Steganalysis of HMPD reversible data hiding scheme

Based on feature mining and pattern classification, this paper presents a steganalysis technique against reversible data hiding by histogram modification of pixel differences scheme (HMPD). HMPD reversible data hiding scheme involves the modification of pixel differences, which introduces artifacts into the pixel-difference histograms. It is found that four-way pixel difference features are sensitive for HMPD embedding algorithm. These features are used to design a specific steganalysis method for detecting HMPD reversible data hiding scheme. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers are trained to discriminate stego-images from cover images and estimate the secret keys of a stego image. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme not only successfully attacks HMPD reversible data hiding scheme in various embedding levels, but also accurately estimates the secret keys.     

Improved Statistically Optimal Nearfield Acoustical Holography in subsonically moving fluid medium

Statistically Optimal Nearfield Acoustical Holography (SONAH) can be used to reconstruct three-dimensional sound fields by projecting two-dimensional data measured on a “small” aperture that partially covers a composite sound source in a “static” fluid medium. Here, an improved SONAH procedure is proposed that includes the mean flow effects of a moving fluid medium while the sound source and receivers are stationary. The backward projection performance of the proposed procedure is further improved by using a wavenumber filter to suppress subsonic noise components. Through numerical simulations at Mach 0.6, it is shown that the improved procedure can accurately reconstruct sound source locations and radiation patterns: e.g., the spatially averaged reconstruction errors of the conventional and improved SONAH procedures are 15.40 dB and 0.19 dB, respectively, for a monopole simulation and 21.60 dB and 0.19 dB for an infinite-size panel. The wavenumber filter further reduces spatial noise, e.g., decreasing the reconstruction error from 1.73 dB to 0.19 dB for the panel simulation. An existing data measured in a wind tunnel operating at Mach 0.12 is reused for the validation. The locations and radiation patterns of the two loudspeakers are successfully identified from the sound fields reconstructed by using the proposed SONAH procedure.     

Skin temperature evaluation by infrared thermography: Comparison of two image analysis methods during the nonsteady state induced by physical exercise

The most common method to derive a temperature value from a thermal image in humans is the calculation of the average of the temperature values of all the pixels confined within a demarcated boundary defined region of interest (ROI). Such summary measure of skin temperature is denoted as Troi in this study. Recently, an alternative method for the derivation of skin temperature from the thermal image has been developed. Such novel method (denoted as Tmax) is based on an automated (software-driven) selection of the warmest pixels within the ROI. Troi and Tmax have been compared under basal, steady-state conditions, resulting very well correlated and characterized by a bias of approximately 1 °C (Tmax > Troi).Aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Tmax and Troi under the nonsteady-state conditions induced by physical exercise. Thermal images of quadriceps of 13 subjects performing a squat exercise were recorded for 120 s before (basal steady state) and for 480 s after the initiation of the exercise (nonsteady state). The thermal images were then analysed to extract Troi and Tmax. Troi and Tmax changed almost in parallel during the nonstead -state. At a closer inspection, it was found that during the nonsteady state the bias between the two methods slightly increased (from 0.7 to 1.1 °C) and the degree of association between them slightly decreased (from Pearson’s r = 0.96 to 0.83). Troi and Tmax had different relationships with the skin temperature histogram. Whereas Tmax was the mean, which could be interpreted as the centre of gravity of the histogram, Tmax was related with the extreme upper tail of the histogram. During the nonsteady state, the histogram increased its spread and became slightly more asymmetric. As a result, Troi deviated a little from the 50th percentile, while Tmax remained constantly higher than the 95th percentile. Despite their differences, Troi and Tmax showed a substantial agreement in assessing the changes in skin temperature following physical exercise. Further studies are needed to clarify the relationship existing among Tmax, Troi and cutaneous blood flow during physical exercise.     

Embedding color watermarks in color images based on Schur decomposition

In this paper, a blind dual color image watermarking scheme based on Schur decomposition is introduced. This is the first time to use Schur decomposition to embed color image watermark in color host image, which is different from using the binary image as watermark. By analyzing the 4 × 4 unitary matrix U via Schur decomposition, we can find that there is a strong correlation between the second row first column element and the third row first column element. This property can be explored for embedding watermark and extracting watermark in the blind manner. Since Schur decomposition is an intermediate step in SVD decomposition, the proposed method requires less number of computations. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is robust against most common attacks including JPEG lossy compression, JPEG 2000 compression, low-pass filtering, cropping, noise addition, blurring, rotation, scaling and sharpening et al. Moreover, the proposed algorithm outperforms the closely related SVD-based algorithm and the spatial-domain algorithm.     

A new cross-protection dual-WDM-PON architecture with carrier-reuse colorless ONUs

This paper proposes a new cross-protection colorless dual-WDM-PON architecture. The proposed protection scheme can provide 1 + 1 downstream protection and 1:1 upstream protection against both feeder fiber and distribution fiber failures by using the fiber links and AWGs of the neighboring WDM-PON. Wavelength is reused for the down- and up-stream transmissions in dual-WDM-PONs where gain-saturated reflective semi-conductor optical amplifiers (RSOAs) are employed as colorless transmitters in ONUs. The number of extra protection fibers is minimized and wavelength is much more efficiently utilized compared with other protection schemes. The feasibility and operation of the proposed dual-WDM-PON architecture are experimentally verified with 1.25 Gb/s for upstream and 2.5 Gb/s for downstream over 20 km single mode fiber transmission in both working and protection modes.     

A novel OCS millimeter-wave generation scheme with data carried only by one sideband and wavelength reuse for uplink connection

We propose a novel optical carrier suppression (OCS) millimeter-wave generation scheme with data carried only by one sideband using a dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) in radio-over-fiber system, and the transmission performance is also investigated. As the signal is transmitted along the fiber, there is no time shifting of the codes caused by chromatic dispersion. Simulation results show that the eye diagram keeps open and clear even when the optical millimeter-waves are transmitted over 110 km and the power penalty is about 1.9 dB after fiber transmission distance of 60 km. Furthermore, due to the +1 order sideband carrying no data, a full duplex radio-over-fiber link based on wavelength reuse is also built to simplify the base station. The bidirectional 2.5 Gbit/s data is successfully transmitted over a 40 km standard single mode fiber with less than 0.8 dB power penalty in the simulation. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that our scheme is feasible and we can obtain a simple cost-efficient configuration and good performance over long-distance transmission.     

Thermographic diagnosis system and imaging algorithm by distributed thermal data using single infrared sensor

An infrared diagnosis device provides two-dimensional images and patient-oriented results that can be easily understood by the inspection target by using infrared cameras. However, this device has disadvantages such as large size, high price, and inconvenient maintenance. In this regard, this study has proposed a small diagnosis device for body heat using a single infrared sensor and implementing an infrared detection system using a single infrared sensor and an algorithm that represents thermography using the obtained data on the temperature of the point source. The developed system had a temperature resolution of 0.1 °C and reproducibility of ±0.1 °C. The accuracy was 90.39% at the error bound of ±0 °C and 99.98% at that of ±0.1 °C. To evaluate the proposed algorithm and system, the infrared images of the camera method were compared. To verify the device’s clinical applicability, thermal images with clinical meaning were obtained from a patient who had lesions.     

Characterization of high-resolution Gradient Echo and Spin Echo EPI for fMRI in the human visual cortex at 7 T

The increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) offered by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) at 7T allows the acquisition of functional data at sub-millimetric spatial resolutions. However, simply reducing partial volume effects is not sufficient to precisely localize task-induced activation due to the indirect mechanisms that relate brain function and the changes in the measured signal.In this work T2* and T2 weighted Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) schemes based on Gradient Recalled Echo (GRE) and Spin Echo (SE) were evaluated in terms of temporal SNR, percent signal change, contrast to noise ratio (CNR), activation volume, and sensitivity and specificity to gray matter. Datasets were acquired during visual stimulation at in-plane resolutions ranging between 1.5 × 1.5 mm² and 0.75 × 0.75 mm² targeting the early visual cortex.While similar activation foci were obtained in all acquisitions, at in-plane resolutions of 1.0 × 1.0 mm² and larger voxel sizes the T2 weighted contrast of SE-EPI allowed the identification of the activation site with better spatial accuracy. However, at sub-millimetric resolutions the decrease in temporal SNR significantly hampered the sensitivity and the extent of the activation site. On the other hand, high resolution T2* weighted data collected with GRE-EPI provided higher CNR and sensitivity, benefiting from the decreased physiological and partial volume effects. However, spurious activations originating from regions of blood drainage were still present in GRE data, and simple thresholding techniques were found to be inadequate for the removal of such contributions. The combination of 2-class and 3-class automated segmentations, performed directly in EPI space, allowed the selection of active voxels in gray matter. This approach could enable GRE-EPI to accurately map functional activity with satisfactory CNR and specificity to the true site of activation.     

Breaking a novel image fusion encryption algorithm based on DNA sequence operation and hyper-chaotic system

Recently, a novel image fusion encryption algorithm based on DNA sequence operation and hyper-chaotic system was proposed. It was reported that the scheme can be broken with 4mn/3 +1 chosen plain-images and the corresponding cipher-images, where mn is the size of the plain-image. This paper re-evaluates the security of the encryption scheme and finds that the encryption scheme can be broken with less than ⌈ log ₂(4mn)/2 ⌉ +1 chosen plain-images, even three in many cases. The effectiveness of the proposed chosen-plaintext attack is supported by theoretical analysis, and verified by experimental results.     

IQ quadrature demodulation algorithm used in heterodyne detection

In order to obtain better detection results of heterodyne, we used phase IQ quadrature demodulation algorithm to process the data which detected by laser heterodyne. Based on laser heterodyne interferometer, processing the data in the interferometer phase IQ quadrature demodulation algorithm from the signal to noise ratio, sampling rate, sampling rate, filter order and cutoff frequency, verify the effects of these system parameters to the phase precision, and choose the best parameters to obtain a better phase precision through experiment as: the signal to noise ratio is 25 dB, the IF signal frequency is 98.3 MHz, 98.5 MHz, 99.1 MHz, 99.5 MHz and 100 MHz, the sampling rate is 512–2048, the cutoff frequency and order of the filter are 0.11 and 40, respectively.     

Iterative diagonalization in augmented plane wave based methods in electronic structure calculations

Due to the increased computer power and advanced algorithms, quantum mechanical calculations based on Density Functional Theory are more and more widely used to solve real materials science problems. In this context large nonlinear generalized eigenvalue problems must be solved repeatedly to calculate the electronic ground state of a solid or molecule. Due to the nonlinear nature of this problem, an iterative solution of the eigenvalue problem can be more efficient provided it does not disturb the convergence of the self-consistent-field problem. The blocked Davidson method is one of the widely used and efficient schemes for that purpose, but its performance depends critically on the preconditioning, i.e. the procedure to improve the search space for an accurate solution. For more diagonally dominated problems, which appear typically for plane wave based pseudopotential calculations, the inverse of the diagonal of (H ? ES) is used. However, for the more efficient “augmented plane wave + local-orbitals” basis set this preconditioning is not sufficient due to large off-diagonal terms caused by the local orbitals. We propose a new preconditioner based on the inverse of (H ? λS) and demonstrate its efficiency for real applications using both, a sequential and a parallel implementation of this algorithm into our WIEN2k code.     

Accelerating MRI fat quantification using a signal model-based dictionary to assess gastric fat volume and distribution of fat fraction

To quantify intragastric fat volume and distribution with accelerated magnetic resonance (MR) imaging using signal model-based dictionaries (DICT) in comparison to conventional parallel imaging (CG-SENSE). This study was approved by the local ethics committee and written informed consent was obtained. Seven healthy subjects were imaged after intake of a lipid emulsion and data at three different time points during the gastric emptying process was acquired in order to cover a range of fat fractions. Fully sampled and prospectively undersampled image data at a reduction factor of 4 were acquired using a multi gradient echo sequence at 1.5T. Retrospectively and prospectively undersampled data were reconstructed with DICT and CG-SENSE. Image quality of the retrospectively undersampled data was assessed relative to the fully sampled reference using the root mean square error (RMSE). In order to assess the agreement of fat volumes and intragastric fat distribution, Bland-Altman analysis and linear regression were performed on the data. The RMSE in intragastric content (ΔRMSE = 0.10 ± 0.01, P < 0.001) decreased significantly with DICT relative to CG-SENSE. CG-SENSE overestimated fat volumes (bias 2.1 ± 1.3 mL; confidence limits 5.4 and − 1.1 mL) in comparison to the prospective DICT reconstruction (bias − 0.1 ± 0.7 mL; confidence limits 1.8 and − 2.0 mL). There was a good agreement in fat distribution between the images reconstructed by retrospective DICT and the reference images (regression slope: 1.01, R² = 0.961). Accelerating gastric MRI by integrating a dictionary-based signal model allows for improved image quality and increases accuracy of fat quantification during breathholds.     

Robust control of novel pendulum-type vibration isolation system

A novel pendulum-type vibration isolation system is proposed consisting of three active cables with embedded piezoelectric actuators and a passive elastomer layer. The dynamic response of the isolation module in the vertical and horizontal directions is modeled using the Lagrangian approach. The validity of the dynamic model is confirmed by comparing the simulation results for the frequency response in the vertical and horizontal directions with the experimental results. An approximate model is proposed to take into account system uncertainties such as payload changes and hysteresis effects. A robust quantitative feedback theory (QFT)-based active controller is then designed to ensure that the active control can achieve a high level of disturbance rejection in the low-frequency range even under variable loading conditions. It is shown that the controller achieves average disturbance rejection of ?14 dB in the 2–60 Hz bandwidth range and ?35 dB at the resonance frequency. The experimental results confirm that the proposed system achieves a robust vibration isolation performance under the payload in the range of 40–60 kg.     

Automatic detection of impact damage in carbon fiber composites using active thermography

Accidental impacts can severely reduce the structural strength and stability of composite materials, which can lead to severe consequences due to the degradation of the mechanical properties of components designed to perform for decades. Because accidental impacts are difficult to avoid, robust and reliable inspection methods to detect impact damage are required. Many methods have been proposed recently. However, most of them require an experienced technician to analyze the data, which leads to a significant decrease in manufacturing productivity. This work proposes a method to automatically detect impact damage in carbon fiber composites using active thermography. The proposed system detects defects caused by impact damage in the infrared images without human intervention. Impact damage detection is performed using a robust method based on an active thermographic inspection. Thermographic data is preprocessed to improve signal-to-noise ratio and to remove non-uniform background caused by non-uniform heating. Then, peaks and edges are identified and clustered, and regions corresponding to impact damage are detected. The proposed procedure has been applied to three specimens that contain 6 and 12 plies, different types of cores, and damage caused by energies from 6 J to 50 J. All defects are detected correctly.     

Experimental study on tandem pumped fiber amplifier

We present the experimental results of a 1083 nm fiber amplifier tandem pumped by 1030 nm fiber laser. The output characteristics of the tandem pumped amplifier with cladding-pump and core-pump schemes are both investigated. The 1083 nm signal laser has not been efficiently amplified when cladding-pumped by 1030 nm laser for the weak absorption of the gain fiber. The core-pump scheme works well with the amplifier. The output properties with different gain fiber length are experimentally investigated. The maximum output power is 2.4 W with power conversion efficiency of 60%.     

Compact WDM demultiplexer for seven channels in photonic crystal

We demonstrate a new device concept for wavelength division demultiplexing based on planar photonic crystal waveguides. The filtering of wavelength channels is realized by shifting the cutoff frequency of the fundamental photonic bandgap mode in consecutive sections of the waveguide. The shift is realized by modifying the size of the border holes.The proposed demultiplexer has an area equal to (16.5 μm × 6.5 μm) and thus it is verified that this structure is very small and can be integrated easily into optical integrated circuits with nanophotonic technologies. The output wavelengths of designed structure can be tuned for communication applications, around 1550 nm. The wavelengths of demultiplexer channels are λ₁ = 1.590 μm, λ₂ = 1.566 μm, λ₃ = 1.525 μm, λ₄ = 1.510 μm, λ₅ = 1.484 μm, λ₆ = 1.450 μm, λ₇ = 1.400 μm respectively. Designs offering improvement of number of the separate wavelengths (seven), miniaturization of the structure (107.25 μm²) is our aim in this work.In our structure, we consider that the 2D triangular lattice photonic crystal is composed of air holes surrounded by dielectric. Its parameters are: radius of holes (r = 0.130 μm), lattice constant (a = 0.380 μm), and index of membrane (n = 3.181:InP). The numerical model used to simulate the structure of the demultiplexer is based on the finite difference time domain (FDTD).     

An improved novel joint channel estimation algorithm for the 112 Gbit/s PDM CO-OFDM system

In this paper, an improved novel joint channel estimation algorithm is proposed for the 112 Gbit/s PDM CO-OFDM system. This method combines the advantages of the intra-symbol frequency domain averaging (ISFA) method and the time domain averaging (TA) method, which can realize more accuracy channel estimation. Simulation results show that this proposal could promise a relatively stable performance even under a rapidly time varying environment. It significantly outperforms the ISFA method by 2.2 dB when the DGD equals 1000 ps, and has the advantages of 0.5 dB over ISFA in considering the laser linewidth and frequency offset.     

Local remeshing for large amplitude grid deformations

Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) modelling can involve large deformations in the fluid domain, which could lead to degenerating mesh quality and numerical inaccuracies or instabilities, if allowed to amplify unchecked. Complete remeshing of the entire domain during the solution process is computationally expensive, and can require interpolation of solution variables between meshes. As an alternative, we investigate a local remeshing algorithm, with two emphases: (a) the identification and remedy of flat, degenerate tetrahedra, and (b) the avoidance of node motion, and hence associated interpolation errors.Initially, possible topological changes are examined using a dynamic programming algorithm to maximise the minimum local element quality through edge reconnection. In the 3D situation it was found that reconnection improvements tend to be limited to long edges, and those with few (three or four) element neighbours. The remaining degenerate elements are classified into one of four types using three proposed metrics – the minimum edge-to-edge distance (EE), the minimum node-to-edge distance (NE), and the shortest edge length (SE) – and removed according to the best manner for their type. Optimised thresholds for identifying and classifying elements for removal were found to be EE < 0.18, NE < 0.21, SE < 0.2.     

Wide-band fanned-out supercontinuum source covering O-, E-, S-, C-, L- and U-bands

A wide-band supercontinuum source generated by mode-locked pulses injected into a Highly Non-Linear Fiber (HNLF) is proposed and demonstrated. A 49 cm long Bismuth–Erbium Doped Fiber (Bi–EDF) pumped by two 1480 nm laser diodes acts as the active gain medium for a ring fiber laser, from which mode-locked pulses are obtained using the Non-Polarization Rotation (NPR) technique. The mode-locked pulses are then injected into a 100 m long HLNF with a dispersion of 0.15 ps/nm km at 1550 nm to generate a supercontinuum spectrum spanning from 1340 nm to more than 1680 nm with a pulse width of 0.08 ps and an average power of ?17 dBm. The supercontinuum spectrum is sliced using a 24 channel Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) with a channel spacing of 100 GHz to obtain a fanned-out laser output covering the O-, E-, S-, C-, L- and U-bands. The lasing wavelengths obtained have an average pulse width of 9 ps with only minor fluctuations and a mode-locked repetition rate of 40 MHz, and is sufficiently stable to be used in a variety of sensing and communication applications, most notably as cost-effective sources for Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks.