Color Cover Research Articles

RST invariant robust video watermarking algorithm using quaternion curvelet transform

Digital images are widely distributed today over the internet and through other mediums. There are powerful digital image processing tools which have made perfect image duplication a trivial procedure. Therefore, security, copyright protection, and integrity verification of digital video have become an urgent issue in the digital world, which can be achieved by means of a technique called digital watermarking. The issues of watermarking are to achieve imperceptibility, robustness, payload and security simultaneously. This paper presents a new Quaternion Curvelet Transform (QCT) based video watermarking technique for embedding a video on another video in a secure and optimized way. However, many of the existing techniques are unable to handle the problem of rotation, translation and scaling attacks on watermarked video. This study presents a novel embedding approach where in the quaternion transform followed by the traditional Curvelet transform is able to overcome the above disadvantages. In this paper, we first represent the color cover video frames in the quaternion form and subsequently generate Quaternion Curvelet Transform (QCT) coefficients for each such quaternion frames. Second, in order to withstand the desynchronization causes due to the geometrical attacks, the Harris corner detection algorithm is used to determine the invariant feature points on the QCT coefficients, which is followed by the calculation of energy for each block centered on those feature points. Third, in order to maintain the trade-off among the watermarking characteristics, the optimized location for embedding the watermark frames is determined using the cuckoo search optimization algorithm. Finally, to attain the authenticity, an authentication key generation procedure is employed using the owner’s biometric image and the watermarked frames. The experimental results prove that the proposed method is promising in terms of robustness, imperceptibility and security to most notable image processing attacks, geometrical attacks, and video processing attacks among the various conventional watermarking algorithms.

Julie Hruby and Debra Trusty (eds). From Cooking Vessels to Cultural Practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean.

This book had its origin in a panel held at the 11th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2014; the papers given there, suitably adapted for publication, have been added to by contributions from scholars working on comparable material. All chapters are substantial, and apart from the short introduction and finale all are illustrated with a range of photographs, drawings, tables and sometimes thin-sections. It is well-presented, with a colourful cover showing, on the front, modern replicas of Minoan-style cooking pots, made by Jerolyn Morrison, one of the contributors to this book, in use.

Hybrid Steganography of Color Images Using Discrete Cosine Transform and Discrete Wavelet Transform

; > This paper introduces a hybrid approach for steganography of color images using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). This approach is used for hiding more than one color image into an uncorrelated colorspace “YDbDr” of a color cover image using the DWT and DCT. In this approach, the DCT coefficients of the secret image are weighted by a small factor and then embedded into the DWT of the cover image to keep the effect of steganography invisible, to make it more security by encrypting the secret data before embedding into a cover image. After that, we show the effect of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) on the proposed algorithm.

Choosing a book by its cover: analysis of a reader’s choice

PurposeThe massive growth in the number of book titles has made publishers think about how to attract a customer’s attention to particular books. This is the reason why the book cover plays an important role as a tool of communication with the reader. The research question of this exploratory study is whether the preference given by readers to book cover colors is different across genders and age groups when they choose the book in an online bookstore by its cover. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe experiment in a bookstore and a library was done. Each respondent was asked to choose one book from our sample of 18 books and a mobile eye tracking laboratory was set up in order to find out the respondents’ basic gazing data. After conducting an experiment with bookstore and library visitors, the results showed that younger women tend to select a book by its cover (when the time for selection is not limited) statistically significantly faster than men of the same age group. The difference disappears with age.FindingsThe data of the experiment suggested that women from the age group 18-35 prefer books with cool color covers and the preference disappears with age; accordingly, men in the age group 56+ prefer books with warm color covers. The preference was not seen in younger age groups. The analysis of data on the number of choices for each cover and the time spent looking at each of them revealed a significant positive correlation between the women’s preferences in selecting covers and the time women spend looking at them; however, there was no such correlation in the case of men’s data.Originality/valueThe study has shown that the reader’s book choice is at least partly influenced by the cover color. The preference given to cool and warm colors and the speed of decision making show certain differences across genders and age groups. The result contributes to knowing how to create book covers more adopted to reader’s needs.

Hiding (1-8) Multimedia Files in One Color Image

This paper presents hiding one to eight gray images or texts (secret information) inside color image (cover image) based on Least Significant Bits (LSB) algorithm. The main idea is to insert the secret message (one to eight texts or one to eight gray images) in the three LSB of the cover image (color image). The color cover image RGB model (R channel, G channel and B channel) is separated into three cover images (the red cover, green cover, and blue cover). Each one of these three cover images is used to hide secret messages (gray image (two secret images in R channel, three secret images in G channel and three secret images in B channel) or text). The experiments and comparative studies show that the algorithms are characterized by many features of the ability of hiding huge data, and then the ability of extracting secret message without errors. Beside the reconstructed image, has efficacies (to human acquaintance) according to peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and mean square error (MSE), also retain both the explicitness and the characteristics of the both secret message and cover image.

An efficient data hiding method based on adaptive directional pixel value differencing (ADPVD)

Steganography is an important secret information communication technology in which one may send messages without others having knowledge of their existence. This paper proposes a new adaptive steganography method for color images using adaptive directional pixel-value differencing (ADPVD). The proposed method increases the capacity of the hidden secret data and improves the security of the stego-color image as well. The hiding capacity of the original PVD method is investigated by considering three directional edges: horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions using color cover image. The cover image is partitioned into 2-pixel blocks in a non-overlapping fashion and scanned in raster-scan order in all three directions. The proposed method adaptively selects the appropriate embedding directions for each color channel according to the largest embedding capacity. The security is improved since different pixel directions are employed adaptively to embed different number of message bits in each color channel. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides both larger embedding capacity and better visual quality of the stego color image compared with other PVD-based algorithms.

Pitfall trap construction affects the efficacy of ground beetle counts

Ground beetles were sampled in a broadleaved deciduous forest in Kaluga Province in April–October 1995 using 90 traps grouped in 18 experimental plots. Three types of pitfall traps were used: glass jars, white plastic cups, and cylindrical containers made of transparent plastic bottles. Two types of cover put above the traps were tested: transparent and black. Altogether, 72 carabid species were found, of which only 10 species were shared by all the experimental plots: Leistus terminatus, Carabus hortensis, C. glabratus, Cychrus caraboides, Pterostichus niger, P. oblongopunctatus, P. strenuus, P. melanarius, Calathus micropterus, and Badister lacertosus. The Jaccard binary similarity index between the experimental plots amounted to 37–68% while the Bray-Curtis similarity index was 66–89%. Both the trap type and the cover color significantly affected the similarity of the species structure and species composition of the samples. Plastic cups provided the highest catches of beetles, but this was due to the most abundant species, P. oblongopunctatus. Containers provided the highest catches of C. glabratus. The total abundance was higher for the traps with transparent covers than for those with black covers. Traps with transparent covers provided significantly higher catches of L. terminatus, P. oblongopunctatus, Asaphidion flavipes, and Harpalus rufipes. An adequate assessment of the species composition of a particular habitat requires at least 30 pitfall traps.

An RGB colour image steganography scheme using overlapping block-based pixel-value differencing.

This paper presents a steganographic scheme based on the RGB colour cover image. The secret message bits are embedded into each colour pixel sequentially by the pixel-value differencing (PVD) technique. PVD basically works on two consecutive non-overlapping components; as a result, the straightforward conventional PVD technique is not applicable to embed the secret message bits into a colour pixel, since a colour pixel consists of three colour components, i.e. red, green and blue. Hence, in the proposed scheme, initially the three colour components are represented into two overlapping blocks like the combination of red and green colour components, while another one is the combination of green and blue colour components, respectively. Later, the PVD technique is employed on each block independently to embed the secret data. The two overlapping blocks are readjusted to attain the modified three colour components. The notion of overlapping blocks has improved the embedding capacity of the cover image. The scheme has been tested on a set of colour images and satisfactory results have been achieved in terms of embedding capacity and upholding the acceptable visual quality of the stego-image.

Image Forgery Detection Using the Pixel-wise Fragile Image Watermarking Method in Spatial Domains

Digital images can be changed easily nowadays through the use of sophisticated software to edit images such as (Adobe Photoshop®). You can look at some manipulated pictures along the lines of the original images without any suspicion that they are also modified. Accordingly, the use of such software to edit the image makes ratification a difficult task and the use of this image in the courts for proving may become impossible.In this paper, a new method has been proposed for water fragile signs depending on the method of Pixel-wise. The proposed method is based on the included secret watermark and check bits in the green layer to the image of the colorful cover with the size of 512x512. The process of including watermark deals with the green class as a chess board with 512 x 512 sizes to avoid the inclusion of sequential bits in the spatial areas of the image of the cover. The process of extracting and discriminating the manipulation of watermark is used to determine whether the manipulation of the image containing watermark was done by an opponent or not. Therefore, the use of the extracted watermark and matrix manipulation to check the image containing watermark sent. Depending on the experimental results, the proposed method provides high quality, low distortion in the images contained watermark PSNR depending on their values. Also, the ability to recognize manipulation in the picture containing watermark in cases such as adding objects to the image containing the watermark, and the application of JPEG compression on image containing watermark, and removing objects from the image containing watermark, repeating the object image containing watermark, and adding a text on image including watermark

Extinction & Cloning

Book Review| January 01 2017 Extinction & Cloning The Origin of Higher Taxa: Palaeobiological, Developmental, and Ecological Perspectives. By T. S. Kemp. 2015. University of Chicago Press. (ISBN 9780226335957). 320 pp. Paperback, $44.00. Todd Ryan Todd Ryan 1Westborough High School Westborough, MA 01581 ryant@westboroughk12.org Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (2017) 79 (1): 73. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2017.79.1.73 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Todd Ryan; Extinction & Cloning. The American Biology Teacher 1 January 2017; 79 (1): 73. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2017.79.1.73 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search The book is a difficult read and is not appropriate for high school. Despite its soft, colorful cover and relatively small size, this book is clearly intended for graduate biology students during seminars in which they discuss how higher taxa are categorized. The book is not casual, light reading. It required my full attention and rereading of nearly every paragraph. To emphasize this point, I used Readability-Score.com, an online readability analyzer, and randomly selected three 100-word passages. The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, which ranges from 0 to 100 (with higher scores indicating more readable texts) scored the text at 21.7. Grade Level scoring, which typically aims for a reading level of 8 for public texts, averaged 14.7. The first two chapters of this book deal with the nature of both organisms and higher taxa. Chapters 4–6 deal with paleontological, developmental, and ecological evidence of higher taxa. Chapter 7 examines invertebrate... You do not currently have access to this content.

Multi-image authentication in frequency domain

Today multimedia documents are widely used for data authentication. In this paper, we propose a model for image authentication with robustness against certain attacks. To achieve this, we have effectively utilised two distinct colour cover images simultaneously and applied discrete cosine transform to convert them from spatial to frequency domain. The payload data, payload size and a 160 bit message digest are inserted in blocks of pixels of size 2 × 2 taking alternately from the two images. Capacity of embedding is increased by fabricating two payload bits in each converted frequency component whereas for enhanced security we have used pseudo-random insertion positions for the payload bits. On the receiving end the integrity of the extracted payload is verified by using the message digest. The algorithm has been tested effectively against certain steganographic attacks. Also experimental results have been analysed by using different metrics and compared with other similar algorithms.

Multi-image authentication in frequency domain

Today multimedia documents are widely used for data authentication. In this paper, we propose a model for image authentication with robustness against certain attacks. To achieve this, we have effectively utilised two distinct colour cover images simultaneously and applied discrete cosine transform to convert them from spatial to frequency domain. The payload data, payload size and a 160 bit message digest are inserted in blocks of pixels of size 2 × 2 taking alternately from the two images. Capacity of embedding is increased by fabricating two payload bits in each converted frequency component whereas for enhanced security we have used pseudo-random insertion positions for the payload bits. On the receiving end the integrity of the extracted payload is verified by using the message digest. The algorithm has been tested effectively against certain steganographic attacks. Also experimental results have been analysed by using different metrics and compared with other similar algorithms.

Brief Discussion on the Aesthetic Culture of Interior Soft Decoration

With the development of the times and the continuous improvement of living standards, the problem of food and clothing is no longer the focus of people's lives. The demands for cultural life and living environment that people attach great importance to are increasing. Therefore, soft interior decoration has undergone an unprecedented development. Soft decorative refers to the re-layout and planning of the housing through ornaments that is movable and can be changed of their location after the decoration of the housing, such as textiles used in the decoration, changes in color and style of the sofa cover, and the changes of various of crafts and indoor ornamental vegetation. Through the elaboration of the development history of the interior soft decoration, this article explains the influence of the Chinese traditional aesthetic culture and the western aesthetic culture on the interior decoration at different stages. Then we discusses the modern characteristics of the interior soft decoration in terms of the harmonious development of people and the environment, extending individuality, green and environmental protection and other aspects, which embodies the aesthetic significance of the interior soft decoration in the diversified social development, life style and other aspects.

Turfgrass root system inoculation and colonization by a mycorrhizal fungus and other symbiotic micro-organisms and evaluation of its effects on green turf cover and growth

Efficient use of irrigation water and nutrient uptake is of utmost importance for efficient and sustainable turfgrass management. In the present study, the ability of selected symbiotic micro-organisms to improve the visual quality and growth of turfgrass was investigated. Specifically, three soil inoculants, Trichoderma harzianum T-22, Glomus intraradices (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus) and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens FZB42 as plant growth promoting rhizobacterium, were applied in order to colonize Festuca arundinacea 'Grande II'. The study was conducted under greenhouse conditions using disinfected 1.7 L pots filled with a sterilized substrate mixture comprising 85% sand, 2% peat and 13% organic soil. Green turf cover (GTC) and dark green color index (DGCI) were determined using digital image analysis. In addition, the weight of the clippings and the root dry weight were determined. Turfgrass cover and color, as determined by digital image analysis, was affected by inoculation treatments. T. harzianum T-22 and B. amyloliquefaciens FZB42 had a positive influence on turfgrass growth, by increasing clipping yield compared with the control. The aforementioned micro-organisms had a positive effect on root development, while the microscopic examination of root samples showed that the turfgrass root system was colonized by T. harzianum T-22 and G. intraradices. In addition, an efficient colonization of the rhizosphere by B. amyloliquefaciens FZB42 and T. harzianum T-22 occurred. Inoculation with strains FZB42 and T-22 improved GTC and DGCI while G. intraradices did not have any positive impact. These positive first results will be used as a basis for a field experiment where the effects of the above three symbiotic micro-organisms on turfgrass drought resistance will be evaluated.

EJHS in Constant Progress.

Hosted by Jimma University, the Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences (EJHS) has been publishing peer-reviewed articles on a range of topics pertaining to public health and medicine. EJHS has always aspired to: 1) provide current scientific and technological information on health and related fields for informed planning and decision making, and 2) contribute to the scientific knowledge and practices in medicine, public health and related fields by providing a formal means for researchers to share their scientific research works, observations and experiences. The first issue of EJHS emerged in July 1990 under the former name of the journal, “Bulletin of Jimma Institute of Health Sciences”. Since then, EJHS made several strides to reach scientists, academicians, policy makers and other readers or users. In its journey from then onwards, EJHS underwent several quantitative and qualitative transformations. From its commencement to 1995, it appeared biannually with its initial name mentioned above. In those years, EJHS was characterized by changes in form, cover colour, contents and manuscript sources. Its form changed from A-5 to A-3 and its cover colour from yellow to white and then to blue. Its contents also varied significantly in quantity and quality. Yet, almost all the manuscript contributors during the stated period were from the then Jimma Institute of Health Sciences. The next stage covers the years of 1996–2007 when EJHS suffered from sluggish development. The one noteworthy change then was the change in name from “Bulletin of Jimma Institute of Health Sciences” to “Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences”. This coincided with the emergence of a full-fledged Jimma University. However, the biannual appearance, the A-5 size format and the blue colour were maintained. Besides, the quantity, the diversity and the quality of the articles published in each issue did not exhibit noticeable changes. Luckily, few authors from other parts of Ethiopia began contributing manuscripts although international contributions were yet to happen. EJHS registered a commendable development from 2008 to 2013. The first two fundamental changes in this period were the change in format from A-5 to A-3 and the growth of the journal from biannual to triannual publication. The articles published in successive issues also improved substantially in quantity and quality. In 2008, EJHS joined African Journals Partnership Project (AJPP), which is funded by the US National Institute of Health/National Library of Medicine (NLM). With AJPP support, the Editor-in-Chief of EJHS became member of the Council of Science Editors. AJPP also helped EJHS partner with Annals of Internal Medicine published by American College of Physicians. In 2009, EJHS launched its own website where all publications are uploaded for open access. In 2010, it began using ScholarOne-Manuscript Central software for manuscript management. This resulted in the termination of the submission of manuscripts in print copies. In the same year, EJHS joined Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE), while it was indexed on PubMed Central, African Journal Online (AJOL) and EBSCO in 2011. In the end of 2012, it was indexed on MEDLINE. Although EJHS did not win the competition to become member of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in 2011, it succeeded in 2013 as a result of which the Editor-in-Chief joined this international group. The international involvement helped to considerably increase the visibility of EJHS. The remarkable growth in the number of readers and the massive submission of manuscripts from all parts of the world witnessed this phenomenon. This in turn demanded an increase in the frequency of publications. In response to this situation, EJHS evolved into a quarterly publication during its 24th anniversary in 2014. The continued increase in manuscript inflow still necessitated upgrading EJHS into a journal which publishes articles every two months. This progress is heralded with the publication of Volume 26, No. 2 (March 2016). This issue contains nine original articles, two reviews and two case reports which readers are invited to read and utilize.

Poseidon and the Sea: myth, cult and daily life SETH D. PEVNICK (Ed.) with 7 Contributors 199 pp., 125 mostly colour and full page pictures, colour cover, 1 map, 66 figs Tampa Museum of Art in association with D. Giles Ltd, 4 Crescent Stables, 139 Upper R

Poseidon and the Sea: myth, cult and daily life SETH D. PEVNICK (Ed.) with 7 Contributors 199 pp., 125 mostly colour and full page pictures, colour cover, 1 map, 66 figs Tampa Museum of Art in association with D. Giles Ltd, 4 Crescent Stables, 139 Upper R

Effects of color of book cover and typeface of title and author name on gaze duration and choice behavior for books: Evidence from an eye‐tracking experiment

ABSTRACTThis study explores the effect of color of book cover and typeface of title and author name on human gaze behavior while browsing bookshelves. An eye‐tracking experiment was performed with 23 participants, using a wearable eye‐tracker and 96 books. The difference of gaze duration time and the number of book subjects chosen was analyzed in two categories: between warm color book covers and cold color ones, and between Ming‐style typeface and Gothic typeface. Results showed no effect of book cover color on gaze duration and user choice. However, typeface of book title and author name had an effect. It was revealed that Gothic typeface was more attractive if book titles had meaning.

An Editorial Swan Song

An Editorial Swan Song

A robust color video watermarking scheme based on hybrid embedding techniques

The advancements in network technologies and processing of multimedia contents have provided the way for the distribution and sharing of multimedia contents through networks. This in turn has increased the demand for protecting the multimedia contents in terms of authentication, proof of ownership, copy control etc., which can be achieved by means of what is called digital watermarking. The challenges in watermarking techniques are how to achieve the imperceptibility, robustness and payload simultaneously. This paper presents a new bit plane sliced, scrambled color image watermark embedded on the color cover video using hybrid transforms such as Contourlet Transform (CT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) transformations with good imperceptibility, high robustness and at an information rate of (N ź number of motion frames) / 24 images per second of the video, where N is the total number of frames in the video. In order to achieve a good level of imperceptibility, we perform the following: First, we slice the color watermark image into 24 slices using the bit plane slicing mechanism. Subsequently, the so called Arnold transformation key is used to scramble those slices, to achieve first-level of security. Thus, an authenticated receiver with an appropriate key alone can descramble the received slices. Second, we embed those scrambled slices on one of the DWT mid-frequency coefficients (LH band) of successive 1-level CT non-motion frames of color cover video. The non-motion frames are identified using the histogram difference based shot boundary detection algorithm. Third, in order to the provide second-level of security, we generate a random eigen vector from the color watermark image, using co-variance matrix and maximum eigen value and then embed it on another DWT mid-frequency coefficients (HL band). Thus, embedding only the slices (not an entire image) will improve the level of imperceptibility. The mid-frequency embedding location can withstand against all low pass and high pass filtering attacks; thereby it increases the level of robustness. Thus, the proposed system is suitable for authentication. Finally, as far as payload is concerned, we need only 24 non-motion frames for embedding our watermark on to the cover video. Hence the remaining frames can be utilized for embedding other color images. Our simulation results prove that the proposed system provides trustworthy performance against various notable image processing attacks, multiple attacks, geometrical attacks, and temporal attacks.

Robust information security system using steganography, orthogonal code and joint transform correlation

The paper presents a novel and efficient information security technique by employing orthogonal coding scheme, encoded steganography and nonlinear encryption scheme involving joint transform correlation. Multiple biometric signatures are encoded using individual orthogonal codes and then multiplexed together. The encoded and multiplexed image is then embedded inside a cover image utilizing a new steganography technique. Here, a color cover image is first decomposed into three color components, red, green and blue, each of which is used to embed one set of biometric signatures. In each component image, one bit from the three least significant bits is selected using another secret key which is then replaced by the information bit. The component stego images are combined to form the color stego image, which is again encrypted using a multiple phase-shifted reference joint transform correlation (MRJTC) technique. The MRJTC technique is a nonlinear encryption process which increases the security strength significantly against any unauthorized access. The encoded steganography process reduces the vulnerability of an intruder retrieving any information through any steganalysis attack. In addition, the orthogonal encoding scheme enhances the robustness by making the biometric information almost inaccessible without authorization.