Watermarking Techniques for Protecting Intellectual Properties in a Digital Environment

The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for digital media has become an important issue in many countries of the world. There is increase in the popularity and accessibility of the Internet to record, edit, replicate and broadcast multimedia content which has necessitated a high demand to protect digital information against illegal uses, manipulations and distributions. Digital watermarking technique which is the process used to embed proprietary information into multimedia digital signal provides a robust solution to this problem. This paper reviews different aspects and techniques of digital watermarking for protecting digital contents. It also explores different application areas of digital watermarking such as copyright protection, broadcast monitoring, integrity protection etc.Facultad de Informátic

Watermarking Techniques for Protecting Intellectual Properties in a Digital Environment

The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for digital media has become an important issue in many countries of the world. There is increase in the popularity and accessibility of the Internet to record, edit, replicate and broadcast multimedia content which has necessitated a high demand to protect digital information against illegal uses, manipulations and distributions. Digital watermarking technique which is the process used to embed proprietary information into multimedia digital signal provides a robust solution to this problem. This paper reviews different aspects and techniques of digital watermarking for protecting digital contents. It also explores different application areas of digital watermarking such as copyright protection, broadcast monitoring, integrity protection etc.Facultad de Informátic

Backpack use and associated problems among primary school children in Nigeria: a call to action by stakeholders

Background: Carrying backpacks is believed to contribute to the musculoskeletal problems in school children. Studies on the use of backpacks by Nigerian school children are scanty.Objectives: To evaluate the use of backpack and associated problems among primary school children.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on 813 children in six primary schools in Ado-Ekiti. Information about backpack use and associated problems were obtained.Results: 788 (96.9%) children carried backpacks daily. The backpacks were all double strapped and 85% pupils wore them on both shoulders. The backpacks of 64.1% of the pupils contained educational materials. In 79.1% of cases, the backpacks exceeded 10% of their body weights. Pain and loss of sporting time were associated with carrying backpacks in 23.2% and 8.2% respectively, 15.3% took analgesic and 5.5% had medical consultations because of backpack injuries. No pupil missed school and none was hospitalised for backpack injury. Complaint of pain was significantly associated with older subjects, carrying heavier backpack and longer period of carrying packs (p<0.001).Conclusion: Backpack use and associated health problems are common among school children in the study area. Health workers should enquire about backpack use in children presenting with back and shoulder pain. We recommend more studies on backpack use. Also, Government and other stakeholders should draw up guidelines regarding the use of backpacks in Nigeria as practiced in other countries. Professional bodies including the Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN), and other stakeholders should be involved in formulating such guidelines.Keywords: Backpacks, School children, Pain, Dysfunction, Nigeri

A Combination of Vigenere Cipher and Advanced Encryption Standard for Image Security

In an era where digital information security is paramount, this research addresses the pressing need for robust encryption methods. We propose a novel approach that combines the Vigenere Cipher and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for secure digital image transmission. Our study recognizes the research gap in secure image transmission methods and aims to bridge it with a powerful encryption solution. We implement this hybrid encryption approach using the Vigenere Cipher in C++ and the AES algorithm in MATLAB. Our experiments validate the effectiveness of our program in concealing and restoring digital images during transmission. This hybrid encryption technique has promising applications in healthcare, military, and confidential business operations, bolstering image security in real-life scenarios. By enhancing image security, our research can contributed to safeguarding sensitive information in the digital ag

SECURE TEXT ENCRYPTION FOR IOT COMMUNICATION USING AFFINE CIPHER AND DIFFIE-HELLMAN KEY DISTRIBUTION ON ARDUINO ATMEGA2560 IOT DEVICES

In an Internet of Things (IoT) system, devices connected to the system exchange data. The data contains sensitive information about the connected devices in the system so it needs to be protected. Without security, the data in the IoT system can be easily retrieved. One way to prevent this is by implementing cryptography. Cryptography is a technique for protecting information by using encryption so that only the sender and receiver can see the contents of the information contained therein. The implementation of cryptography on IoT devices must consider the capabilities of IoT devices because in general IoT devices have limited processing capabilities compared to computer devices. Therefore, the selection of encryption algorithms needs to be adjusted to the computational capabilities of IoT devices. In this research, the affine cipher cryptography algorithm and Diffie-hellman key distribution algorithm are applied to the arduino atmega2560 IoT device. The purpose of this research is to increase the security of the IoT system by implementing cryptography. The method used in this research involves setting up a sequence of encryption and decryption steps using an affine cipher and diffie-hellman algorithms. Furthermore, these algorithms were implemented on an Arduino IoT device. Finally, the decryption time based on the number of characters and the avalanche test were tested. The results showed that on average, Arduino can perform decryption using affine cipher and diffie-hellman algorithms in 0.07 milliseconds per character. The avalanche test produced an average percentage of 45.51% from five trials

Watermarking Techniques for Protecting Intellectual Properties in a Digital Environment

The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for digital media has become an important issue in many countries of the world. There is increase in the popularity and accessibility of the Internet to record, edit, replicate and broadcast multimedia content which has necessitated a high demand to protect digital information against illegal uses, manipulations and distributions. Digital watermarking technique which is the process used to embed proprietary information into multimedia digital signal provides a robust solution to this problem. This paper reviews different aspects and techniques of digital watermarking for protecting digital contents. It also explores different application areas of digital watermarking such as copyright protection, broadcast monitoring, integrity protection etc.Facultad de Informátic

Discrete Cosine Transform and Singular Value Decomposition Based on Canny Edge Detection for Image Watermarking

The development of an increasingly sophisticated internet allows for the distribution of digital images that can be done easily. However, with the development of increasingly sophisticated internet networks, it becomes an opportunity for some irresponsible people to misuse digital images, such as taking copyrights, modification and duplicating digital images. Watermarking is an information embedding technique to show ownership descriptions that can be conveyed into text, video, audio, and digital images. There are 2 groups of watermarking based on their working domain, namely the spatial domain and the transformation domain. In this study, three domain transformation techniques were used, namely Singular Value Descomposition (SVD), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Canny Edge Detection Techniques. The proposed attacks are rotation, gaussian blurness, salt and pepper, histogram equalization, and cropping. The results of the experiment after inserting the watermark image were measured by the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). The results of the image robustness test were measured by the Correlation Coefficient (Corr) and Normalized Correlation (NC). The analysis and experimental results show that the results of image extraction are good with PSNR values from watermarked images above 50dB and Corr values reaching 0.95. The NC value obtained is also high, reaching 0.98. Some of the extracted images are of fairly good quality and are similar with the original image

Environmental Management Reporting – An Aid to Sustainable Business Practice

The economy of the whole world is transitioning into a new period, one in which environmental and social concerns will play a more important role in all actions carried out by business groups. The purpose of this research is to investigate the level of environmental management reporting in relation to the achievement of sustainable business practice, with specific reference to a number of non-financial businesses in Nigeria. In order to choose fifty nonfinancial companies that are listed on the main board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, a method called purposeful sampling was utilized. The selection was based on the availability of the companies' annual reports from 2014 to 2021. The data that was sourced included both quantitative and qualitative information. The gathered information was evaluated with the assistance of descriptive statistics like ratio, percentage, and graph. The study found that existing policies in place to encourage environmental management for existing policies in place to encourage environmental management for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 is 9.1%, 10%, 11.9%, 12.1%, 13%, 13.1%, 13.2% and 13.3% respectively; also 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 is 8.1%, 8.8%, 9.1%, 10.0%, 11.9% and 12.1% respectively; also environmental impact assessment during implementation phase of project for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 is 1.5%, 1.8%, 2.2%, 2.9%, 3%, 3.1%, 3.3% and 3.4%; company compliance with environmental laws by relevant authority for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 is 2%, 2.1%, 2.7%, 3%, 3%, 3.1% and 3.2%; and the aggregate percentage of change in the overall environmental index for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 is 20.9%, 23.6%, 28.3%, 31.2%, 32.6%, 33.1%, 33.9% and 34.5% respectively, indicating that the overall extent of environmental management reporting is low (below 50%) in Nigeria. The study recommended that business should be environmentally responsible and emphasize sustainable business practice

Measurement of Radon Concentration and Radioactivity in Soil Samples of Aramoko, Ekiti State, Nigeria

The radon concentration and natural radioactivity i n soil of Aramoko, Ekiti State, Nigeria have been d etermined. The soil gas radon measurement was performed in-situ with Rad7 r adon monitor coupled with a soil gas probe. Natural radioactivity measurement in soil samples was carried out using N aI(Tl) gamma spectrometer. This study is aimed at d etermining the correlation between the radioactivity of the soil a nd its radon concentration. It was found that the r adon concentration of soil gas in the study area ranged from 0.63BqL -1 to 35.04BqL -1 with an average value of 9.82±0.56BqL -1 . The average activity concentrations of 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K were found to be 22.62Bq/Kg, 34.74Bq/Kg and 316.7 2Bq/Kg, respectively. The average radium equivalent and average absorbed dose rates a t a height of 1m above the ground are 95.99±62 BqKg -1 and 45.18±27.28 nGyh -1 respectively. The mean external and internal hazar d indices were also found to be 0.26 and 0.32 respe ctively. All the determined radiological indices values are within t he recommended limits

Relationship between Macroeconomic Variables and Interest Rate: Evidence from Nigerian Deposit Money Bank

This study was conducted to assess the effect of interest rate on financial performance of listed Deposit Money Bank (DMBs) listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) between 2015-2020.The study population comprised of (14) listed DMB listed on the NSE. The total population was studied hence, the sample size was made up of (14) DMBs. Purposive sampling technique was employed in the determination of the sample size. Panel data was used which consists of 84 observations analysed using multiple regression model. Robust regression model was employed to test the effect of interest rate and financial performance of DMBs. The outcome of this analysis showed that maximum lending rate has a coefficient of 0.319 which is significant at 1% (p=0.005). Domestic Money supply is also found to be significant at 5% (p=0.045) with coefficient of - 0.102. These results show that maximum lending rate lead to increase in financial performance, domestic money supply rate lead to increase in financial performance while monetary policy rate results in decrease return on asset among DMBs in Nigeria. The study recommends that the Central Bank of Nigeria should redefine the domestic money supply as a tool for monetary policy by establishing an equilibrium level. This would allow more funds to be made available to deposit money banks so that they could improve their performance and advance loan application