Quality Of Cover Image Research Articles

Secret image sharing with distinct covers based on improved Cycling-XOR

Secret image sharing (SIS) is a technique used to distribute confidential data by dividing it into multiple image shadows. Most of the existing approaches or algorithms protect confidential data by encryption with secret keys. This paper proposes a novel SIS scheme without using any secret key. The secret images are first quantized and encrypted by self-encryption into noisy ones. Then, the encrypted images are mixed into secret shares by cross-encryption. The image shadows are generated by replacing the lower bit-planes of the cover images with the secret shares. In the extraction phase, the receiver can restore the quantized secret images by combinatorial operations of the extracted secret shares. Experimental results show that our method is able to deliver a large amount of data payload with a satisfactory cover image quality. Besides, the computational load is very low since the whole scheme is mostly based on cycling-XOR operations.

Camouflaging Within Frames: A Study on Image Steganography

Most important area in the recent years is the field of stegnography. It is the method of hiding data in the cover image, it can be done through the form of text, video or audio. The information is passed from the sender to the receiver without giving any hint to the external users. The phrase steganography derived from two Greek words: ‘steganos’ way covered and ‘graphos' approach writing and often refers to secret writing or facts hiding. The main goal of steganography is to increase conversation protection via placing secret message into the virtual picture. In this paper we have tried to implement the Least Significant bit (LSB), Spread Spectrum technique and DCT algorithm. LSB method is the simple steganographic technique to conceal the secret data in an image and it is commonly used. This method maintains the quality of the image. Steganography using LSB hides out the bits of the message image into the LSB of the cover image. The advantage of LSB steganography is that it is very simple, easy to employ and the final image obtained will be almost similar to the cover image, meaning that the quality of cover image remains same. This study aims to contribute to the understanding and advancement of image steganography techniques, offering valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers involved in the field of information security and digital communication.

Efficient methods for digital image watermarking and information embedding

Now a day to achieve security of digital data, utilizing digital image watermarking scheme is the option. The primary purpose to upgrade image watermarking scheme is to fulfill the need of sufficient imperceptibility, capacity, and robustness of watermark against several attacks like JPEG compression parameter, salt and pepper noise, cropping factor of the image part which contains a watermark and rotating the watermark at one particular angle. During embedding stage in digital image watermarking scheme, a secret message or image introduced into a host image without destroying the quality of original cover image for security and authentication of the data. During extraction stage in the watermarking scheme applying a process to that employed in insertion step but in a reverse way. In this paper different evaluation based on the watermarking methods described. Many projects have been presented such as DCT, DWT, DFT, SVD using FWHT, QIM, BPNN, DFIS, EZW, Huffman coding to provide protection, robustness and high embedding capacity. In the digital image watermarking world, where Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is utilized to determine the image quality factor and Normalized correlation (NC) and robustness of the watermark. Using this learning opportunity an environment friendly digital image watermarking scheme can be used with sustainable infrastructure in developing countries.

Dual Reversible Data Hiding Based on AMBTC Using Hamming Code and LSB Replacement

The existing data hiding schemes conceal the data in the cover image and then communicate secretly on the channel. The weakness of these methods is that the security aspect is somewhat lacking, and there is a limit to hiding enough data. In this paper, we propose a reversible data hiding method based on dual AMBTC images. It improves security, which is a weakness of data hiding. AMBTC has strengths in low-bandwidth channel environments with simple calculations and efficient data performance. HC(7,4) and LSB replacement methods are applied to each block of AMBTC to hide secret data. After the embedding process, the two AMBTC-marked images are obtained, and these images are sent to different recipients. The recipients can extract hidden messages and restore the cover AMBTC image by using the proposed method and two marked images. Our proposed data hiding method guarantees sufficient data hiding, proper cover image quality, and restoration of the original cover image. Experimental results show that our method is efficient in terms of image quality and embedding ratio.

An image forensic technique based on JPEG ghosts.

The unprecedented growth in the easy availability of photo-editing tools has endangered the power of digital images. An image was supposed to be worth more than a thousand words, but now this can be said only if it can be authenticated or the integrity of the image can be proved to be intact. In this paper, we propose a digital image forensic technique for JPEG images. It can detect any forgery in the image if the forged portion called a ghost image is having a compression quality different from that of the cover image. It is based on resaving the JPEG image at different JPEG qualities, and the detection of the forged portion is maximum when it is saved at the same JPEG quality as the cover image. Also, we can precisely predict the JPEG quality of the cover image by analyzing the similarity using Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) or the energy of the images. The first maxima in SSIM or the first minima in energy correspond to the cover image JPEG quality. We created a dataset for varying JPEG compression qualities of the ghost and the cover images and validated the scalability of the experimental results. We also, experimented with varied attack scenarios, e.g. high-quality ghost image embedded in low quality of cover image, low-quality ghost image embedded in high-quality of cover image, and ghost image and cover image both at the same quality. The proposed method is able to localize the tampered portions accurately even for forgeries as small as 10 × 10 sized pixel blocks. Our technique is also robust against other attack scenarios like copy-move forgery, inserting text into image, rescaling (zoom-out/zoom-in) ghost image and then pasting on cover image.

Application of Deep Learning in Land Use Classification for Soil Erosion Using Remote Sensing

China is suffering from serious soil and water loss due to improper land use, leading to flood and drought disasters, and industrial and agricultural reduction. The commonly used monitoring methods of soil and water loss rely on the visual interpretation of remote sensing images, which is time-consuming and laborious. In this study, deep learning semantic segmentation technology was applied to monitoring land use for soil and water conservation. Manual visual interpretation mark samples and land use products collected in recent years were combined to construct training samples for deep learning. Deep convolution neural network model based on ResNet152 and DeeplabV3+ was selected for performing land use classification. Then the soil and water loss were quantified using the Chinese Soil Loss Equation (CSLE) based on the hydrological, geographic, vegetation cover and land use information. The experimental results show that the deep learning model can quickly extract robust edge features from remote sensing images and has high pixel accuracy (83.4%). Although the model accuracy was affected by the land cover types and image quality in different study area, it can still achieve an accuracy higher than 70% in other counties through our experiment. It can further improve the information service level of soil and water conservation product, and provide a useful guideline for automatic land use interpretation and identification of soil and water conservation status based on high resolution remote sensing images.

High‐quality reversible data hiding scheme using sorting and enhanced pairwise PEE

This paper proposes a novel reversible data hiding (RDH) technique using sorting and pairwise prediction error expansion (PEE) to improve embedding capacity (EC) while retaining the quality of cover image. The proposed scheme traverses alternate pixels of the cover image in a zig-zag order to construct two independent sets for sequential embedding. The pixels of each set are sorted in an increasing order of their rhombus mean followed by a two-pass data embedding by dividing the sets into 1 × 3 size blocks based on some pre-defined criteria. In pass 1, two prediction errors are calculated for the first and the last pixels using their rhombus means; and pairwise mapping is modified and exploited to embed the secret data in such a way that the value of the first pixel is either increased or remains unchanged, and the value of the last pixel is either decreased or remains unchanged. In pass-2, the middle pixel is utilised to predict the first and last pixels and the values of the first pixel and the last pixel are either decreased or remains unchanged and either increased or remains unchanged, respectively. In contrast to some existing recovery-based methods, the proposed pass-2 guarantees to complement the changes made in pass-1, thereby boosting the quality along with increased EC. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better embedding performance than the state-of-the-art RDH techniques. More specifically, the proposed method gets an increment by an average of 0.46 dB and 1.01 dB for embedding 10,000 bits and 20,000 bits respectively over its closest prior art.

Data hiding based on noise-like signal addressing

There are various computing techniques (methods) to transmit secret messages. For example, cryptographic techniques hide the semantic content of transmitted messages, presenting them in the form of noise-like minor data. Steganographic techniques hide the existence of information messages itself. In this case, messages are hidden inside cover files, i.e., redundant data that are transmitted in an open way and do not cause suspicion in anyone. An outside observer can intercept cover files, analyze and examine them. However, it is very difficult or even impossible to detect and recover hidden data. This article discusses the techniques for hiding data in cover images using direct spread spectrum. We propose a new technique that consists in direct addressing of pseudo-random sequences. On the one hand, it significantly reduces cover file distortion. On the other hand, the error rate in recovered messages does not increase. Our experiments have shown, that Spread Spectrum Steganography technique indeed reduce the distortion in cover images compared to other techniques. We give some illustrative examples and show the advantages of the proposed method. Even with a significant increase in encoding density, the quality of cover images does not degrade. We also conduct experiments and evaluate image quality based on Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR). The obtained results of experimental studies confirm the adequacy and reliability of the research results. The main disadvantage of the proposed data hiding technique is a high computational complexity. To recover messages, it is necessary to calculate sequentially the correlation coefficients with a large number of pseudo-random sequences.

An efficient and robust watermarking approach based on single value decompression, multi-level DWT, and wavelet fusion with scrambled medical images

This paper offers a medical image watermarking approach based on Wavelet Fusion (WF), Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), and Multi-Level Discrete Wavelet Transform (M-DWT) with scrambling techniques for securing the watermarks images. The proposed approach can be used for providing multi-level security in various applications such as military, copyright protection, and telemedicine systems. The key idea of the projected approach is to first combine two digital watermark images into a single fused watermark to increase the embedded information payload. Then, the fused watermark is scrambled using Arnold and Chaotic algorithms. Finally, the scrambled fused watermark is embedded in the cover image using the SVD and three-level DWT algorithms. The selection of the Arnold and chaotic for watermark encryption is attributed to confirm robustness which resists several types of multimedia attacks and upturn the security level. This paper also presents a comparative study of the proposed approach for different digital images to determine its robustness and stability. Several simulation results reveal that the proposed system improves the capacity and security of embedded medical watermarks without affecting the cover image quality. In conclusion, the proposed approach achieved not only precise acceptable perceptual quality with admired Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) values but similarly high Correlation Coefficient (Cr) and SSIM values in the existence of severe attacks.

Enhanced Least Significant Bit Replacement Algorithm in Spatial Domain of Steganography Using Character Sequence Optimization

Text Steganography has become a dominant research field in information sharing domain and many researches are being conducted to strengthen this area. Researches around the amount of secret message that could be stored in a given cover image is always critical for any steganography technique used to share the secret text. This research paper proposes an enhanced Least Significant Bit (eLSB) embedding technique in steganography, through which the quality of cover image is improved, when compared to typical LSB algorithm used in steganography. The proposed method employs in spatial domain and it does the secret message encoding in two phases. The first phase generates the metadata and embeds the header information in first few bytes of cover image and then the following phase takes care of processing secret message and storing the secret message in cover image using an optimized way, which is possible through analyzing secret text’s character sequences. Proposed work results into occupying lesser space for the given secret text in cover image and hence leads to the better stego image quality than existing LSB algorithms. As the algorithm works on optimizing secret message during embedding phase itself, this technique enables high capacity embedding rate, additional security due to secret message preprocessing and enhanced cover image quality. The results are compared with LSB algorithm and compared to Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Square Error (MSE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values to prove the proposed algorithm performs better on secret text embedding in cover image.

Efficient Lossless Compression Based Reversible Data Hiding Using Multilayered n-Bit Localization

We proposed an innovative reversible data hiding technique that is formulated on histogram shifting by using multilayer localized n-bit truncation image (LBPTI), namely, generated form 8-bit plane by means of efficient lossless compression. After selecting the reference point from the block, the neighbor topmost points are used to attain the data embedding without modifying the peak point; in addition, the key information regarding peak point is not mandatory in extraction end to extract the secret information. In order to make the embedded cover-image similar to the histogram of original cover-image, we exploited the localization with efficient lossless compression on lower block level to increase the embedding capacity while controlling extra bit to expand additional embedding capacity on optimum level besides sustaining the quality of cover-image.

Robust and Secured Image Steganography using LSB and Encryption with QR Code

The great development obtained with digital communication system depends on the improvement of the amount and security of transmitting information, the secrecy of data transmitted becomes a main subject for the researcher. Cryptography and Steganography play a major role for secured data transfer. In this research, the cryptography and steganography method was proposed for information security. In cryptography, the encrypted message was obtained by XOR the secret message with QR code. While, in Steganography the encrypted message was embedded inside cover image using LSB technique. The new approach in this research is use of the QR technique as well as the encrypted message was hidden in places selected using the bat algorithm. Secret message with different sizes was tested with many cover imagesto verify the efficiency of the proposed method. In the end, to measure the quality of cover image after the process of embedding, a group of standard parameters has adopted. The results of parameters showed the proposed method hasthe highest security and integrity.

Multiple watermarking technique for securing online social network contents using Back Propagation Neural Network

The initial contribution in this paper begins with proposing a robust and secure DWT, DCT and SVD based multiple watermarking techniques for protecting digital contents over unsecure social networks. The proposed technique initially decomposes the host image into third level DWT where the vertical frequency band (LH2) at second level and low frequency band (LL3) at the third level DWT is selected for embedding image and text watermark respectively. Further, the proposed method addresses the issue of ownership identity authentication, multiple watermarks are embedded instead of single watermark into the same multimedia objects simultaneously, which offer the extra level of security and reduced storage and bandwidth requirements in the important applications areas such as E-health, secure multimedia contents on online social network, secured E-Voting systems, digital cinema, education and insurance companies, driver’s license /passport. Moreover, the robustness image watermark is also enhanced by using Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), which is applied on extracted watermark to minimize the distortion effects on the watermarked image. In addition, the method addresses the issue of channel noise distortions in the identity information. This has been achieved using error correcting codes (ECCs) for encoding the text watermark before embedding into the host image. The effects of Hamming and BCH codes on the robustness of personal identity information in the form of text watermark and the cover image quality have been investigated. Further, to enhance the security of the host and watermarks the selective encryption is applied on watermarked image, where only the important multimedia data is encrypted. The proposed method has been extensively tested and analyzed against known attacks. Based on experimental results, it is established that the proposed technique achieves superior performance in respect of, robustness, security and capacity with acceptable visual quality of the watermarked image as compared to reported techniques. Finally, we have evaluated the image quality of the watermarked image by subjective method. Therefore, the proposed method may find potential solutions in prevention of personal identity theft and unauthorized multimedia content sharing on online social networks/open channel.

On the Removal of Steganographic Content from Images

Steganography is primarily used for the covert transmission of information even though the purpose can be legitimate or malicious. The primary purpose of this work is to build a firewall which will thwart this transmission. This will be achieved by radiometric and geometric operations. These operations will degrade the quality of cover image. However these can be restored to some extent by a deconvolution operation. The finally deconvolved image is subjected to steganalysis to verify the absence of stego content. Experimental results showed that PSNR and SSIM values are between 35 dB - 45 dB and 0.96, respectively which are above the acceptable range. Our method can suppress the stego content to large extent irrespective of embedding algorithm in spatial and transform domain. We verified by using RS steganalysis, difference image histogram and chi-square attack, that 95 per cent of the stego content embedded in the spatial domain was removed by our showering techniques. We also verified that 100 per cent of the stego content was removed in the transform domain with PSNR 30 dB - 45 dB and SSIM between 0.67-0.99. Percentage of stego removed in both domains was measured by using bit error rate and first order Markov feature.

Secured Biometric Authentication using Visual Cryptography and Transforms

ection of biometric data is gaining importance because its uniqueness and digital watermarking techniques are used to protect the biometric data from either accidental or intentional attacks. Here introduces a novel secured authentication method using wavelet decomposition and Visual Cryptography to hide an iris image. In this report gives exhaustive study on a scheme in which iris image is secured by using a technique called Visual Cryptography (VC). In this technique, iris image is embedded in cover image and then using wavelet transform this output image is decomposed into four shares. These four shares are compressed at sender site. At receiver side, to obtain original iris image inverse DWT is obtained and finally bit matching procedure has been applied. The result shows that Stegnography and Visual cryptography implementation on biometrics, secures Iris and related textual information from getting identity forged. In comparison with existing approach quality of final watermarked cover images and Iris has been maintained which could be used for matching of it for authentication. Along with quality, goal of higher security and bandwidth reduction by reducing size of shares is achieved. Also technique of three least significant bits applied successfully that allows secret message of increased length by maintaining quality of Iris. KeywordsLeast Significant Bit (SLSB) Method, LSB, Visual

Research on Embedding Capacity and Efficiency of Information Hiding Based on Digital Images

Generally speaking, being an efficient information hiding scheme, what we want to achieve is high embedding capacity of the cover image and high visual quality of the stego image, high visual quality is also called embedding efficiency. This paper mainly studies on the information hiding technology based on gray-scale digital images and especially considers the improvement of embedding capacity and embedding efficiency. For the purpose of that, two algorithms for information hiding were proposed, one is called high capacity of information hiding algorithm (HCIH for short), which achieves high embedding rate, and the other is called high quality of information hiding algorithm (HQIH for short), which realizes high embedding efficiency. The simulation experiments show that our proposed algorithms achieve better performance.

REGION OF NON-INTEREST BASED DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING USING NEURAL NETWORKS

Copyrights protection of digital data become inevitable in current world. Digital watermarks have been recently proposed as secured scheme for copyright protection, authentication, source tracking, and broadcast monitoring of video, audio, text data and digital images. In this paper a method to embed a watermark in region of non-interest (RONI) and a method for adaptive calculation of strength factor using neural network are proposed. The embedding and extraction processes are carried out in the transform domain by using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). Finally, the algorithm robustness is tested against noise addition attacks and geometric distortion attacks. The results authenticate that the proposed watermarking algorithm does not degrade the quality of cover image as the watermark is inserted only in region of non-interest and is resistive to attacks.

E for editing

To you the reader, the most obvious change in the Annals today is the new-look colour scheme. We feel this has a cleaner, more attractive, appearance and hope that you will find it easier to read. Behind the scenes, however, there have been changes with much greater impact. Most important was the introduction of Open Journal Systems (OJS), our electronic manuscript handling system. It would be wrong to pretend that introduction of OJS has been seamless, but the Editors believe that the problems have been resolved, and that the temporary pain is worth the longer term gain that OJS brings. We are grateful to those who have helped in the trial of OJS. This new system will be fully implemented at the start of 2011; the feedback and comments we have received from authors and reviewers have improved its function considerably. OJS enables us to track the progress of submitted manuscripts through the review and editing process, and to handle enquiries from authors more rapidly than before. It provides the Editors with ongoing feedback on the performance of reviewers, and enables us to select the right people to review, while avoiding overburdening busy individuals. We can now easily update our analyses of manuscript handling data. All of this should improve the service we provide to authors, and speed the publication process. This means that readers will get a better deal, with better papers published more quickly. Throughout this year, we have worked in the Annals Office to improve the service we provide to authors. Processing of submitted papers has been quicker, not least as a result of the better tracking we have with OJS. Reviewers now receive reminders to return their review in good time, which was impossible to achieve with our old system. During 2010, we have considerably speeded the whole process: e-mail submissions of original research papers through our previous system get a decision after an average of 55 days; with OJS a decision is made after an average 36 days; research papers are published online an average of 35 days after acceptance (and we aim to reduce that further in 2011). Readers sometimes wish to comment on papers and we have encouraged the use of our Readers’ Pages ( ). This allows early, online publication of correspondence, and rapid responses from authors, which is sometimes difficult to achieve in print, with publication eight times a year. Please use this route for all comments on published papers and other correspondence intended for publication. A small change in approach which comes into effect in 2011 is the crisper format we have adopted for book reviews. Many readers appreciate these, but we had struggled to find room for the many good books we have reviewed, with the rather expansive several hundred words allowed up to now. We are now asking our Book Reviewers to give their opinion in 150–200 words. There have been changes in personnel as well. Our Manager, Tara Nikovskis has moved overseas with her family, and we thank her for her contribution to the production of the Annals. Jon Hackett has taken over as Annals Manager, and we welcome his clear understanding of publication issues and his commitment to high standards. Adam Brownsell has rejoined the team, providing invaluable help with the implementation of OJS. We have appointed an Associate Editor, Jyoti Shah. Jyoti is a Urologist in Burton, and she has plans to develop a series of reviews covering peri-operative care, which should be of interest to a wide range of Fellows and Members. Our Editorial Board continues to evolve, adapting to changing needs of our readers and authors. The Board now functions as a team of Section Editors, and I find their contribution invaluable, particularly in the selection of appropriate reviewers for research papers. New names appear on our list of Reviewers this year, and I am grateful to all those who have helped in the selection of papers for publication. Finally, this month we publish on the cover the first in a series of illustrations submitted by readers. Our intention is to have a new image for every issue, and to select the best image of the year for special mention. Every reader will have the chance to contribute to this selection on the website. Many images have already been received, but I hope that more will come. If you have an image of interest, whether scientific, clinical or artistic, please submit it. We hope that the range and quality of cover images will reflect the wide range of surgical practice.

Mixing Codebooks of LBG, KPE and KFCG Algorithms to Increase Capacity of Information Hiding

Many researchers have studied reversible data hiding techniques in recent years and most have proposed reversible data hiding schemes that guarantees only that the original cover image can be reconstructed completely. Once the secret data are embedded in the compression domain and the receiver wants to store the cover image in a compression mode to save storage space, the receiver must extract the secret data, reconstruct the cover image, and compress the cover image again to generate compression codes. In this paper, we propose a novel data hiding method based on VQ compressed images. Codebooks of secret message & cover images are combined using shuffle algorithm. Experimental results indicate that our proposed scheme provides 100% hiding capacity or more that means secret message can be of same or more size than cover image and better image quality compared with existing schemes based on VQ compressed images. The technique is robust against stegaanalysis technique.

Financial Impact of Emergency Department Ultrasound

There is limited information on the financial implications of an emergency department ultrasound (ED US) program. The authors sought to perform a fiscal analysis of an integrated ED US program. A retrospective review of billing data was performed for fiscal year (FY) 2007 for an urban academic ED with an ED US program. The ED had an annual census of 80,000 visits and 1,101 ED trauma activations. The ED is a core teaching site for a 4-year emergency medicine (EM) residency, has 35 faculty members, and has 24-hour availability of all radiology services including formal US. ED US is utilized as part of evaluation of all trauma activations and for ED procedures. As actual billing charges and reimbursement rates are institution-specific and proprietary information, relative value units (RVUs) and reimbursement based on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2007 fee schedule (adjusted for fixed diagnosis-related group [DRG] payments and bad debt) was used to determine revenue generated from ED US. To estimate potential volume, assumptions were made on improvement in documentation rate for diagnostic scans (current documentation rates based on billed volume versus diagnostic studies in diagnostic image database), with no improvements assumed for procedural ED US. Expenses consist of three components-capital costs, training costs, and ongoing operational costs-and were determined by institutional experience. Training costs were considered sunken expenses by this institution and were thus not included in the original return on investment (ROI) calculation, although for this article a second ROI calculation was done with training cost estimates included. For the purposes of analysis, certain key assumptions were made. We utilized a collection rate of 45% and hospitalization rates (used to adjust for fixed DRG payments) of 33% for all diagnostic scans, 100% for vascular access, and 10% for needle placement. An optimal documentation rate of 95% was used to estimate potential revenue. In FY 2007, 486 limited echo exams of abdomen (current procedural terminology [CPT] 76705) and 480 limited echo cardiac exams were performed (CPT 93308) while there were 78 exams for US-guided vascular access (CPT 76937) and 36 US-guided needle placements when performing paracentesis, thoracentesis, or location of abscess for drainage (CPT 76492). Applying the 2007 CMS fee schedule and above assumptions, the revenue generated was 578 RVUs and $35,541 ($12,934 in professional physician fees and $22,607 in facility fees). Assuming optimal documentation rates for diagnostic ED US scans, ED US could have generated 1,487 RVUs and $94,593 ($33,953 in professional physician fees and $60,640 in facility fees). Program expenses include an initial capital expense (estimated at $120,000 for two US machines) and ongoing operational costs ($68,640 per year to cover image quality assurance review, continuing education, and program maintenance). Based on current revenue, there would be an annual operating loss, and thus an ROI cannot be calculated. However, if potential revenue is achieved, the annual operating income will be $22,846 per year with an ROI of 4.9 years to break even with initial investment. Determining an ROI is a required procedure for any business plan for establishing an ED US program. Our analysis demonstrates that an ED US program that captures charges for trauma and procedural US and achieves the potential billing volume breaks even in less than 5 years, at which point it would generate a positive margin.