Towards a general mechanism for quantification and classification of equine lameness

Posted on by

Royal Veterinary College

University of London

RVC Supervisor(s):

Dr.-Ing. Thilo Pfau, Professor Jim Usherwood

SLU Uppsala Supervisors:

Associate Professor Marie Rhodin, and Dr Elin Hernlund,

Department:

Clinical Science and Services/ Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry

Project Summary:

Quantification of equine lameness has progressed rapidly into the clinical lameness examination. However, a general mechanism for the underlying locomotor principles allowing a unified approach to the different exercises typically performed in a lameness examination is missing. Upper body movement is related to the force distribution between contralateral limbs and withers movement can distinguish between forelimb and hind limb related issues. However, it is essential to investigate the underlying locomotor principles to evaluate the potential of exercises such as lungeing and surfaces with different mechanical properties for discrimination between different locomotor impairments and to predict the discriminatory potential of novel exercises going beyond the ‘state-of-the-art’.

In this project, the PhD student will access a multitude of data sets available through SLU Uppsala and the RVC covering clinical gait analysis data as well as data from previous experimental studies. These cover a wide range of experimental conditions for example data collected from horses with induced lameness, horses assessed before/after NSAID treatment and horses fitted with orthotic lifts. Data bases contain data collected with optical motion capture, inertial measurement units and force platforms and provide a unique platform for in depth investigations of important aspects such as the potential of processing methods, anatomical landmarks, surfaces and straight versus circular movement. Investigations will be based on ‘traditional’ statistical testing compared to expert opinions (clinical records) independently establishing sensitivity and specificity of specific exercises for detecting lameness and/or deterioration/improvement of lameness as well as machine learning approaches aiming at correctly classifying locomotor patterns with emphasis on dealing with incomplete data sets, i.e. dealing with the real world constraint of not all exercise conditions being available in each case.

This project will provide the student with exciting learning opportunities in the fields of quadrupedal locomotor biomechanics utilizing a variety of data collection and processing methods as well as advanced statistical testing and implementation of machine learning techniques.

References

  1. Bell, R.P., Reed, S.K., Schoonover, M.J., Whitfield, C.T., Yonezawa, Y., Maki, H., Pai, P.F. and Keegan, K.G. (2016) Associations of force plate and body-mounted inertial sensor measurements for identification of hind limb lameness in horses. Am. J. Vet. Res. 77, 337–345.
  1. Vertz, J., Deblanc, D., Rhodin, M. and Pfau, T. (2018) Effect of a unilateral hind limb orthotic lift on upper body movement symmetry in the trotting horse. 1–14.
  1. Rhodin, M., Persson-Sjodin, E., Egenvall, A., Serra Braganca, F., Pfau, T., Roepstorff, L., Weishaupt, M., Thomsen, M.H., Weeren, P.R. van, Hernlund, Elin, Egenvall, A. and Braganca, F.M.S. (2018) Vertical movement symmetry of the withers in horses with induced forelimb and hindlimb lameness at trot.

Requirements

Student does not need to have veterinary degree. Experience with equine biomechanics, in particular measurement of movement with cameras or sensors is desirable.

No work with laboratory animals. PhD is based on clinical data from camera and sensor based gait analysis systems and contribution to collection of prospective clinical data in ongoing cases at RVC and SLU Uppsala.

This is a 3 year fully-funded studentship open to Home/EU applicants. International students are welcome to apply but must be able to fund the difference between UK/EU and international tuition fees. The studentship will commence in October 2019 but could be earlier if a suitable candidate is available.

If you are interested in applying for this position, please follow the link below.  Please use your personal statement to demonstrate any previous skills or experience you have in using both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

How to Apply

For more information on the application process and English Language requirements see How to Apply.

Interviews will take place at the end of July RVC’s Hawkshead Campus  with Video Link to SLU Sweden.

We welcome informal enquiries – Thilo Pfau, tpfau@rvc.ac.uk

Deadline: 30/06/2019

For more information please click here.

For more information on Continuing Education in your Veterinary Career please refer to our Dr.-Ing. Thilo Pfau.

Empathy for Animals (EFA) Scholarship Award for Veterinary Students 2019-2020 – United States

Posted on by

    Empathy for Animals (EFA)

The Pet Life Today (PLT) Empathy for Animals Veterinary Scholarship Award (2019-2020) is open to veterinary students enrolled in veterinary studies, animal sciences or a similar undergraduate program at an accredited university, and is awarded annually in the amount of $500.

One of our goals at PLT is to raise awareness of animal cruelty in society and promote the public understanding of research that supports animal empathy and compassion. The EFA Scholarship is one way we can advance this mission, while also helping the next generation of animal advocates and future veterinary professionals reach their academic goals.

Quick Links:
Who can Apply?
Scholarship Qualifications
Recipient Information
Student Scholarship Criteria
Application Requirements and Deadline
How to Apply
List of Winners

Who can Apply?

Applicants in good academic standing, with extracurricular community experience or demonstrated passion for animal advocacy and an interest in working to fight animal cruelty.

We’re looking for applicants with an educational and personal history of working to educate the public about the mistreatment of animals in today’s society and a commitment to reshaping the treatment of animals in local communities across the nation.

If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear your story.

Scholarship Qualifications

To qualify, applicants must demonstrate both academic distinction in pre-veterinary or animal sciences studies, as well as a financial need. This scholarship will be awarded to students with career interests in clinical veterinary medicine, animal research and related areas.

The award aims to expand the duties of veterinary professionals to encompass fostering dialogue with communities, and participating in educational efforts aimed at promoting public understanding of animal research as well as the ongoing efforts to promote the safety and better treatment of animals.

Through the EFA scholarship award, PLT will identify applicants who have above interests and criteria, and those who have demonstrated efforts aimed to promote broader awareness of the mistreatment of animals and the approaches that can be used to prevent animal cruelty.

Award Recipient

One applicant will be chosen to receive the scholarship award in the amount of $500 each calendar year. This scholarship award program is an equal-opportunity award open to all qualified applicants who meet the eligibility requirements.

Student Scholarship Criteria

  1. Currently enrolled in good standing in an accredited pre-veterinary or animal sciences undergraduate program in the United States
  2. Current overall GPA of 3.0 or higher
  3. Proven history of advocacy for animals
  4. Demonstrated community involvement
  5. Demonstrated financial need

Application Requirements and Deadline

The application period for the EFA Scholarship Award begins on October 1, 2019, and eligible students may submit applications through December 31, 2019. Only applicants who submit completed applications in full by December 31, 2019 are eligible for consideration. The recipient of the award will be announced on January 31, 2020; the recipient will be notified via email.

How to Apply

To apply, please submit the following:

  1. First and Last name
  2. Email address
  3. Phone number
  4. Current college or university you attend
  5. Current GPA
  6. Expected graduation date
  7. Current course of study

Also, applicants must submit a 1-2 page essay that explains:

  1. Why you’ve chosen to pursue a career in veterinary medicine, animal research or your related area
  2. What your specific community involvements are or have been with advocating animal empathy and fighting animal cruelty
  3. How you intend to use this award

Finally, please include any pictures you have that demonstrate your animal advocacy efforts.

Submit the information and essay by email to efascholarship [at] petlifetoday.com no later than December 31, 2019. You will receive an email reply within 5 business days to confirm receipt of your application materials.

All applications will be reviewed by our EFA Scholarship Award committee members, who will score each submission and essay on a scale of 1 to 20 based on merit and need factors. The highest scored submission will receive the EFA Scholarship Award of $500. All applicants will be notified by email and the scholarship funds will be disbursed (by check from RKT Publishing, LLC, the PLT parent company) on February 1, 2020.

2018-2019 Award Winner

We’re excited to announce the recipient of the 2018-2019 EFA Veterinary Scholarship Award for the amount of $500:

Rebekah Sartori
School: University of Central Florida
Expected graduation date: December 2019

Major: Biology (BS)- Zoology and Pre-Veterinary Science

2017-2018 Award Winner

We’re excited to announce the recipient of the 2017-2018 EFA Veterinary Scholarship Award for the amount of $500:

Jenna Balk
School: University of Maryland, College Park
Expected graduation date: May 2020
Major: Animal Science Pre-Professional

For more information please click here.

For more information on Scholarships, please refer to our website.

Junior Clinical Training Scholarship in Pig Health Management

Posted on by

The Junior Clinical Training Scholarship in pig health management provides an opportunity for new or recently qualified veterinary graduates to obtain post-graduate training in this specialty in preparation for Senior Clinical Training Scholarship programmes (residencies), or for work in specialist farm animal practice. The program is jointly managed by The University of Cambridge and BQP, a trading division of Tulip Limited (“Tulip”), a growing organisation based in Stradbroke, Suffolk, with over 65,000 breeding sows, taking progeny through to slaughter with down stream processing managed by Tulip.

The programme includes practical clinical experience in all aspects of pig health and production, preventive herd health management programs, experience in teaching clinical students and the opportunity for involvement in research.

For informal enquiries about the scholarship programme, please contact Natalie Wills on nw366@cam.ac.uk

An application form (JCTS1) and information pack can be downloaded from the link below or via the following website: http://www.vet.cam.ac.uk/

Please send a completed application form, curriculum vitae, and covering letter by email to vetmed@hermes.cam.ac.uk

Fixed-term: 12 months.

Closing date: 2 July 2019

Interview date: 23 July 2019

Please quote reference PP19438 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

Further information

For more information please click here and here.

For more on Scholarship, please refer to our website.

PhD position/Graduate Research Assistantship in the area of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

Posted on by
Application Deadline: Saturday, March 14, 2020
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
 
 Visit Website
 
About This PhD Project

Project Description

The Laboratory of Lung Inflammation, Department of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn University have opening for highly motivated PhD candidate/ Graduate Research Assistant to work on NIH-funded research project in the area of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

The position serve a great opportunity for doctoral training in the cutting-edge research techniques including transgenic mice, flow cytometry, imaging and omics. Suitable candidate must have a degree in veterinary medicine or biomedical sciences, strong research interest in molecular and translational biology, and immunology. Hands-on working experience with disease models in rodents are a plus. Preference will be given to candidates with previous research experience. International candidates must be fluent in English. To check the admission requirements of the program please visit

https://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/education/graduate-students/.

Applications, including (a) a cover letter, describing your experience, research and professional interests and career goals, (b) curriculum vitae, (c) unofficial transcripts and (d) contact information of three professional/academic references, should be sent in a single pdf file. Please send the application package directly to Dr. Amarjit Mishra (). The screening and selection process is currently underway and will continue until positions are filled. Should review of your qualifications result in a decision to pursue your candidacy, you will be contacted.

Auburn University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities for all individuals without regard to race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

For more information please click here.

For more information on Continuing Education in your Veterinary Career please refer to our website.

Sourced from https://www.findaphd.com/ 

Real-time clinical decision support for individual pets; obesity and Diabetes (Liverpool). Part of SAVSNET Agile: responsive data intelligence for canine health.

Posted on by


Application Deadline: Friday, June 28, 2019

Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
Visit Website
Institution Profile
About This PhD Project

Project Description

The Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) collects large volumes of anonymised health records from a sentinel network of UK veterinary practitioners in real-time (savsnet.co.uk). Recently, we have used these data to describe antibiotic prescription in veterinary practice, to look at the seasonality of important parasites like ticks and flystrike. We also publish surveillance reports regularly in the Veterinary record. Data is fed back to participants in the form of anonymised benchmarks.
With Dogs Trust support, we are now advertising three PhDs to join an exciting interdisciplinary project based in leading research groups. The aim of this project (SAVSNET-Agile) is to speed up the flow of meaningful research surveillance measures so that they can be actioned in a clinically relevant time frame to improve individual and population canine health. These interlinked PhDs are i) in rapid statistical analysis of large data streams for anomalies (University of Lancaster), ii) in providing rapid decision support to clinicians to help better manage chronic disease (Liverpool – this PhD) and iii) developing a novel national framework to respond effectively to significant events like outbreaks in dogs (Bristol / Animal Health Trust). These PhDs will work closely together and with the rest of the SAVSNET team including software development and machine learning capability.
Clinical records represent a huge un-tapped resource for modelling clinical outcomes associated with patient characteristics and clinical history. In this specific PhD, we will identify groups of patients that are obese or have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus and using these we will develop computer and statistical techniques to identify patient phenotypes associated with these conditions. The models produced will be tested for their ability to predict clinical outcomes with a view to incorporating them into real-time clinical support.

The successful candidate will be based at the University of Liverpool Leahurst Campus but will also spend time in Liverpool and possibly Manchester University. The candidate will learn a range of statistical (primarily using R) and software skills (primarily using the Python programming language) required to identify relevant clinical records and automate annotation of these records for the key clinical features that will allow modelling and prediction of clinical outcomes of diabetes and obesity.

This project will allow a clinically or para-clinically trained applicant to acquire the technical skills required to apply their clinical knowledge to this exciting challenge. Alternatively, a computer science or statistics graduate will be able to hone their data-mining/modelling skills in a health informatics setting.

This exciting PhD will complement the work of the other PhDs at Lancaster and Bristol, the wider SAVSNET team and the Dogs Trust, to transform the way big data is used in veterinary practice, surveillance and research when confronted with important canine disease.
During the PhD, there will be regular meetings to link the work of the three PhDs into the wider SAVSNET team, and to the Dogs Trust,
As well as traditional research publications, the results of this degree will feed directly back to practitioners through existing benchmarking sites. This will ensure the results of this work are rapidly translated into best veterinary practice.
The three-year project will be based at the University of Liverpool Leahurst campus, and is expected to start around September 2019. A student stipend of up to £20,000 is available for this project. All necessary postgraduate fees will also be covered at a UK / European rate. International (none-EU) students are welcome to apply but must be able to fund the difference between UK/EU and international tuition fees.

For enquiries please contact:
Dr P-J.M.Noble ()
Professor A.J.German ()

When applying via: http://www.liverpool.ac.uk/savsnet. Please give the names and addresses of two people who have agreed to act as referees on your behalf and provide their references. Referees should not be related to you.

For more information please click here.
For more information on Continuing Education in your Veterinary Career please refer to our website.