Image hiding scheme using modulus function and optimal substitution table

The simple least-significant-bit (LSB) substitution technique is the easiest way to embed secret data in the host image. To avoid image degradation of the simple LSB substitution technique, Wang et al. proposed a method using the substitution table to process image hiding. Later, Thien and Lin employed the modulus function to solve the same problem. In this paper, the proposed scheme combines the modulus function and the optimal substitution table to improve the quality of the stego-image. Experimental results show that our method can achieve better quality of the stego-image than Thien and Lin’s method does. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Chin-Shiang Chan received his BS degree in Computer Science in 1999 from the National Cheng Chi University, Taipei, Taiwan and the MS degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering in 2001 from the National Chung Cheng University, ChiaYi, Taiwan. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Information Engineering at the National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan. His research fields are image hiding and image compression. Chin-Chen Chang received his BS degree in applied mathematics in 1977 and his MS degree in computer and decision sciences in 1979, both from the National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in computer engineering in 1982 from the National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. During the academic years of 1980–1983, he was on the faculty of the Department of Computer Engineering at the National Chiao Tung University. From 1983–1989, he was on the faculty of the Institute of Applied Mathematics, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan. From 1989 to 2004, he has worked as a professor in the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan. Since 2005, he has worked as a professor in the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science at Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan. Dr. Chang is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of IEE and a member of the Chinese Language Computer Society, the Chinese Institute of Engineers of the Republic of China, and the Phi Tau Phi Society of the Republic of China. His research interests include computer cryptography, data engineering, and image compression. Yu-Chen Hu received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan in 1999. Dr. Hu is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Providence University, Sha-Lu, Taiwan. He is a member of the SPIE society and a member of the IEEE society. He is also a member of the Phi Tau Phi Society of the Republic of China. His research interests include image and data compression, information hiding, and image processing.     

A data mining approach to database compression

Data mining can dig out valuable information from databases to assist a business in approaching knowledge discovery and improving business intelligence. Database stores large structured data. The amount of data increases due to the advanced database technology and extensive use of information systems. Despite the price drop of storage devices, it is still important to develop efficient techniques for database compression. This paper develops a database compression method by eliminating redundant data, which often exist in transaction database. The proposed approach uses a data mining structure to extract association rules from a database. Redundant data will then be replaced by means of compression rules. A heuristic method is designed to resolve the conflicts of the compression rules. To prove its efficiency and effectiveness, the proposed approach is compared with two other database compression methods. Chin-Feng Lee is an associate professor with the Department of Information Management at Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1994 and 1998, respectively, from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chung Cheng University. Her current research interests include database design, image processing and data mining techniques. S. Wesley Changchien is a professor with the Institute of Electronic Commerce at National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan, R.O.C. He received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering (1989) and completed his MS (1993) and Ph.D. (1996) degrees in Industrial Engineering at State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. His current research interests include electronic commerce, internet/database marketing, knowledge management, data mining, and decision support systems. Jau-Ji Shen received his Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering and Computer Science from National Taiwan University at Taipei, Taiwan in 1988. From 1988 to 1994, he was the leader of the software group in Institute of Aeronautic, Chung-Sung Institute of Science and Technology. He is currently an associate professor of information management department in the National Chung Hsing University at Taichung. His research areas focus on the digital multimedia, database and information security. His current research areas focus on data engineering, database techniques and information security. Wei-Tse Wang received the B.A. (2001) and M.B.A (2003) degrees in Information Management at Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. His research interests include data mining, XML, and database compression.     

A content-based image authentication scheme based on singular value decomposition

In this paper, we propose an image authentication scheme in which image features are embedded for copyright protection and content-tampering detection. The features are based on the invariance of the relationship among SVD coefficients. The proposed method is sensitive to malicious manipulations and robust to lossy compressions or regular image operations, such as brightening, shifting, averaging, rotation, and so on. Several experiments demonstrated that the proposed scheme could efficiently detect locations which have been tampered with and effectively resist several types of attacks. Moreover, stego images based on our proposed method have high visual quality. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Tzu-Chuen Lu received the B.M. degree (1999) and MSIM degree (2001) in information management from Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. degree (2006) in computer engineering from National Chung Cheng University. Her current title is an Assistant Professor in Departament of Information Management from Chaoyang University of Technology. Her current research interests include data mining, image retrieval, image authentication, information hiding, and knowledge management. Chin-Chen Chang received his B.S. degree in applied mathematics in 1977 and the M.S. degree in computer and decision sciences in 1979, both from the National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in computer engineering in 1982 from the National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. From August 1995 to October 1997, he was the provost at the National Chung Cheng University. From September 1996 to October 1997, Dr. Chang was the Acting President at the Nationa Chung Cheng University. From July 1998 to June 2000, he was a director of the Ministry of Education of China. In addition, he has served as a consultant to several research institutes and government departments. His current research interests include database design, computer cryptography, image compression and data structures. Yi-Long Liu received the B.S. degree (2002) in the Department of Mathematics (Applied Mathematics Section) from the College of Science and Engineering at Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan. Liu is now a Master student in National Chung Cheng University and is studying in the domain of image processing. His current research interests include data hiding, data compression, and progressive image transmission.     

Progressive viewing and sharing of sensitive images

The paper proposes a progressive viewing method useful in sharing a sensitive image. As in visual cryptography, this method characterizes its ability to recover the image by stacking transparencies without any computation. However, the method balances the sensitivity and the daily-processing convenience of the image. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Wen-Pinn Fang was born in 1971 in Taiwan, Republic of China. He received his BS degree in mechanical engineering from National Sun-Yet-Sans University in 1994, and MS degree in mechanical engineering from National Chiao Tung University in 1998. In 2006 he received his PhD in Computer Science Department of National Chiao Tung University. His recent research interests include image sharing and image processing. Ja-Chen Lin was born in 1955 in Taiwan, Republic of China. He received his BS degree in computer science in 1977 and MS degree in applied mathematics in 1979, both from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. In 1988 he received his PhD in mathematics from Purdue University, United States. In 1981–1982, he was an instructor at National Chiao Tung University. From 1984 to 1988, he was a graduate instructor at Purdue University. He joined the Department of Computer and Information Science at National Chiao Tung University in August 1988 and is currently a professor there. His recent research interests include pattern recognition and image processing. Dr. Lin is a member of the Phi-Tau-Phi Scholastic Honor Society.     

An integrated edge detection method using mathematical morphology

This paper presents an edge detection method based on mathematical morphology. The proposed scheme consists of four steps: preprocessing, edge extraction, edge decision, and postprocessing. In the preprocessing step, a morphological central transformation is applied to remove noise. In the edge extraction and decision steps, a morphological edge extractor is designed to estimate the edge information of an image, and an edge decision criterion is followed to determine whether a pixel is an edge or not. In the postprocessing step, the morphological hit-or-miss transformation is utilized to improve the correctness of the detected edges. It is proved theoretically for the correctness and effectiveness for detecting ideal edges. Experimental results show that the proposed method works well on both artificial and real images. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Chin-Pan Huang was born in 1959 in Taiwan, Republic of China. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Chung Cheng Institute of Technology, Taiwan, in 1981 and in 1985, respectively. In 1996, he received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States. From 1996 to 2002, he was an associate scientist of the Electronic System Division in Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology. He then joined the Department of Computer and Communication Engineering at Ming Chuan University in August 2002 and is currently an assistant professor there. His recent research interests include data compression, computer vision, digital image processing, and pattern recognition. Ran-Zan Wang was born in 1972 in Fukien, Republic of China. He received his B.S. degree in computer engineering and science in 1994 and M.S. degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1996, both from Yuan-Ze University. In 2001, he received his Ph.D. degree in computer and information science from National Chiao Tung University. In 2001–2002, he was an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Engineering at the Van Nung Institute of Technology. He joined the Department of Computer and Communication Engineering at Ming Chuan University in August 2002 and is currently an assistant professor there. His recent research interests include data hiding and digital watermarking, image processing, and pattern recognition. Dr. Wang is a member of the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society.     

Fingerprint image enhancement and postprocessing based on the directional fields

Fingerprint recognition is based on minutiae matching. The matching correctness of the fingerprints is due to the effect of the accuracy of the minutiae. Fingerprint enhancement and postprocessing are used to reduce the false minutiae. In this paper, we propose methods on fingerprint enhancement and postprocessing, based on the directional fields of a fingerprint. We directly enhance the fingerprint on a gray-scale image and reduce most false minutiae in the postprocessing step. The achieved results are compared with other methods, and the reduction of false minutiae and the recovery of dropped minutiae are improved. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Gwo-Cheng Chao was born in Dasi, Taoyuan, Taiwan, in 1978. He received MS degrees in computer science and information engineering from Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, in 2004. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree in networking and multimedia at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests include pattern recognition, image processing, computer vision, biometrics, computer graphics, and multimedia systems. Shung-Shing Lee received BS and MS degrees in electronic engineering and a PhD degree in electrical engineering in 1980, 1987, and 1996, respectively, all from National Taiwan Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Ching Yun University, Jung-Li, Taiwan. His research interests include image processing, biometrics, embedded system design, SOPC, parallel computing, and parallel algorithms. Hung-Chuan Lai received his MS degree in computer science and information engineering from Chung-Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2002. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests include image processing, VLSI, fault tolerance architecture, embedded system design, data compression, computer architecture and organization, and biometrics.     

Web image indexing by using associated texts

In order to index Web images, the whole associated texts are partitioned into a sequence of text blocks, then the local relevance of a term to the corresponding image is calculated with respect to both its local occurrence in the block and the distance of the block to the image. Thus, the overall relevance of a term is determined as the sum of all its local weight values multiplied by the corresponding distance factors of the text blocks. In the present approach, the associated text of a Web image is firstly partitioned into three parts, including a page-oriented text (TM), a link-oriented text (LT), and a caption-oriented text (BT). Since the big size and semantic divergence, the caption-oriented text is further partitioned into finer blocks based on the tree structure of the tag elements within the BT text. During the processing, all heading nodes are pulled up in order to correlate with their semantic scopes, and a collapse algorithm is also exploited to remove the empty blocks. In our system, the relevant factors of the text blocks are determined by using a greedy Two-Way-Merging algorithm. Zhiguo Gong is an associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macao, China. He received his BS, MS, and PhD from the Hebei Normal University, Peking University, and the Chinese Academy of Science in 1983, 1988, and 1998, respectively. His research interests include Distributed Database, Multimedia Database, Digital Library, Web Information Retrieval, and Web Mining. Leong Hou U is currently a Master Candidate in the Department of Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macao, China. He received his BS from National Chi Nan University, Taiwan in 2003. His research interests include Web Information Retrieval and Web Mining. Chan Wa Cheang is currently a Master Candidate in the Department of Computer and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macao, China. He received his BS from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan in 2003. His research interests include Web Information Retrieval and Web Mining.     

Composite of adaptive support vector regression and nonlinear conditional heteroscedasticity tuned by quantum minimization for forecasts

Adaptive support vector regression (ASVR) applied to the forecast of complex time series is superior to the other traditional prediction methods. However, the effect of volatility clustering occurred in time-series actually deteriorates ASVR prediction accuracy. Therefore, incorporating nonlinear generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (NGARCH) model into ASVR is employed for dealing with the problem of volatility clustering to best fit the forecast’s system. Interestingly, quantum-based minimization algorithm is proposed in this study to tune the resulting coefficients between ASVR and NGARCH, in such a way that the ASVR/NGARCH composite model can achieve the best accuracy of prediction. Quantum optimization here tackles so-called NP-completeness problem and outperforms the real-coded genetic algorithm on the same problem because it accomplishes better approach to the optimal or near-optimal coefficient-found. It follows that the proposed method definitely obtains the satisfactory results because of highly balancing generalization and localization for composite model and thus improving forecast accuracy. Bao Rong Chang is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taitung University in Taitung, Taiwan. He completed his BS degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tam Kang University, Taiwan. In 1990, he earned his ME degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, and his Ph.D. in 1994 at the same University. His current research interests include Intelligent Computations, Applied Computer Network, and Financial Engineering. Hsiu-Fen Tsai is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Business at Shu Te University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She completed her BA degree from the Department of International Business, National Taiwan University, Taiwan. In 1995, she earned her MBA degree from the Department of Business Administration, National Taiwan University, Taiwan. At present, she is a Ph. D. Candidate in Department of International Business since 2004 at the same University. Her current research interests include Intelligent Analysis of Business Models and Applications of Strategy Management.     

An instance-based learning approach based on grey relational structure

In instance-based learning, the ‘nearness’ between two instances—used for pattern classification—is generally determined by some similarity functions, such as the Euclidean or Value Difference Metric (VDM). However, Euclidean-like similarity functions are normally only suitable for domains with numeric attributes. The VDM metrics are mainly applicable to domains with symbolic attributes, and their complexity increases with the number of classes in a specific application domain. This paper proposes an instance-based learning approach to alleviate these shortcomings. Grey relational analysis is used to precisely describe the entire relational structure of all instances in a specific domain. By using the grey relational structure, new instances can be classified with high accuracy. Moreover, the total number of classes in a specific domain does not affect the complexity of the proposed approach. Forty classification problems are used for performance comparison. Experimental results show that the proposed approach yields higher performance over other methods that adopt one of the above similarity functions or both. Meanwhile, the proposed method can yield higher performance, compared to some other classification algorithms. Chi-Chun Huang is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Management at National Kaohsiung Marine University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in 2003. His research includes intelligent Internet systems, grey theory, machine learning, neural networks and pattern recognition. Hahn-Ming Lee is currently Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. He received the B.S. degree and Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University in 1984 and 1991, respectively. His research interests include, intelligent Internet systems, fuzzy computing, neural networks and machine learning. He is a member of IEEE, TAAI, CFSA and IICM.     

Multiobject tracking in video using a trisection paradigm

This paper proposes a technique for analyzing the following three problems: (a) segmentation of moving objects, (b) feature extraction, and (c) the solution of the correspondence problem in multiobject tracking in video sequences. In (c), we use a paradigm to solve the correspondence problem and to determine a motion trajectory based on a trisectional structure. The paradigm distinguishes between real-world objects, extracts image features such as motion blobs and color patches, and abstracts objects such as meta objects that denote real-world physical objects. The efficiency of the proposed method for determining the motion trajectories of moving objects will be demonstrated in this paper on the basis of the analysis of real image sequences that are subjected to severe disturbances (e.g., increasing congestion, shadow casting, and lighting transitions). The text was submitted by the authors in English. Ayoub K. Al-Hamadi received his Masters Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in 1997 and his PhD in Technical Computer Science at the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany, in 2001. Since 2002, he has been Assistant Professor at the Institute for Electronics, Signal Processing, and Communications Technology at the University of Magdeburg. His research work concentrates on the field of image processing, tracking analysis, and pattern recognition. Dr. Al-Hamadi is the author of more than 22 articles. Robert Niese received his Masters Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Computer Science at the University of Magdeburg, Germany, in 2004. He is currently working on a PhD thesis focusing on image processing, tracking, and pattern recognition. Bernd Michaelis was born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1947. He received a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Technische Hochschule Magdeburg in 1971 and his first PhD in 1974. Between 1974 and 1980 he worked at the Technische Hochschule Magdeburg and was granted a second doctoral degree in 1980. In 1993, he became Professor of Technical Computer Science at the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg. His research work concentrates on the field of image processing, artificial neural networks, pattern recognition, processor architectures, and microcomputers. Professor Michaelis is the author of more than 150 papers.     

An efficient method for estimating null values in relational databases

Generally, a database system containing null value attributes will not operate properly. This study proposes an efficient and systematic approach for estimating null values in a relational database which utilizes clustering algorithms to cluster data, and a regression coefficient to determine the degree of influence between different attributes. Two databases are used to verify the proposed method: (1) Human resource database; and (2) Waugh's database. Furthermore, the mean of absolute error rate (MAER) and average error are used as evaluation criteria to compare the proposed method with other methods. It demonstrates that the proposed method is superior to existing methods for estimating null values in relational database systems. Jia-Wen Wang was born on September 5, 1978, in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. She received the M.S. degree in information management from the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan, in 2003. Since 2003, she has been a PhD degree student in Information Management Department at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. Her current research interests include fuzzy systems, database systems, and artificial intelligence. Ching-Hsue Cheng received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Chinese Military Academy, Taiwan, in 1982, the M.S. degree in applied mathematics from the Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan, in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in system engineering and management from National Defence University, Taiwan, in 1994. Currently, he is a professor of the Department of Information Management, National YunLin University of Technology & Science. His research interests are in decision science, soft computing, software reliability, performance evaluation, and fuzzy time series. He has published more than 120 refereed papers in these areas. He has been a principal investigator and project leader in a number of projects with government, and other research-sponsoring agencies.     

Geometric Analysis of Particle Motion in a Vector Image Field

This paper proposes a geometrical model for the Particle Motion in a Vector Image Field (PMVIF) method. The model introduces a c-evolute to approximate the edge curve in the gray-level image. The c-evolute concept has three major novelties: (1) The locus of Particle Motion in a Vector Image Field (PMVIF) is a c-evolute of image edge curve; (2) A geometrical interpretation is given to the setting of the parameters for the method based on the PMVIF; (3) The gap between the image edge’s critical property and the particle motion equations appeared in PMVIF is padded. Our experimental simulation based on the image gradient field is simple in computing and robust, and can perform well even in situations where high curvature exists. Chenggang Lu received his Bachelor of Science and PhD degrees from Zhejiang University in 1996 and 2003, respectively. Since 2003, he has been with VIA Software (Hang Zhou), Inc. and Huawei Technology, Inc. His research interests include image processing, acoustic signaling processing, and communication engineering. Zheru Chi received his BEng and MEng degrees from Zhejiang University in 1982 and 1985 respectively, and his PhD degree from the University of Sydney in March 1994, all in electrical engineering. Between 1985 and 1989, he was on the Faculty of the Department of Scientific Instruments at Zhejiang University. He worked as a Senior Research Assistant/Research Fellow in the Laboratory for Imaging Science and Engineering at the University of Sydney from April 1993 to January 1995. Since February 1995, he has been with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering. Since 1997, he has served on the organization or program committees for a number of international conferences. His research interests include image processing, pattern recognition, and computational intelligence. Dr. Chi has authored/co-authored one book and nine book chapters, and published more than 140 technical papers. Gang Chen received his Bachelor of Science degree from Anqing Teachers College in 1983 and his PhD degree in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Zhejiang University in 1994. Between 1994 and 1996, he was a postdoctoral researcher in electrical engineering at Zhejiang University. From 1997 to 1999, he was a visiting researcher in the Institute of Mathematics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Since 2001, he has been a Professor at Zhejiang University. He has been the Director of the Institute of DSP and Software Techniques at Ningbo University since 2002. His research interests include applied mathematics, image processing, fractal geometry, wavelet analysis and computer graphics. Prof. Chen has co-authored one book, co-edited five technical proceedings and published more than 80 technical papers. (David) Dagan Feng received his ME in Electrical Engineering & Computing Science (EECS) from Shanghai JiaoTong University in 1982, MSc in Biocybernetics and Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1985 and 1988 respectively. After briefly working as Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside, he joined the University of Sydney at the end of 1988, as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor and Head of Department of Computer Science/School of Information Technologies, and Associate Dean of Faculty of Science. He is Chair-Professor of Information Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Honorary Research Consultant, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the largest hospital in Australia; Advisory Professor, Shanghai JiaoTong University; Guest Professor, Northwestern Polytechnic University, Northeastern University and Tsinghua University. His research area is Biomedical & Multimedia Information Technology (BMIT). He is the Founder and Director of the BMIT Research Group. He has published over 400 scholarly research papers, pioneered several new research directions, made a number of landmark contributions in his field with significant scientific impact and social benefit, and received the Crump Prize for Excellence in Medical Engineering from USA. More importantly, however, is that many of his research results have been translated into solutions to real-life problems and have made tremendous improvements to the quality of life worldwide. He is a Fellow of ACS, HKIE, IEE, IEEE, and ATSE, Special Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, and is the current Chairman of IFAC-TC-BIOMED.     

Fuzzy risk analysis based on the ranking of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers

In this paper, we present a new method for fuzzy risk analysis based on the ranking of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. The proposed method considers the centroid points and the standard deviations of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers for ranking generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. We also use an example to compare the ranking results of the proposed method with the existing centroid-index ranking methods. The proposed ranking method can overcome the drawbacks of the existing centroid-index ranking methods. Based on the proposed ranking method, we also present an algorithm to deal with fuzzy risk analysis problems. The proposed fuzzy risk analysis algorithm can overcome the drawbacks of the one we presented in [7]. Shi-Jay Chen was born in 1972, in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received the B.S. degree in information management from the Kaohsiung Polytechnic Institute, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the M.S. degree in information management from the Chaoyang University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan, in 1997 and 1999, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree at the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, in October 2004. His research interests include fuzzy systems, multicriteria fuzzy decisionmaking, and artificial intelligence. Shyi-Ming Chen was born on January 16, 1960, in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in June 1991. From August 1987 to July 1989 and from August 1990 to July 1991, he was with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Fu-Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan. From August 1991 to July 1996, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. From August 1996 to July 1998, he was a Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. From August 1998 to July 2001, he was a Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. Since August 2001, he has been a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, in 1999. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Republic of China, in 2003. He has published more than 250 papers in referred journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. His research interests include fuzzy systems, information retrieval, knowledge-based systems, artificial intelligence, neural networks, data mining, and genetic algorithms. Dr. Chen has received several honors and awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Paper Award o f the Journal of Information and Education, the 1995 Outstanding Paper Award of the Computer Society of the Republic of China, the 1995 and 1996 Acer Dragon Thesis Awards for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1995 Xerox Foundation Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1996 Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1997 National Science Council Award, Republic of China, for Outstanding Undergraduate Student's Project Supervision, the 1997 Outstanding Youth Electrical Engineer Award of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering, Republic of China, the Best Paper Award of the 1999 National Computer Symposium, Republic of China, the 1999 Outstanding Paper Award of the Computer Society of the Republic of China, the 2001 Institute of Information and Computing Machinery Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2001 Outstanding Talented Person Award, Republic of China, for the contributions in Information Technology, the 2002 Institute of information and Computing Machinery Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the Outstanding Electrical Engineering Professor Award granted by the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering (CIEE), Republic of China, the 2002 Chinese Fuzzy Systems Association Best Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2003 Outstanding Paper Award of the Technological and Vocational Education Society, Republic of China, the 2003 Acer Dragon Thesis Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, the 2005 “Operations Research Society of Taiwan” Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2005 Acer Dragon Thesis Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, the 2005 Taiwan Fuzzy Systems Association Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, and the 2006 “Operations Research Society of Taiwan” Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision. Dr. Chen is currently the President of the Taiwanese Association for Artificial Intelligence (TAAI). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the ACM, the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA), and the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society. He was an administrative committee member of the Chinese Fuzzy Systems Association (CFSA) from 1998 to 2004. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part C, an Associate Editor of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Applied Intelligence, an Editor of the New Mathematics and Natural Computation Journal, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, an Editorial Board Member of the WSEAS Transactions on Systems, an Editor of the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, an Associate Editor of the WSEAS Transactions on Computers, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Applications, an Editorial Board Member of the Advances in Fuzzy Sets and Systems Journal, an Editor of the International Journal of Soft Computing, an Editor of the Asian Journal of Information Technology, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Intelligence Systems Technologies and Applications, an Editor of the Asian Journal of Information Management, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control, and an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology. He was an Editor of the Journal of the Chinese Grey System Association from 1998 to 2003. He is listed in International Who's Who of Professionals, Marquis Who's Who in the World, and Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering.     

Facial expression recognition based on Haar-like feature detection

In this paper we propose a novel approach for facial feature detection in color image sequences using Haar-like classifiers. The feature extraction is initialized without manual input and has the capability to fulfill the real time requirement. For facial expression recognition, we use geometrical measurement and simple texture analysis in detecting facial regions based on the prior detected facial feature points. For expression classification we used a three layer feed forward artificial neural network. The efficiency of the suggested approach is demonstrated under real world conditions. The text was submitted by the authors in English. Axel Panning was born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1980. He received his Masters Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Computer Science at the University of Magdeburg, Germany, in 2006. He is currently working on a PhD thesis focusing on image processing, tracking, and pattern recognition. Ayoub K. Al-Hamadi was born in Yemen in 1970. He received his Masters Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in 1997 and his PhD in Technical Computer Science at the Ottovon-Guericke-University of Magdeburg, Germany, in 2001. Since 2002 he has been Assistant Professor and Junior-Research-Group-Leader at the Institute for Electronics, Signal Processing, and Communications at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg. His research work concentrates on the field of image processing, tracking analysis, pattern recognition, and artificial neural networks. Dr. Al-Hamadi is the author of more than 60 articles. Robert Niese was born in Halberstadt, Germany, in 1977. He received his Masters Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) with distinction in computer science at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany, in 2004. He gathered broad experience in several international internship investigations on medical image and data analysis, including MRI, CT, and EEG. He is currently working at Magdeburg University on his PhD thesis, which focuses on 3D, image processing, tracking, and pattern recognition. Robert Niese is the author of more than 15 publications. Bernd Michaelis was born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1947. He received a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Technische Hochschule Magdeburg in 1971 and his first PhD in 1974. Between 1974 and 1980 he worked at the Technische Hochschule Magdeburg and was granted a second doctoral degree in 1980. In 1993 he became Professor of Technical Computer Science at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. His research work concentrates on the field of image processing, artificial neural networks, pattern recognition, processor architectures, and microcomputers. Professor Michaelis is the author of more than 200 papers.     

Combining Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Automated Negotiations

Automated negotiation is a key issue to facilitate e-Business. It is an on-going research area and attracts attention from both research communities and industry. In this paper, we propose a multiple-stage co-operative automated negotiation architecture, including a sophisticated negotiation strategy and protocol, to resolve the agents' conflicts. This proposed architecture attempts to address the search for joint efficiency for negotiating agents in large and complex problem spaces using a co-evolutionary method. A game theoretic method is adapted to distribute the payoffs generated from the co-evolutionary method. The architecture supports interactions between the two methods to demonstrate that high-quality solutions can be found through their complimentary functions. Using the structure it is possible to refine and explore potential agreements through an iterated process. This article also reports some experimental results and discussions. Jen-Hsiang Chen obtained his MSc degree in Management of Information Technology from Sunderland University. He is a Ph.D. student within the Distributed Systems and Modelling Research Group in the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences at Coventry University. His research project is related to game theory and heuristic approaches in automated negotiation. Kuo-Ming Chao obtained both of his MSc and Ph.D. degrees from Sunderland University, UK. After getting his Ph.D. degree, he has been working at Engineering Design Centre, Newcastle University, UK as research associate. He joined School of Mathematical and Information Sciences, Coventry University as senior lecturer in 2000. He is currently the leader of Distributed System and Modelling Research Group within the school. His research interests include Multi-Agent systems, Web Services, and Grid Computing. Nick Godwin graduated in Mathematics at London University. He obtained a masters degree and a doctorate through the Mathematics Institute at Warwick University. Since that time he has worked at Coventry University, participating in a number of research projects associated with the application of Computing to Manufacturing. Recently he has been working with the Distributed Systems and Modelling Research Group in the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences at Coventry University. Von-Wun Soo graduated from Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University. He got his master degree in Biomedical Engineering and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, USA. After getting his PhD degree, he has been doing research and teaching as a faculty in Department of Computer Science at National Tsing Hua University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan. Recently, he has been working with coordination and ontology for multi-agent systems in various application domains such as context aware travelling information service, historical information extraction, biological and genomic knowledge management, and creative engineering design.     

S-Club: an overlay-based efficient service discovery mechanism in CROWN Grid

Information service plays a key role in grid system, handles resource discovery and management process. Employing existing information service architectures suffers from poor scalability, long search response time, and large traffic overhead. In this paper, we propose a service club mechanism, called S-Club, for efficient service discovery. In S-Club, an overlay based on existing Grid Information Service (GIS) mesh network of CROWN is built, so that GISs are organized as service clubs. Each club serves for a certain type of service while each GIS may join one or more clubs. S-Club is adopted in our CROWN Grid and the performance of S-Club is evaluated by comprehensive simulations. The results show that S-Club scheme significantly improves search performance and outperforms existing approaches. Chunming Hu is a research staff in the Institute of Advanced Computing Technology at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China. He received his B.E. and M.E. in Department of Computer Science and Engineering in Beihang University. He received the Ph.D. degree in School of Computer Science and Engineering of Beihang University, Beijing, China, 2005. His research interests include peer-to-peer and grid computing; distributed systems and software architectures. Yanmin Zhu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his B.S. degree in computer science from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 2002. His research interests include grid computing, peer-to-peer networking, pervasive computing and sensor networks. He is a member of the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Jinpeng Huai is a Professor and Vice President of Beihang University. He serves on the Steering Committee for Advanced Computing Technology Subject, the National High-Tech Program (863) as Chief Scientist. He is a member of the Consulting Committee of the Central Government’s Information Office, and Chairman of the Expert Committee in both the National e-Government Engineering Taskforce and the National e-Government Standard office. Dr. Huai and his colleagues are leading the key projects in e-Science of the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Sino-UK. He has authored over 100 papers. His research interests include middleware, peer-to-peer (P2P), grid computing, trustworthiness and security. Yunhao Liu received his B.S. degree in Automation Department from Tsinghua University, China, in 1995, and an M.A. degree in Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, in 1997, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in computer science and engineering at Michigan State University in 2003 and 2004, respectively. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include peer-to-peer computing, pervasive computing, distributed systems, network security, grid computing, and high-speed networking. He is a senior member of the IEEE Computer Society. Lionel M. Ni is chair professor and head of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Lionel M. Ni received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1980. He was a professor of computer science and engineering at Michigan State University from 1981 to 2003, where he received the Distinguished Faculty Award in 1994. His research interests include parallel architectures, distributed systems, high-speed networks, and pervasive computing. A fellow of the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society, he has chaired many professional conferences and has received a number of awards for authoring outstanding papers.     

Hiding collaborative recommendation association rules

The concept of Privacy-Preserving has recently been proposed in response to the concerns of preserving personal or sensible information derived from data mining algorithms. For example, through data mining, sensible information such as private information or patterns may be inferred from non-sensible information or unclassified data. There have been two types of privacy concerning data mining. Output privacy tries to hide the mining results by minimally altering the data. Input privacy tries to manipulate the data so that the mining result is not affected or minimally affected. For output privacy in hiding association rules, current approaches require hidden rules or patterns to be given in advance [10, 18–21, 24, 27]. This selection of rules would require data mining process to be executed first. Based on the discovered rules and privacy requirements, hidden rules or patterns are then selected manually. However, for some applications, we are interested in hiding certain constrained classes of association rules such as collaborative recommendation association rules [15, 22]. To hide such rules, the pre-process of finding these hidden rules can be integrated into the hiding process as long as the recommended items are given. In this work, we propose two algorithms, DCIS (Decrease Confidence by Increase Support) and DCDS (Decrease Confidence by Decrease Support), to automatically hiding collaborative recommendation association rules without pre-mining and selection of hidden rules. Examples illustrating the proposed algorithms are given. Numerical simulations are performed to show the various effects of the algorithms. Recommendations of appropriate usage of the proposed algorithms based on the characteristics of databases are reported. Leon Wang received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1984. From 1984 to 1987, he was an assistant professor in mathematics at University of New Haven, Connecticut, USA. From 1987 to 1994, he joined New York Institute of Technology as a research associate in the Electromagnetic Lab and assistant/associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. From 1994 to 2001, he joined I-Shou University in Taiwan as associate professor in the Department of Information Management. In 1996, he was the Director of Computing Center. From 1997 to 2000, he was the Chairman of Department of Information Management. In 2001, he was Professor and director of Library, all in I-Shou University. In 2002, he was Associate Professor and Chairman in Information Management at National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In 2003, he rejoined New York Institute of Technology. Dr.Wang has published 33 journal papers, 102 conference papers, and 5 book chapters, in the areas of data mining, machine learning, expert systems, and fuzzy databases, etc. Dr. Wang is a member of IEEE, Chinese Fuzzy System Association Taiwan, Chinese Computer Association, and Chinese Information Management Association. Ayat Jafari received the Ph.D. degree from City University of New York. He has conducted considerable research in the areas of Computer Communication Networks, Local Area Networks, and Computer Network Security, and published many technical articles. His interests and expertise are in the area of Computer Networks, Signal Processing, and Digital Communications. He is currently the Chairman of the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department of New York Institute of Technology. Tzung-Pei Hong received his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University in 1985, and his Ph.D. degree in computer science and information engineering from National Chiao-Tung University in 1992. He was a faculty at the Department of Computer Science in Chung-Hua Polytechnic Institute from 1992 to 1994, and at the Department of Information Management in I-Shou University from 1994 to 2001. He was in charge of the whole computerization and library planning for National University of Kaohsiung in Preparation from 1997 to 2000, and served as the first director of the library and computer center in National University of Kaohsiung from 2000 to 2001 and as the Dean of Academic Affairs from 2003 to 2006. He is currently a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and at the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering. His current research interests include machine learning, data mining, soft computing, management information systems, and www applications. Springer     

Improving the compression and encryption of images using FPGA-based cryptosystems

Compression and encryption technologies are important to the efficient solving of network bandwidth and security issues. A novel scheme, called the Image Compression Encryption Scheme (ICES), is presented. It combines the Haar Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Significance-Linked Connected Component Analysis (SLCCA), and the Advance Encryption Standard (AES). Because of above reason the ICES efficiently reduce the overall processing time. This study develops a novel hardware system to compress and encrypt an image in real-time using an image compression encryption scheme. The proposed system exploits parallel processing to increase the throughout of the cryptosystem for Internet multimedia applications to implement the ICES. Using hardware acceleration for encryption and decryption, the FPGA implementation of DWT, SLCCA and the AES algorithm can be used. Using a pipeline structure, a very high data throughput of 330 Mbit/s at a clock frequency of 40 MHz was obtained. Therefore, the ICES is secure, fast and suited to high speed network protocols such as ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) or Internet multimedia applications. Shih-Ching Ou is working with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University as a senior professor. His research interests include computer aided design, e-learning system, and virtual reality, etc. In August 2004, he serves as Leader University Professor and Director of Research and Development, now he act as Leader University Professor and Institute of Applied Information (Chairman). He has published a number of international journal and conferences papers related to these areas. Currently, he is the chief of Bioinformatics & CAD Laboratory. Hung-Yuan Chung joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the National Central University, Chung-li, Taiwan as an associate professor in August 1987. Since August 1992, he was promoted as professor. In addition, he is a registered professional Engineer in R. O. C. He is a life member of the CIEE and the CIE. He received the outstanding Electrical Engineer award of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering in October 2003. His research and teaching interests include System Theory and Control, Adaptive Control, Fuzzy Control, Neural Network Applications, and Microcomputer-Based Control Applications. Wen-Tsai Sung is a PhD candidate at Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University in Taiwan. His research interests include computer aided design, web-based learning system, bioinformatics and virtual reality. He has published a number of international journal and conferences papers related to these areas. He received a BS degree from the Department of Industrial Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan in 1993 and received a MS degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan in 2000. He has win the dragon thesis award; master degree thesis be recognized the most outstanding academic research. The thesis entitle is: “Integrated computer graphics system in a virtual environment.” Sponsor is Acer Foundation (Acer Universal Computer Co.). Currently, he is studying PhD at the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University as a researcher of Bioinformatics & CAD Laboratory.     

Finite-horizon scheduling of radar dwells with online template construction

Timing constraints for radar tasks are usually specified in terms of the minimum and maximum temporal distance between successive radar dwells. We utilize the idea of feasible intervals for dealing with the temporal distance constraints. In order to increase the freedom that the scheduler can offer a high-level resource manager, we introduce a technique for nesting and interleaving dwells online while accounting for the energy constraint that radar systems need to satisfy. Further, in radar systems, the task set changes frequently and we advocate the use of finite horizon scheduling in order to avoid the pessimism inherent in schedulers that assume a task will execute forever. The combination of feasible intervals and online dwell packing allows modular schedule updates whereby portions of a schedule can be altered without affecting the entire schedule, hence reducing the complexity of the scheduler. Through extensive simulations we validate our claims of providing greater scheduling flexibility without compromising on performance when compared with earlier work based on templates constructed offline. We also evaluate the impact of two parameters in our scheduling approach: the template length (or the extent of dwell nesting and interleaving) and the length of the finite horizon. Sathish Gopalakrishnan is a visting scholar in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he defended his Ph.D. thesis in December 2005. He received an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois in 2004 and a B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Madras in 1999. Sathish’s research interests concern real-time and embedded systems, and the design of large-scale reliable systems. He received the best student paper award for his work on radar dwell scheduling at the Real-Time Systems Symposium 2004. Marco Caccamo graduated in computer engineering from the University of Pisa in 1997 and received the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the Scuola Superiore S. Anna in 2002. He is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois. His research interests include real-time operating systems, real-time scheduling and resource management, wireless sensor networks, and quality of service control in next generation digital infrastructures. He is recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2003). He is a member of ACM and IEEE. Chi-Sheng Shih is currently an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia and Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University since February 2004. He received the B.S. in Engineering Science and M.S. in Computer Science from National Cheng Kung University in 1993 and 1995, respectively. In 2003, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His main research interests are embedded systems, hardware/software codesign, real-time systems, and database systems. Specifically, his main research interests focus on real-time operating systems, real-time scheduling theory, embedded software, and software/hardware co-design for system-on-a-chip. Chang-Gun Lee received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer engineering from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1991, 1993 and 1998, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus. Previously, he was a Research Scientist in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from March 2000 to July 2002 and a Research Engineer in the Advanced Telecomm. Research Lab., LG Information & Communications, Ltd. from March 1998 to February 2000. His current research interests include real-time systems, complex embedded systems, QoS management, and wireless ad-hoc networks. Chang-Gun Lee is a member of the IEEE Computer Society. Lui Sha graduated with the Ph.D. degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985. He was a Member and then a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Software Engineering Institute (SEI) from 1986 to 1998. Since Fall 1998, he has been a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Visiting Scientist of the SEI. He was the Chair of IEEE Real Time Systems Technical Committee from 1999 to 2000, and has served on its Executive Committee since 2001. He was a member of National Academy of Science’s study group on Software Dependability and Certification from 2004 to 2005, and is an IEEE Distinguished Visitor (2005 to 2007). Lui Sha is a Fellow of the IEEE and the ACM.     

A metamodel for modeling system features and their refinement, constraint and interaction relationships

This paper presents a metamodel for modeling system features and relationships between features. The underlying idea of this metamodel is to employ features as first-class entities in the problem space of software and to improve the customization of software by explicitly specifying both static and dynamic dependencies between system features. In this metamodel, features are organized as hierarchy structures by the refinement relationships, static dependencies between features are specified by the constraint relationships, and dynamic dependencies between features are captured by the interaction relationships. A first-order logic based method is proposed to formalize constraints and to verify constraints and customization. This paper also presents a framework for interaction classification, and an informal mapping between interactions and constraints through constraint semantics. Hong Mei received the BSc and MSc degrees in computer science from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), China, in 1984 and 1987, respectively, and the PhD degree in computer science from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1992. He is currently a professor of Computer Science at the Peking University, China. His current research interests include Software Engineering and Software Engineering Environment, Software Reuse and Software Component Technology, Distributed Object Technology, and Programming Language. He has published more than 100 technical papers. Wei Zhang received the BSc in Engineering Thermophysics and the MSc in Computer Science from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), China, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. He is currently a PhD student at the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science of the Peking University, China. His research interests include feature-oriented requirements modeling, feature-driven software architecture design and feature-oriented software reuse. Haiyan Zhao received both the BSc and the MSc degree in Computer Science from the Peking Univeristy, China, and the Ph.D degree in Information Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan. She is currently an associate professor of Computer Science at the Peking University, China. Her research interests include Software Reuse, Domain Engineering, Domain Specific Languange and Program Transformation.