A Secure and Lightweight Chaos Based Image Encryption Scheme

In this paper, we present an image encryption scheme based on the multi-stage chaos-based image encryption algorithm. The method works on the principle of confusion and diffusion. The proposed scheme containing both confusion and diffusion modules are highly secure and effective as compared to the existing schemes. Initially, an image (red, green, and blue components) is partitioned into blocks with an equal number of pixels. Each block is then processed with Tinkerbell Chaotic Map (TBCM) to get shuffled pixels and shuffled blocks. Composite Fractal Function (CFF) change the value of pixels of each color component (layer) to obtain a random sequence. Through the obtained random sequence, three layers of plain image are encrypted. Finally, with each encrypted layer, Brownian Particles (BP) are XORed that added an extra layer of security. The experimental tests including a number of statistical tests validated the security of the presented scheme. The results reported in the paper show that the proposed scheme has higher security and is lightweight as compared to state-of-the-art methods proposed in the literature.     

Colour image coding scheme using absolute moment block truncation coding and block prediction technique

Abstract

A predictive colour image compression scheme based on absolute moment block truncation coding is proposed. In this scheme, the high correlations among neighbouring image blocks are exploited by using the similar block prediction technique. In addition, the bit plane omission technique and the coding of quantisation levels are used to cut down the storage cost of smooth blocks and complex blocks respectively. According to the experimental results, the proposed scheme provides better performance than the comparative schemes based on block truncation coding. It provides better image qualities of compressed images at low bit rates. Meanwhile, it consumes very little computational cost. In other words, the proposed scheme is quite suitable for real time multimedia applications.     

A robust information hiding scheme for tampered cover images

In this paper, we propose a robust information hiding scheme such that the secret information is restorable upon cover image tampering. The secret information is first translated into a binary image, and then the binary image is encoded into an ‘index table’ via Vector Quantisation (VQ). Without noticeable damage to image quality, the secret information codes (VQ index table of secret information) are hidden repeatedly into the cover image. Using our proposed scheme, the extracted secret codes can be almost completely restored to their original state even when the cover image has been tampered with. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme restores the secret information perfectly under many types of tampering attacks.     

Dominating direction based an efficient copy–move image tampering detection technique

Post-processing operations on a copy–move tampered image makes tampering detection a challenge. Most of the existing techniques are unable to address all the problems simultaneously. This paper presents a block-based technique, which addresses all these problems effectively. Here, at first, the approximate band coefficients are extracted using Contourlet Transform for further steps as it reduces the dimensionality as well as the effects of noise. Then Harris’ matrix is used to find the dominant direction of the block to counter the rotation. Finally, singular values of blocks are calculated using singular value decomposition, which works as a feature vector. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been verified through extensive simulations and comparisons with several other challenging copy–move image tampering detection techniques.     

Secret Image Communication Scheme Based on Visual Cryptography and Tetrolet Tiling Patterns

Visual cryptographic scheme is specially designed for secret image sharing in the form of shadow images. The basic idea of visual cryptography is to construct two or more secret shares from the original image in the form of chaotic image. In this paper, a novel secret image communication scheme based on visual cryptography and Tetrolet tiling patterns is proposed. The proposed image communication scheme will break the secret image into more shadow images based on the Tetrolet tiling patterns. The secret image is divided into 4×4 blocks of tetrominoes and employs the concept of visual cryptography to hide the secret image. The main feature of the proposed scheme is the selection of random blocks to apply the tetrolet tilling patterns from the fundamental tetrolet pattern board. Single procedure is used to perform both tetrolet transform and the scheme of visual cryptography. Finally, the experimental results showcase the proposed scheme is an extraordinary approach to transfer the secret image and reconstruct the secret image with high visual quality in the receiver end.     

Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Image Based on Block Classification Permutation

Recently, reversible data hiding in encrypted image (RDHEI) has attracted extensive attention, which can be used in secure cloud computing and privacy protection effectively. In this paper, a novel RDHEI scheme based on block classification and permutation is proposed. Content owner first divides original image into non-overlapping blocks and then set a threshold to classify these blocks into smooth and non-smooth blocks respectively. After block classification, content owner utilizes a specific encryption method, including stream cipher encryption and block permutation to protect image content securely. For the encrypted image, data hider embeds additional secret information in the most significant bits (MSB) of the encrypted pixels in smooth blocks and the final marked image can be obtained. At the receiver side, secret data will be extracted correctly with data-hiding key. When receiver only has encryption key, after stream cipher decryption, block scrambling decryption and MSB error prediction with threshold, decrypted image will be achieved. When data hiding key and encryption key are both obtained, receiver can find the smooth and non-smooth blocks correctly and MSB in smooth blocks will be predicted correctly, hence, receiver can recover marked image losslessly. Experimental results demonstrate that our scheme can achieve better rate-distortion performance than some of state-of-the-art schemes.     

A non‐iterative derivation of the common plane for contact detection of polyhedral blocks

A non‐iterative derivation for finding the common plane between two polyhedral blocks is presented. By exploiting geometric relations between the normal of a plane and the closest vertex on a block, the common plane can be resolved without resorting to an iterative method. To facilitate derivations, normals in half‐space are decomposed into finite subsets in which each subset corresponds to the same closest vertex on a block. The gap function, originally dependent on the normal and the two closest vertices, becomes a function of the normal only. To compute the gap for a given normal subset, the maximum theorem and the maximum projection theorem are introduced. The maximum theorem reduces finding the maximum in a subset to its boundary. Calculating the gap in 2D in a given subset thus reduces to checking two inner products. The maximum projection theorem further reduces finding the maximum on a 3D boundary to an explicit form. Three numerical examples are used to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed scheme. The example in which the blocks are in contact further shows the existence of a local maximum while calculating the gap and illustrates the potential deficiencies in using the Cundall's iterative scheme. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reversible Data Hiding Based on Pixel-Value-Ordering and Pixel Block Merging Strategy

With the reversible data hiding method based on pixel-value-ordering, data are embedded through the modification of the maximum and minimum values of a block. A significant relationship exists between the embedding performance and the block size. Traditional pixel-value-ordering methods utilize pixel blocks with a fixed size to embed data; the smaller the pixel blocks, greater is the embedding capacity. However, it tends to result in the deterioration of the quality of the marked image. Herein, a novel reversible data hiding method is proposed by incorporating a block merging strategy into Li et al.’s pixel-value-ordering method, which realizes the dynamic control of block size by considering the image texture. First, the cover image is divided into non-overlapping 2×2 pixel blocks. Subsequently, according to their complexity, similarity and thresholds, these blocks are employed for data embedding through the pixel-value-ordering method directly or after being emerged into 2×4, 4×2, or 4×4 sized blocks. Hence, smaller blocks can be used in the smooth region to create a high embedding capacity and larger blocks in the texture region to maintain a high peak signal-to-noise ratio. Experimental results prove that the proposed method is superior to the other three advanced methods. It achieves a high embedding capacity while maintaining low distortion and improves the embedding performance of the pixel-value-ordering algorithm.     

Response Surface Models With Random Block Effects

In many experimental situations, a response surface design is divided into several blocks to control an extraneous source of variation. The traditional approach in most response surface applications is to treat the block effect as fixed in the assumed model. There are, however, situations in which it is more appropriate to consider the block effect as random. This article is concerned with inference about a response surface model in the presence of a random block effect. Since this model also contains fixed polynomial effects, it is considered to be a mixed-effects model. The main emphasis of the proposed analysis is on estimation and testing of the fixed effects. A two-stage mixed-model procedure is developed for this purpose. The variance components due to the random block effect and the experimental error are first estimated and then used to obtain the generalized least squares estimator of the fixed effects. This procedure produces the so-called Yates combined intra- and inter-block estimator. By contrast, the Yates intra-block estimator is the one obtained when the block effect is treated as fixed. In particular, if the response surface design blocks orthogonally, then the two estimators are shown to be identical. An experiment on bonding galvanized steel bars is used to motivate the problem and illustrate the results.     

A robust and forensic transform for copy move digital image forgery detection based on dense depth block matching

ABSTRACT

Copy-move forgery is one of the most popular tampering artefacts in digital images. However, tampering effect in digital images makes the authentication of the processing as untrustworthy. In this paper, a combination of Fourier-Mellin and Zernike moments (FMZM) Transform is proposed which detects the copy-move region with high-speed and low-computational complexity. Here, initially an image is segmented into various blocks using marker controlled watershed management and from that proposed FMZM feature extraction is used which detects duplication. The detected regions are matched with the Dense Depth Reconstruction based lexicographically sorting. Finally, tampered outliers presented at the data are removed through RANSAC (RANdom Sample Consensus) algorithm, in which removed false matches are verified with the morphological operators. The efficiency of proposed method is measured by various performance metrics and this method earned up to 97.56%, 99.98%, and 97.12% for precision, recall, and F1-score performance, respectively.     

Numeric modeling of the process of press fitting dies into ring blocks with allowance for plastic deformation and frictional forces

Dies of high-pressure vessels (HPV) for the synthesis of superhard materials (SHM) are press-fitted into ring blocks with considerable interference to improve their stability. The mathematical statement of the problem of determining the stress-strain state (SSS) of the die and ring block during press fitting, which includes a computational scheme, and a system of equations for solving elastoplastic contact problems for large deformations, is presented. The SSS of the die and ring block is investigated on the basis of an FEM-based numeric method developed with allowance for the history of the press fit in accordance with existing and proposed procedures. Implementation of the new press-fitting technology has made it possible to improve the stability of dies and ring blocks by 30–44%.Translated from Problemy Prochnosti, No. 11, pp. 94–99, November, 1990.     

A Hybrid Intelligent Approach for Content Authentication and Tampering Detection of Arabic Text Transmitted via Internet

In this paper, a hybrid intelligent text zero-watermarking approach has been proposed by integrating text zero-watermarking and hidden Markov model as natural language processing techniques for the content authentication and tampering detection of Arabic text contents. The proposed approach known as Second order of Alphanumeric Mechanism of Markov model and Zero-Watermarking Approach (SAMMZWA). Second level order of alphanumeric mechanism based on hidden Markov model is integrated with text zero-watermarking techniques to improve the overall performance and tampering detection accuracy of the proposed approach. The SAMMZWA approach embeds and detects the watermark logically without altering the original text document. The extracted features are used as a watermark information and integrated with digital zero-watermarking techniques. To detect eventual tampering, SAMMZWA has been implemented and validated with attacked Arabic text. Experiments were performed on four datasets of varying lengths under multiple random locations of insertion, reorder and deletion attacks. The experimental results show that our method is more sensitive for all kinds of tampering attacks with high level accuracy of tampering detection than compared methods.     

Applying the corridor method to a blocks relocation problem

In this paper, we present a corridor method inspired algorithm for a blocks relocation problem in block stacking systems. Typical applications of such problem are found in the stacking of container terminals in a yard, of pallets and boxes in a warehouse, etc. The proposed algorithm applies a recently proposed metaheuristic. In a method-based neighborhood we define a two-dimensional “corridor” around the incumbent blocks configuration by imposing exogenous constraints on the solution space of the problem and apply a dynamic programming algorithm capturing the state of the system after each block movement for exploring the neighborhoods. Computational results on medium- and large-size problem instances allow to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Adaptive fractal image coding in subband domain

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and evaluate a method for fractal image coding in the subband domain. The subband decomposition scheme acts as a classifier, which can efficiently reduce encoding time. The proposed fractal image coding scheme is an adaptive one. The adaptability is based on the variance of each subband. At each subband, the scheme adaptively sets the map block size that should be encoded. In addition, the domain blocks are adaptively restricted to the neighborhood of their respective range block. Simulation results show that good picture quality of the coded image is obtained at 0.370 bpp. It also indicates that such an adaptive scheme makes a better trade‐off between the required bit rate and picture quality than a fixed size one. Moreover, the adaptive shceme can save a large amount of time.     

Smart-Fragile Authentication Scheme for Robust Detecting of Tampering Attacks on English Text

Content authentication, integrity verification, and tampering detection of digital content exchanged via the internet have been used to address a major concern in information and communication technology. In this paper, a text zero-watermarking approach known as Smart-Fragile Approach based on Soft Computing and Digital Watermarking (SFASCDW) is proposed for content authentication and tampering detection of English text. A first-level order of alphanumeric mechanism, based on hidden Markov model, is integrated with digital zero-watermarking techniques to improve the watermark robustness of the proposed approach. The researcher uses the first-level order and alphanumeric mechanism of Markov model as a soft computing technique to analyze English text. Moreover, he extracts the features of the interrelationship among the contexts of the text, utilizes the extracted features as watermark information, and validates it later with the studied English text to detect any tampering. SFASCDW has been implemented using PHP with VS code IDE. The robustness, effectiveness, and applicability of SFASCDW are proved with experiments involving four datasets of various lengths in random locations using the three common attacks, namely insertion, reorder, and deletion. The SFASCDW was found to be effective and could be applicable in detecting any possible tampering.     

Monte Carlo homogenized limit analysis model for randomly assembled blocks in-plane loaded

A simple rigid-plastic homogenization model for the limit analysis of masonry walls in-plane loaded and constituted by the random assemblage of blocks with variable dimensions is proposed. In the model, blocks constituting a masonry wall are supposed infinitely resistant with a Gaussian distribution of height and length, whereas joints are reduced to interfaces with frictional behavior and limited tensile and compressive strength. Block by block, a representative element of volume (REV) is considered, constituted by a central block interconnected with its neighbors by means of rigid-plastic interfaces. The model is characterized by a few material parameters, is numerically inexpensive and very stable. A sub-class of elementary deformation modes is a-priori chosen in the REV, mimicking typical failures due to joints cracking and crushing. Masonry strength domains are obtained equating the power dissipated in the heterogeneous model with the power dissipated by a fictitious homogeneous macroscopic plate. Due to the inexpensiveness of the approach proposed, Monte Carlo simulations can be repeated on the REV in order to have a stochastic estimation of in-plane masonry strength at different orientations of the bed joints with respect to external loads accounting for the geometrical statistical variability of blocks dimensions. Two cases are discussed, the former consisting on full stochastic REV assemblages (obtained considering a random variability of both blocks height an length) and the latter assuming the presence of a horizontal alignment along bed joints, i.e. allowing blocks height variability only row by row. The case of deterministic blocks height (quasi-periodic texture) can be obtained as a subclass of this latter case. Masonry homogenized failure surfaces are finally implemented in an upper bound FE limit analysis code for the analysis at collapse of entire walls in-plane loaded. Two cases of engineering practice, consisting on the prediction of the failure load of a deep beam and a shear wall arranged with random texture are critically discussed. In particular, homogenization results are compared with those provided by a heterogeneous approach. Good agreement is found both on the failure mechanism and on the distribution of the collapse load.     

一个基于细观物理机制的土石混合料抗剪强度理论模型

土石混合料是由多粒组矿物颗粒集成的多相天然地质材料,具有显著的跨尺度层次物质群体自然特征。为考虑不同粒组颗粒对土石混合料抗剪强度的影响,根据土石混合料变形时不同粒组颗粒的细观运动特征,将其划分为基体和块石两相复合材料。基于剪应力绕流效应和Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka等效夹杂平均应力原理建立考虑块石转动位移的土石混合料细观抗剪强度理论模型。制备不同块石含量的土石混合料工程原位试样进行3组现场大型直剪试验,分析块石含量对土石混合料抗剪强度的影响规律并确定模型参数。试验结果和理论研究均表明:块石显著影响土石混合料的变形特征且土石混合料的抗剪强度随块石含量的增加而增加。基体的剪应力绕流效应诱发块石产生转动抗力和基体出现应力集中而导致土石混合料在变形时比纯基体材料储存或释放更多的能量,是块石对土石混合料抗剪强度增益的细观物理机制。基于细观物理机制的土石混合料剪应力-剪切位移计算公式,初步验证了理论预测与试验结果的一致性。     

Monitoring a labeled degree-corrected stochastic block model

The stochastic block model (SBM) is a random graph model that focuses on partitioning the nodes into blocks or communities. A degree-corrected stochastic block model (DCSBM) considers degree heterogeneity within nodes. Investigation of the type of edge label can be useful for studying networks. We have proposed a labeled degree-corrected stochastic block model (LDCSBM), added the probability of the occurrence of each edge label, and monitored the behavior of this network. The LDCSBM is a dynamic network that varies over time; thus, we applied the monitoring process to both the US Senate voting network and simulated networks by defining structural changes. We used the Shewhart control chart for detecting changes and studied the effect of Phase I parameter estimation on Phase II performance. The efficiency of the model for surveillance has been evaluated using the average run length for estimated parameters.     

A fast algorithm for multifield representation and multiscale simulation of high‐quality 3D stochastic aggregate microstructures by concurrent coupling of stationary Gaussian and fractional Brownian random fields

This study presents a multiscale computational framework for the representation and generation of concrete aggregate microstructures on the basis of the multifield theory, which couples the stationary Gaussian random field with the fractional Brownian random field. Specifically, the stationary Gaussian field is utilized to simulate the morphological shape of an aggregate on the coarse scale, whereas the surface topography of the aggregate on the fine scale is represented by the fractional Brownian field. To bridge the 2 scales, a concurrent coupling formula is proposed. This coupled technique allows for smooth transition between the coarse and fine scales and permits the rapid generation of highly realistic concrete aggregates that can be tailored to the desired quality and requirements, making the algorithm computationally appealing. In the generation of the random fields on the 2 scales, the Fourier representation of block circulant covariance matrices with circulant blocks is exploited, which yields substantial efficiency advantages over the conventional Cholesky decomposition approach in factorizing covariance matrices as well as simulating random fields. Meanwhile, a microsurface postprocessing and reconstruction procedure is also developed to convert the generated random fields into realistic 3D shapes. The numerical methodology proposed in this study offers tremendous potential for a plethora of applications in cement‐based materials.