Chaotic Sequence based Steganography for Pair-Wise Communication

Steganography is the art and science of hiding sensitive data inside an image. There are so many cryptosystems that use Steganography as a major tool. Also in recent years there is a rising trend towards chaotic sequence based cryptosystems. This paper attempts to combine the two with a new algorithm for data hiding. Here key images required for Steganography are generated using chaotic sequence. Also an attempt is made to overcome the limitations of Steganography on the file size ratio and the security offered by Steganography

PREPARING LIS PROFESSIONALS FOR GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Introduction. Globalization due to the growth of the Internet and global communication infrastructure has made it possible for many services to be provided from remote locations, independent of the location of service providers. A large number of organizations have started outsourcing high-end knowledge-intensive services to external agencies and professionals, in a practice called knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). There is a shortage of talent able to provide the breadth of KPO services, particularly professionals trained to find and process information efficiently. This paper explores the issues and challenges involved for LIS professionals to break into the KPO market, and the strategies that LIS associations and LIS schools can take to facilitate this. Method. Two faculty members of an I-school, a special librarian at a private business school and a knowledge management specialist at a law firm in Singapore collaborated to deliberate on the extent and potential of the KPO market, the kind of services and skills that will be in demand for KPO, and the issues and barriers to address. Conclusion. LIS professionals are expected to do well in KPO in areas involving searching for information, packaging information, combining information from multiple sources, carrying out data collection and analysis, preparing research reports, providing information-related services, carrying out information and knowledge audits, constructing taxonomies and metadata, designing digital libraries and institutional repositories, and providing training. Challenges expected to be faced include mindset of librarians, personal work issues, and librarian's lack of certain soft skills, domain/industry knowledge, experience of the corporate environment, and an understanding of ethical and information security issues. A collaborative effort between LIS schools across the region, LIS associations and industry partners seems to be a good strategy to address the issues and realize the potential of KPO

Critical weather limits for paddy rice under diverse ecosystems of India

Rice yields are largely influenced by variability in weather. Here, we demonstrate the effect of weather variables viz., maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall, morning and evening relative humidity, bright sunshine hours on the yield of rice cv. Swarna, grown across five rice ecologies of India through field experiments during kharif (wet) season (Jun-Sept.). Critical thresholds of weather elements were identified for achieving above average, average and below average yield for each ecology. The investigation could determine how different weather elements individually and collectively affect rice yield in different rice ecosystems of India. While a sudden increase in minimum temperature by 8-10 °C (> 30 °C) during reproductive period resulted in 40-50 per cent yield reduction at Mohanpur, a sudden decrease (< 20 °C) caused yield decline at Dapoli. The higher yields may be attributed to a significant difference in bright sunshine hours between reproductive phases of above-average and below-average yield years (ranging from 2.8 to 7.8 hours during P5 stages and 1.7 to 5.1 during P4 stages). Rice cultivar Swarna performed differently at various sowing dates in a location as well as across locations (6650 kg ha-1 at Dapoli to 1101 kg ha-1 at Samastipur). It was also found that across all locations, the above average yield could be associated with higher range of maximum temperature compared to that of below average yield. Principal component analysis explained 77 per cent of cumulative variance among the variables at first growth stage, whereas 70 per cent at second growth stage followed by 74 per cent and 66 per cent at subsequent growth stages. We found that coastal locations, in contrast to inland ones, could maximize the yield potential of the cultivar Swarna, due to the longer duration of days between panicle initiation to physiological maturity. We anticipate that the location-specific thresholds of weather factors will encourage rice production techniques that are climate resilient