Projects
User-centric design of automatic lameness detection in dairy cattle KU Leuven
Lameness is an important health problem causing severe welfare deteriorations and economic losses up to € 53 per cow per year in dairy cattle. Timely detection and treatment can help to minimize economic losses and preserve cow welfare. Current visual detection methods are labor intensive and subjective, and require training to allow detection of subtle changes in a cow’s gait. As a result, the problem is underestimated in practice, and ...
System for automated lameness detection based on 3D vision technology. KU Leuven
Animal health and welfare management are of growing interest in societal discussions. Health and welfare are also closely related to the animal’s production performance and have therefore a high impact on farm profitability and sustainability. In dairy farming lameness is a severe health problem occurring very often and persistent. Reported lameness prevalence rates range from 20% to 37% in Europe and USA. The proposed project aims at ...
The development and prevention of claw lesions and lameness in group-housed sows: interactive effects of behaviour, feed and flooring Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
What practical methods are most appropriate to score claw lesions and lameness in sows? Is there a relation between the occurrence of these disorders and the zinc status of the sow? Which connection exists between the type of floor, the behaviour and the effect of zinc supplementation in the diet in terms of claw lesions and lameness? Lameness and claw lesions are one of the main problems in the ...
Detection, impact and prevention of lameness in sows kept in group housing Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
In this research, we develop an objective method (based on image analysis and force plate analysis) to signal lameness in sows in an early stage. The impact and risk factors of lameness are also studied. The research has direct impact on the improvement of animal welfare for sows. Previous research shows that lameness and claw lesions occur more frequently in sows in group housing than in sows in ...
Mechanized verification of liveness properties of concurrent, imperative programs KU Leuven
Many tools and techniques exist for formal verification of imperative programs. However, for most of them, there is significant room for human error, both in applying the tools and in building the tools. This reduces the reliability of the results. Mechanized verification aims to address this issue by reducing the trusted computing base of a verification technique to a small kernel. It is well-vetted, has explicit and clearly defined ...
Semi-Automated Modular Formal Verification of Critical Software: Liveness and Completeness Thresholds KU Leuven
In this dissertation we describe two contributions to the state of the art in reasoning about liveness and safety, respectively.
Programs for multiprocessor machines commonly perform busy waiting for synchronization.
We propose the first separation logic for modularly verifying termination of such programs under fair scheduling.
Our logic requires the proof author to associate a ghost signal with each busy-waiting loop and ...
Fighting for Love Mixed/Christian-Muslim Families’ Associations in Belgium, France and Italy KU Leuven
Mixed families are a growing global phenomenon which exemplifies the increase in migration flows and provides us with an opportunity to analyze the everyday processes related to Europe’s pluralism. Couples defined as Christian-Muslim represent an emblematic casestudy within the phenomenon of mixed marriage because they incorporate ethnic and religious differences represented as “strong” and “conflicting” in the academic and public debate. ...