Value of award:
A full award covers tuition fees at the UK/EU rate for the duration of your PhD and an annual stipend of £14,057. 

Number of awards:
1

Start date and duration:
1 October 2015 for 3 years.

Application closing date:
The closing date is Friday 14 August 2015.  Prompt application is strongly advised.

Overview:
This is a collaborative project between the Schools of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and Computing Science of Newcastle University.  The two teams comprise the largest UK Group of applying digital technologies on livestock systems.

The availability of miniaturised, inexpensive sensing tools enables continuous monitoring of environmental conditions at a high level of detail on modern farms. Recorded multi-modal environmental data represent an extremely valuable source for automatic analysis, with the aim of optimising conditions and processes on farm.

The project will investigate the role of the variability of the environment as a risk factor for the expression of production diseases in pigs and poultry by utilizing unique, large data sets already collected through the sensor technologies on various aspects of the physical environment (for example, temperature, light, humidity, noise etc.), and associate them with existing detailed health records from EU pig and poultry systems. It will thereby take a completely data driven approach (big data analytics) to derive new insights into the impact environmental conditions have on intensive animal production systems.

The student will be given the opportunity to develop a framework for automated capture and processing of environmental and health data, and the development of an early warning decision support system. 

Sponsor:
EU FP7 project Prohealth

Name of supervisor(s):
Professor Ilias Kyriazakis, School of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development
Dr Thomas Ploetz, School of Computer Science

Eligibility Criteria:
The ideal candidate will have a first class or upper-second class honours degree (or international equivalent) in Mathematics, Statistics or Computing Science with focus on machine learning / data mining, and specifically on big data analytics.  Strong software development skills and a postgraduate qualification would be an advantage.

The award is available to UK and EU candidates only. 

How to apply:
You must apply through the University’s online postgraduate application form.  Only mandatory fields need to be completed. However, you will need to include the following information:

insert the programme code 8010F in the programme of study section 
select "PhD – Agriculture, Food and Rural Development - Animal Science” as the programme of study
insert the studentship code AG027 in the studentship/partnership reference field
attach a covering letter and CV.  The covering letter must state the title of the studentship, quote reference code AG027 and state how your interests and experience relate to the project
attach degree transcripts and certificates and, if English is not your first language, a copy of your English language qualifications
You should also email a copy of your CV and covering letter, quoting the relevant reference number, direct to Professor Ilias Kyriazakis


Contact:
For further details, please email: 
Professor Ilias Kyriazakis
(telephone: 0191 208 6859)

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