@article{araujo_ai-powered_2025,

title = {AI-powered cow detection in complex farm environments},

author = {Voncarlos Araujo and Ines Rili and Thomas Gisiger and Sebastien Gambs and Elsa Vasseur and Marjorie Cellier and Abdoulaye Baniré Diallo},

doi = {doi.org/10.1016/j.atech.2025.100770},

issn = {2772-3755},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-03-01},

journal = {Smart Agricultural Technology},

volume = {10},

number = {100770},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{cellier_enhancing_2025,

title = {Enhancing movement opportunity to support behavioral needs for movement-restricted cattle through different conditions of access to exercise},

author = {Marjorie Cellier and Elise Shepley and Nadège Aigueperse and Marianne Villettaz Robichaud and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-89891-4},

doi = {10.1038/s41598-025-89891-4},

issn = {2045-2322},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-02-01},

urldate = {2025-03-06},

journal = {Scientific Reports},

volume = {15},

number = {1},

pages = {5917},

abstract = {Intensification in animal production has led to increased indoor confinement for animals, limiting opportunities to meet some behavioral needs such as exploration and locomotion. This poses a crucial question as to how these restrictions can be alleviated by providing additional space designed with that specific purpose in mind. Working with cows housed in tie-stalls, our study aimed to: (1) quantify how providing an exercise area outside the normal housing environment affects locomotor behavior; (2) evaluate how exercise access conditions can contribute to increase locomotor benefits for animals; (3) investigate cows’ time budgets during exercise access. Six trials involving different exercise access conditions (indoor vs. outdoor, outing duration, exercise area size, type of ground surface) enrolled 141 tie-stall-housed lactating Holsteins. A meta-analysis compared daily steps for exercise vs. non-exercise treatments, while generalized linear mixed models determined exercise conditions’ impact on daily steps. Providing 1-hour exercise access increased daily steps by 53% (304 more steps), influenced by type of access (167 more steps outdoor vs. indoor), larger space (146 more steps) and longer outings (84 more steps). Cows spent 50–85% of exercise time idle, exploring (5–20%) and socializing (5%). Our results highlight the significant impact of 1 h daily exercise on tied cattle.},

keywords = {Animal behaviour, Zoology},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{naghashi_multiscale_2025,

title = {A multiscale model for multivariate time series forecasting},

author = {Vahid Naghashi and Mounir Boukadoum and Abdoulaye Banire Diallo},

url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-82417-4},

doi = {10.1038/s41598-024-82417-4},

issn = {2045-2322},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-03-06},

journal = {Scientific Reports},

volume = {15},

number = {1},

pages = {1565},

abstract = {Transformer based models for time-series forecasting have shown promising performance and during the past few years different Transformer variants have been proposed in time-series forecasting domain. However, most of the existing methods, mainly represent the time-series from a single scale, making it challenging to capture various time granularities or ignore inter-series correlations between the series which might lead to inaccurate forecasts. In this paper, we address the above mentioned shortcomings and propose a Transformer based model which integrates multi-scale patch-wise temporal modeling and channel-wise representation. In the multi-scale temporal part, the input time-series is divided into patches of different resolutions to capture temporal correlations associated with various scales. The channel-wise encoder which comes after the temporal encoder, models the relations among the input series to capture the intricate interactions between them. In our framework, we further design a multi-step linear decoder to generate the final predictions for the purpose of reducing over-fitting and noise effects. Extensive experiments on seven real world datasets indicate that our model (MultiPatchFormer) achieves state-of-the-art results by surpassing other current baseline models in terms of error metrics and shows stronger generalizability.},

keywords = {Data mining, Machine learning},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{dallago_associations_2024,

title = {The associations of early-life health and performance with subsequent dairy cow longevity, productivity, and profitability},

author = {G. M. Dallago and I. Elsohaby and J. T. McClure and R. Lacroix and E. Vasseur},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S175173112400212X},

doi = {10.1016/j.animal.2024.101281},

issn = {17517311},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-09-01},

urldate = {2024-09-01},

journal = {animal},

volume = {18},

number = {9},

pages = {101281},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nejati_investigating_2024,

title = {Investigating the impact of 1h daily outdoor access on the gait and hoof health of non-clinically lame cows housed in a movement restricted environment},

author = {A. Nejati and E. Shepley and G. M. Dallago and E. Vasseur},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2666910224000437},

doi = {10.3168/jdsc.2023-0498},

issn = {26669102},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-03-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {JDS Communications},

pages = {S2666910224000437},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{belanger-naud_is_2024,

title = {Is there a right time for dairy Alpine goat kid weaning: How does the weaning age of dairy Alpine goat kids affect their growth and behavior?},

author = {Stéphanie Bélanger-Naud and Tania Wolfe and Athena Zambelis and Janie Lévesque and Carl Julien and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/doi/10.1093/jas/skad413/7492733},

doi = {10.1093/jas/skad413},

issn = {0021-8812, 1525-3163},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Journal of Animal Science},

volume = {102},

pages = {skad413},

abstract = {Abstract In dairy goat kids, weaning is often associated with poor growth leading to a decline in welfare and performance; however, little is known about optimal weaning practices. This study aimed to determine the optimal weaning age for dairy goat kids to maximize outcome measures of welfare related to growth, feed intake, and behavior. Thirty-six newborn female Alpine kids were blocked by weight and birth date, paired with a similar male companion and randomly allocated to one of the three weaning age treatments: 6 (6W), 8 (8W), and 10 wk (10W). Kids had ad libitum access to acidified milk replacer refilled twice daily, concentrates, hay, and water. Milk consumption was measured daily, and concentrate consumption, weekly. Ten behaviors were live observed on days −8, −4, 0, 6, and 12 relative to weaning (i.e., weaning day = 0). Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to assess differences from baseline between the 6W, 8W, and 10W treatments. Post hoc analysis using the Dwass, Steel, Critchlow-Fligner (DSCF) multiple comparison analysis was used to evaluate pairwise treatment differences based on two-sample Wilcoxon comparisons. Kids weaned at 10 wk had the greatest increase compared to baseline in concentrate consumption (P = 0.0160), and greatest decrease compared to baseline in vocalization (P = 0.0008) while both 8- and 10- wk kid’s groups had the greatest increase compared to baseline in self-grooming time (P < 0.0001), and cross-sucking time (P = 0.0006). Kids weaned at 6 wk of age were found to have the smallest increase compared to baseline in concentrate consumption (P = 0.0160) and self-grooming time (P < 0.0001), and the greatest increase compared to baseline in allogrooming time (P = 0.0032) and in redirected behaviors aimed towards the environment (biting and licking time [P = 0.0173]; displacement at the nipple frequency [P = 0.0236]). No negative impact of weaning on growth of either group was identified. Overall, our results tend towards a higher degree of discomfort behaviors (allogrooming, biting/licking, displacement, and vocalizations) in kids weaned earlier compared to later weaning, while kids weaned later showed higher levels of positive behaviors (lying time and self-grooming).},

keywords = {wellness},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{aigueperse_how_2023,

title = {How outing conditions relate to the motivation of movement-restricted cattle to access an outdoor exercise yard},

author = {Nadège Aigueperse and Véronique Boyer and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0376635723001390},

doi = {10.1016/j.beproc.2023.104957},

issn = {03766357},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-11-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Behavioural Processes},

volume = {213},

pages = {104957},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{palacio_reassessing_2023,

title = {Reassessing cow comfort measures on Canadian dairy farms after a recommendation of improvements},

author = {S. Palacio and A. Zambelis and S. Adam and R. Bergeron and D. Pellerin and D. Haley and T. J. DeVries and E. Vasseur},

url = {https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjas-2022-0033},

doi = {10.1139/cjas-2022-0033},

issn = {0008-3984, 1918-1825},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-06-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Canadian Journal of Animal Science},

volume = {103},

number = {2},

pages = {174–184},

abstract = {In a previous study (Assessment 1), an on-farm assessment tool was used to establish a standard across 60 Quebec dairy farms using animal-, stall-, and management-based measures of cow comfort. The objective of the present follow-up study (Assessment 2) was to perform a reassessment using an identical cow comfort assessment tool on a subset of the original farms expected to benefit most from applying the recommended changes, and to determine the effects of the modifications on cow comfort. From the subsample of farms, 24 reported applying stall modifications based on recommendations from Assessment 1 with the aim of promoting cow comfort (Adopters), while the remaining 10 farms did not (Non-adopters). The assessment tool included 19 target areas, grouped into 9 critical areas based on measures of cow comfort that considered housing, feed-water, health, and welfare. The on-farm report of Assessment 1 was found to increase producer awareness of issues in cow comfort measures on farms, as shown by an improvement in stall design according to recommendations based on cow body dimensions and reduced injury prevalence. Routine reassessment of cow comfort measures may be important to use in supporting target achievement improvements as part of welfare improvement strategies.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{bradtmueller_applications_2023,

title = {Applications of Technology to Record Locomotion Measurements in Dairy Cows: A Systematic Review},

author = {Anna Bradtmueller and Amir Nejati and Elise Shepley and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/6/1121},

doi = {10.3390/ani13061121},

issn = {2076-2615},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-03-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Animals},

volume = {13},

number = {6},

pages = {1121},

abstract = {Lameness within the dairy industry is a concern because of its associated costs and welfare implications. Visual locomotion scoring has been commonly used for assessing cows’ locomotion quality, but it can have low reliability and is relatively subjective compared to automated methods of assessing locomotion. Kinematic, kinetic, and accelerometric technologies can provide a greater number of more detailed outcome measurements than visual scoring. The objective of this systematic review was to determine outcome measurements, and the relationships between them, that have been recorded using kinematic, kinetic, and accelerometric technologies, as well as other approaches to evaluating cow locomotion. Following PRISMA guidelines, two databases were searched for studies published from January 2000 to June 2022. Thirty-seven articles were retained after undergoing a screening process involving a title and abstract evaluation, followed by a full-text assessment. Locomotion measurements recorded using these technologies often overlapped, but inconsistencies in the types of technology, the arrangement of equipment, the terminology, and the measurement-recording approaches made it difficult to compare locomotion measurements across studies. Additional research would contribute to a better understanding of how factors regarding the health, environment, and management of dairy cows affect aspects of locomotion, as recorded through the detailed, objective outcome measurements provided by these technologies.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{palacio_minor_2023,

title = {Minor stall modifications and outdoor access can help improve dairy cow welfare in tie-stalls},

author = {Santiago Palacio and Steve Adam and Renée Bergeron and Doris Pellerin and Anne Marie De Passillé and Jeff Rushen and Derek Haley and Trevor J. DeVries and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjas-2022-0038},

doi = {10.1139/cjas-2022-0038},

issn = {0008-3984, 1918-1825},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-03-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Canadian Journal of Animal Science},

volume = {103},

number = {1},

pages = {1–14},

abstract = {Tie-stalls are the most confining method of housing for dairy cows and remain commonly used to house cows in many countries. Finding methods to improve animal welfare through housing modifications and alternative management strategies are of increasing importance. Twelve tie-stall dairy farms in Ontario and Quebec, Canada were visited four times in a 12 month period. Visits were spread to observe the effects of pasture (visit 1), short-term effects of stall modifications (visit 2), effects of winter confinement (visit 3), and final measures after 1 year (visit 4). Lameness, injuries, cow cleanliness, lying and rising behaviors, and production parameters were assessed at each visit. Outdoor access had the largest effect: cows with access to pasture had a lower prevalence of various outcome measures throughout all four visits. Also, cows in modified stalls had a higher prevalence of dirty udders compared to cows in unmodified stalls, but only on farms that provided outdoor access. Although applying minor stall modifications to tie-stalls can help improve aspects of animal welfare, providing year-round outdoor access may represent a more effective method; the continued provision of time outside the stall helps maintain the positive impact of outdoor/pasture access on the welfare of tie-stall dairy cows.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{nejati_technology_2023,

title = {Technology applications in bovine gait analysis: A scoping review},

author = {Amir Nejati and Anna Bradtmueller and Elise Shepley and Elsa Vasseur},

editor = {Yaodong Gu},

url = {https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266287},

doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0266287},

issn = {1932-6203},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {PLOS ONE},

volume = {18},

number = {1},

pages = {e0266287},

abstract = {Quantitative bovine gait analysis using technology has evolved significantly over the last two decades. However, subjective methods of gait assessment using visual locomotion scoring remain the primary on-farm and experimental approach. The objective of this review is to map research trends in quantitative bovine gait analysis and to explore the technologies that have been utilized to measure biomechanical parameters of gait. A scoping literature review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. A search algorithm based on PICO framework generated three components–bovine, gait, and technology–to address our objectives. Three online databases were searched for original work published from January 2000 to June 2020. A two-step screening process was then conducted, starting with the review of article titles and abstracts based on inclusion criteria. A remaining 125 articles then underwent a full-text assessment, resulting in 82 final articles. Thematic analysis of research aims resulted in four major themes among the studies: gait/claw biomechanics, lameness detection, intervention/comparison, and system development. Of the 4 themes, lameness detection (55% of studies) was the most common reason for technology use. Within the literature identified three main technologies were used: force and pressure platforms (FPP), vision-based systems (VB), and accelerometers. FPP were the first and most popular technologies to evaluate bovine gait and were used in 58.5% of studies. They include force platforms, pressure mapping systems, and weight distribution platforms. The second most applied technology was VB (34.1% of studies), which predominately consists of video analysis and image processing systems. Accelerometers, another technological method to measure gait characteristics, were used in 14.6% of studies. In sum, the strong demand for automatic lameness detection influenced the path of development for quantitative gait analysis technologies. Among emergent technologies, deep learning and wearable sensors (e.g., accelerometers) appear to be the most promising options. However, although progress has been made, more research is needed to develop more accurate, practical, and user-friendly technologies.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{habanabakize_typology_2022,

title = {A typology of smallholder livestock production systems reflecting the impact of the development of a local milk collection industry: Case study of Fatick region, Senegal},

author = {Ernest Habanabakize and Koki Ba and Christian Corniaux and Patrick Cortbaoui and Elsa Vasseur},

url = {https://pastoralismjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13570-022-00234-8},

doi = {10.1186/s13570-022-00234-8},

issn = {2041-7136},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-12-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Pastoralism},

volume = {12},

number = {1},

pages = {22},

abstract = {Abstract 

 Senegal is a country where millions of livelihoods directly depend on smallholder livestock production activities. Unfortunately, these farmers now face the effects of a changing climate and associated societal responses. In addition, the lack of understanding of the specific farmers’ problems in their respective production systems by assuming homogeneity has led to inappropriate planning of interventions and inefficient utilization of resources. The variations in individual farming systems and local contexts require to understand each system separately to inform decision-makers and relevant stakeholders about specific entries of intervention for farmers based on customized needs. Using a Fatick region case study, different statistical clustering techniques were adopted to develop a livestock typology that reflects the above realities. This typology confirmed the co-existence of three livestock production cluster systems with differences and similarities in their production targets and quantities, market access, animal breeds, and the livestock management system of the animals. The studied region represented a new format of smallholder livestock development, where the implementation of a dairy processor and its milk collection centre created a new dynamic in production activities. Farmers confirmed that the extension services and a consistent market opportunity provided by the dairy processor increased local productivity and offered an alternative source of income but they have also reiterated concerns like the dairy processor’s low milk buying prices which need to be addressed. To harness the growth and the regional opportunities, there is a need to establish robust and continuous collaboration structures between the Government, agro-industries, and producers. These public-private partnerships will help producers lower the cost of inputs and services and increase productivity while boosting local dairy production.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{dallago_using_2022,

title = {Using the Herd Status Index to remotely assess the welfare status of dairy herds based on prerecorded data},

author = {G. M. Dallago and N. Mauyenova and D. Warner and R. I. Cue and E. Vasseur},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1751731122001987},

doi = {10.1016/j.animal.2022.100641},

issn = {17517311},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-10-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {animal},

volume = {16},

number = {10},

pages = {100641},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{warner_keeping_2022,

title = {Keeping profitable cows in the herd: A lifetime cost-benefit assessment to support culling decisions},

author = {D. Warner and G. M. Dallago and O. W. Dovoedo and R. Lacroix and H. A. Delgado and R. I. Cue and K. M. Wade and J. Dubuc and D. Pellerin and E. Vasseur},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1751731122001859},

doi = {10.1016/j.animal.2022.100628},

issn = {17517311},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-10-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {animal},

volume = {16},

number = {10},

pages = {100628},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{tonooka_graduate_2022,

title = {Graduate Student Literature Review: What is known about the eliminative behaviors of dairy cattle?},

author = {J. M. Tonooka and E. Vasseur and M. Villettaz Robichaud},

url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022030222003113},

doi = {10.3168/jds.2021-20651},

issn = {00220302},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-07-01},

urldate = {2024-06-05},

journal = {Journal of Dairy Science},

volume = {105},

number = {7},

pages = {6307–6317},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}