Specialist advice and consultancy

Consultancy

Identifying offshore foraging areas used by seabirds 

Movements of mobile animals such as seabirds are often changeable and difficult to predict. We tested whether oceanographic and environmental variables can be used to predict offshore areas used by seabirds and whether these predictions are consistent over time. We used spatial models to relate foraging locations, identified using GPS data collected from seabird foraging trips, with variables such as sea surface temperature. We found that seabird foraging areas can be predicted from environmental data, but the accuracy of these predictions do not remain consistent between years or at different stages of the breeding season. 

Resource allocation and scheduling in construction

The generation of a digital twin of a construction project from beginning to end is essential for the efficient management of a construction project. In the construction site, allocation of human resources and equipment to activities and scheduling the order of activities are the main challenges. An optimal decision with the minimum cost and duration must be made considering the availability of resources, precedence relation of activities, time loss due to material and equipment transfer between different construction zones, continuous allocation of workers to the similar tasks in order to preventing the productivity loss. Operational research consultancy unit developed an optimization tool which works as an integrated module of a bigger digital twin platform for construction projects. 

PhD Internship

Internship with Public Health Scotland

All of our students will undertake an internship during their studies. We are keen to engage with as wide a range of partners as possible to develop these opportunities.  

Through our collaboration with Public Health Scotland (PHS), they have provided internship opportunities for finishing MSc students and PhD students. These are paid internships for six months (late September-March); focusing on data analysis, interpretation, and presentation. Previous students have said there are a range of roles to suit a wide variety of interests and skill sets. These positions have also led to a number of job offers from PHS. 

We have had around 12 PhD students take up these internships in the past, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both the students and PHS.