to attract good quality students, including a very good number who achieve AAB at A-level.”

At subject level, psychology attracted 296 more applications than the previous year; accounting with finance attracted 184 more; sport and exercise science attracted 118 more; and environmental science attracted 103 more.

The University has also seen an 80 per cent rise in applicants for biochemistry and a 55 per cent rise in applicants for applied physics.

The increase nationally in the number who applied to study at universities in 2013 comes despite a slight demographic dip in the number of 18 year olds, who make up the majority of traditional university undergraduate course applicants.

Students will be offering advice on legal and consumer matters

Law students from the University of Portsmouth are offering free-of-charge legal advice to local residents.

The students, from the School of Law, have set up two advice clinics, one focusing on debt and money, and the other focusing on consumer issues. From September 2013, accounting students will  also be providing advice in the debt and money advice clinic.

The clinics will be based in the John Pounds Centre in Portsea, Portsmouth, and run on Wednesday afternoons.

The debt clinic opened its doors on Wednesday 23 January and the consumer clinic will start on the 30 January. Both clinics run every week, and are open from 13:00 – 17:00.

To make an appointment, members of the public should contact Vicki Brown by phone on 02392844114 or via email at vicki.brown@port.ac.uk.

Students working at the debt clinic will offer advice for people who have trouble budgeting as well as helping with more serious matters, such as bankruptcy.

All work undertaken in the clinic will be overseen by solicitor Gemma Hargrave.  Gemma, who is employed by the University on a part-time basis, said: “In the current economic climate, and with the recent rise in popularity of ‘pay day loan’ companies, the issue of personal debt has never been more pressing. We will be able to design realistic budgets and devise payment plans that will get consumers out of debt as quickly as possible.“

The consumer clinic will offer advice on faulty goods and issues with provision of services.

Dr Damian Carney, Director of Clinical Legal Education in the School of Law, who will be on hand to advise and guide the students , said: “We will be offering advice on all types of consumer affairs. For example, if someone feels they are being charged unfairly for their mobile phone contract we will be able to look through the contract with them and see if it is enforceable.”

Sharing career secrets: IoW Festival manager John Giddings

One of the lucky few who have managed to build a career out of their passion for music, John Giddings, is Portsmouth Business School’s guest speaker at its open evening on February 12.

John is managing director of Solo, which has staged the Isle of Wight Festival for the past decade.

He will discuss how hard work, a passion for music and a little bit of luck helped him build his career promoting musicians including the Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Kasabian and Snow Patrol, and culminated in him running the Isle of Wight Festival. ‌

John said: “I was one of the lucky few who knew at the age of 18 what I wanted to do with my life, but I wasn’t sure then how to make it happen.

“I have been fortunate enough to do what I love and to make a career out of it and I’m more than happy to share some of the things I learned about making the most of opportunities you are given.”

John will also talk about the problems that plagued the festival last year, and how he dealt with upset festival-goers and the media throughout a tense week of rain, rain and more rain.

The talk on Tuesday, February 12, runs from 5.30-7.30pm – to register visit www.showyoumeanbusiness.com

Opening doors: Hafsa Bibi

A computing student at the University of Portsmouth has won a place at the prestigious Women in Technology event run for women studying traditionally male-dominated subjects.

Hafsa Bibi, in her second year of a computing degree at the University’s Faculty of Technology, was one of just a few young women from the region to be offered a place.

The biannual event, called ‘IT’s not just for the boys!’, took place at Bloomberg headquarters in London as part of the Steminism UK network. The event aims to provide information, support and guidance about careers for women studying science, technology, engineering and maths, commonly called STEM subjects.

Hafsa said: “The event was really inspiring; I met a lot of females in technology and networked with many different people in the industry. The networking was particularly enjoyable as I got to meet and talk to professional women from a variety of companies.

“There was a session with a confidence coach which was fun, but also very useful, and a question time session, where we could ask top female employers about who and what they were looking for, how they got to where they are now and what the industry is really like.

“It was interesting to hear about the different routes that women had taken to become successful in their careers.”

The event was run by Target Jobs in partnership with global technology giants including IBM and Microsoft.

Emily Parry, senior student employability and enterprise officer at the University, said: “Many STEM industries are male dominated, so events like this highlight career routes for female graduates and will hopefully go some way to helping redress the balance.

“I’m delighted that Hafsa took advantage of such a prestigious opportunity. She was one of only a handful in our region to be selected. It’s really helped her think about the type of career roles she might pursue – not only for her industrial placement in the next academic year, but also once she graduates.”