Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40805089›Full record

ArticleAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI2025

Aging-Invariant Sheep Face Recognition Through Feature Decoupling.

Suhui Liu, Chuanzhong Xuan, Zhaohui Tang, Guangpu Wang, Xinyu Gao, Zhipan Wang

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Animals : an open access journal from MDPI, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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0 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Suhui LiuCollege of Electromechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.
Chuanzhong XuanCollege of Electromechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.ORCID 0000-0001-7605-9330
Zhaohui TangCollege of Electromechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.
Guangpu WangCollege of Electromechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.
Xinyu GaoCollege of Electromechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.ORCID 0000-0001-5340-4816
Zhipan WangShenzhen Key Laboratory of Intelligent licrosatellite Constellation, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, No. 66, Gongchang Road, Guangming District, Shenzhen 518107, China.ORCID 0000-0003-0785-962X

Funding

The First Class Disciplines Research Special Project YLXKZX-NND-009The Fundamental Research Funds for Inner Mongolia Directly Affiliated Universities The First Class Disciplines Research Special ProjectThe National Natural Science Foundation of China 31860666
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Precise recognition of individual ovine specimens plays a pivotal role in implementing smart agricultural platforms and optimizing herd management systems. With the development of deep learning technology, sheep face recognition provides an efficient and contactless solution for individual sheep identification. However, with the growth of sheep, their facial features keep changing, which poses challenges for existing sheep face recognition models to maintain accuracy across the dynamic changes in facial features over time, making it difficult to meet practical needs. To address this limitation, we propose the lifelong biometric learning of the sheep face network (LBL-SheepNet), a feature decoupling network designed for continuous adaptation to ovine facial changes, and constructed a dataset of 31,200 images from 55 sheep tracked monthly from 1 to 12 months of age. The LBL-SheepNet model addresses dynamic variations in facial features during sheep growth through a multi-module architectural framework. Firstly, a Squeeze-and-Excitation (SE) module enhances discriminative feature representation through adaptive channel-wise recalibration. Then, a nonlinear feature decoupling module employs a hybrid channel-batch attention mechanism to separate age-related features from identity-specific characteristics. Finally, a correlation analysis module utilizes adversarial learning to suppress age-biased feature interference, ensuring focus on age-invariant identifiers. Experimental results demonstrate that LBL-SheepNet achieves 95.5% identification accuracy and 95.3% average precision on the sheep face dataset. This study introduces a lifelong biometric learning (LBL) mechanism to mitigate recognition accuracy degradation caused by dynamic facial feature variations in growing sheep. By designing a feature decoupling network integrated with adversarial age-invariant learning, the proposed method addresses the performance limitations of existing models in long-term individual identification.

Indexed as

agricultural engineeringbiometric recognitiondeep learningfeature decouplingsheep facial features

Identifiers

PMID40805089
PMCPMC12345472

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.