3D video based detection of early lameness in dairy cattle

Lameness is a major issue in dairy cattle and its early and automated detection offers animal welfare benefits together with potentially high commercial savings for farmers. Current advancements in automated detection have not achieved a sensitive measure for classifying early lameness; it remains to be a key challenge to be solved. The state-of-the-art also lacks behind on other aspects e.g. robust feature detection from a cow's body and the identification of the lame leg/side. This multidisciplinary research addresses the above issues by proposing an overhead, non-intrusive and covert 3-Dimensional (3D) video setup. This facilitates an automated process in order to record freely walking Holstein dairy cows at a commercial farm scale, in an unconstrained environment.The 3D data of the cow's body have been used to automatically track key regions such as the hook bones and the spine using a curvedness feature descriptor which operates at a high detection accuracy (100% for the spine, >97% for the hooks). From these tracked regions, two locomotion traits have been developed. First, motivated by a novel biomechanical approach, a proxy for the animal's gait asymmetry is introduced. This dynamic proxy is derived from the height variations in the hip joint (hooks) during walking, and extrapolated into right/left vertical leg motion signals. This proxy is evidently affected by minor lameness and directly contributes in identifying the lame leg. Second, back posture, which is analysed using two cubic-fit curvatures (X-Z plane and X-Y plane) from the spine region. The X-Z plane curvature is used to assess the spine's arch as an early lameness trait, while the X-Y plane curvature provides a novel definition for localising the lame side. Objective variables were extracted from both traits to be trained using a linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. Validation is made against ground truth data manually scored using a 1–5 locomotion scoring (LS) system, which consist of two datasets, 23 sessions and 60 sessions of walking cows. A threshold has been identified between LS 1 and 2 (and above). This boundary is important as it represents the earliest point in time at which a cow is considered lame, and its early detection could improve intervention outcome, thereby minimising losses and reducing animal suffering. The threshold achieved an accuracy of 95.7% with a 100% sensitivity (detecting lame cows), and 75% specificity (detecting non-lame cows) on dataset 1 and an accuracy of 88.3% with an 88% sensitivity and 92% specificity on dataset 2. Thereby outperforming the state-of-the-art at a stricter lameness boundary. The 3D video based multi-trait detection strives towards providing a comprehensive locomotion assessment on dairy farms. This contributes to the detection of developing lameness trends using regular monitoring which will improve the lack of robustness of existing methods and reduce reliance on expensive equipment and/or expertise in the dairy industry

Information Hiding using LSB Technique based on Developed PSO Algorithm

Generally, The sending process of secret information via the transmission channel or any carrier medium is not secured. For this reason, the techniques of information hiding are needed. Therefore, steganography must take place before transmission. To embed a secret message at optimal positions of the cover image under spatial domain, using the developed particle swarm optimization algorithm (Dev.-PSO) to do that purpose in this paper based on Least Significant Bits (LSB) using LSB substitution. The main aim of (Dev. -PSO) algorithm is determining an optimal paths to reach a required goals in the specified search space based on disposal of them, using (Dev.-PSO) algorithm produces the paths of a required goals with most efficient and speed. An agents population is used in determining process of a required goals at search space for solving of problem. The (Dev.-PSO) algorithm is applied to different images; the number of an image which used in the experiments in this paper is three. For all used images, the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) value is computed. Finally, the PSNR value of the stego-A that obtained from blue sub-band colo is equal (44.87) dB, while the stego-B is equal (44.45) dB, and the PSNR value for the stego-C is (43.97)dB, while the vlue of MSE that obtained from the same color sub-bans is (0.00989), stego-B equal to (0.01869), and stego-C is (0.02041). Furthermore, our proposed method has ability to survive the quality for the stego image befor and after hiding stage or under intended attack that used in the existing paper such as Gaussian noise, and salt & pepper noise

Compare Between DCT and DWT for Digital Watermarking in Color Image

In This paper we compare between Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) in the field of image authentication and digital watermarking. Our proposed method depending on the embedding stage and extraction stag that presented in [1] but our scheme embeds the logo bits inside the low frequency domain because DWT gives optimal results with LL domain, while [1] used middle frequency domain with DCT. Our improvement by using a secrete K called user key (int. K=1, K<=N) where N=10, is used to generate a random vectors  for the selected coefficient, this attempt is made to increase the security and robustness for the proposed scheme to compare between DCT that illustrated in [1] with middle frequency domain and DCT, DWT in the existing paper that used low frequency domain, it used block based technique with embedding stage, the development that illustrated in the existing paper by using DWT transform on the recovered of binary watermark for the purpose of image authentication in frequency domain using DWT, and DCT transforms with true color image. The method focused on the objective quality after embedding stage and the recovered watermark after extraction stage. With DWT in the first step, the cover image is decomposed into three levels by DWT transform. Then the hiding site was LL sub band of the DWT coefficients. Furthermore, our proposed method deal with true color image without converting its color space into other color space with various image texture all of them with size of 256*256 Bit map image file format, the proposed scheme deal with three sub-bands (Red, Green, and Blue) at the same time to hide logo bits inside the host by using Patchwork technique with embedding stage, so if one is destroyed the other may survive, it provide optimal security whenever any sub-bands color destroyed. With our proposed method a secret watermark in the form of binary (o, 1) pattern is embedded inside the host under DCT, DWT, one bit from the watermark will be embedded inside the selected coefficient from the selected block of the host. Our proposed method was evaluated with different types of intended attacks such as: salt and pepper noise, Poisson noise, and speckle noise. Moreover, unintended attacks consider by spatial enhancement filter such as median filter that used to improve the quality for the watermarked image after unintended attack. After experiments, it was found that our proposed method provides security and high performance with low computational complexity and good objective quality. Our scheme evaluate the imperceptibility for the watermarked image after embedding stage by using Peak signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), while the recovered watermark evaluated by some types of metrics such as Mean Square Error (MSE), Normalized Correlation (NC), and correlation factor (SIM). Our proposed method has ability to deal with different image texture and format such as (BMP), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), and Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Keywords: Authentication, Objective, Subjective

Robust Color Image Encryption Scheme Based on RSA via DCT by Using an Advanced Logic Design Approach

تتزايد أهمية أمن المعلومات في تخزين البيانات ونقلها. من جانب اخر يتم استخدام الصور في العديد من الإجراءات. لذلك ، يعد منع الوصول غير المصرح به إلى بيانات الصورة أمرًا بالغ الأهمية من خلال تشفير الصور لاجل حماية البيانات الحساسة او الخصوصية. تتنوع طرق وخوارزميات إخفاء الصور أو تشفيرها من طرق المجال المكاني البسيطة إلى طرق مجال التردد والذي يعتبر الأكثر تعقيدًا وموثوقية. في هذا البحث ، نقترح نظام تشفير جديد يعتمد على منهجية تهجين مولد المفتاح العشوائي من خلال الاستفادة من خصائص DCT لتوليد مجموعة غير محددة من المفاتيح العشوائية والاستفادة من معاملات المنطقة منخفضة التردد بعد مرحلة DCT لتمريرها إلى نظام فرعي يتكون من مجموعة RLG للحصول على المفاتيح السرية التي يتم تمريرها إلى RSA لتنتهي بتشفير الصورة. تشير النتائج إلى أن الطريقة المقترحة لها القدرة على تولد مجموعة كبيرة جدًا من المفاتيح السرية شديدة التعقيد والآمنة التي يمكن استخدامها لاحقًا في مرحلة التشفير. علاوة على ذلك ، سيتغير عدد وتعقيد تلك المفاتيح في كل مرة يتم فيها تغيير الصورة، وهذا يمثل مساهمة الطريقة المقترحة. ولم نلاحظ اي ضياع للوقت أثناء عمليات التشفير وفك التشفير لاستخدامنا RLG ، مما يدل على أن النظام المقترح قام بعمل جيد في صنع مفاتيح مختلفة من نفس الصورة. ويختلف في قوة المفتاح من صورة إلى أخرى حسب طبيعة الصورة الملونة.Information security in data storage and transmission is increasingly important. On the other hand, images are used in many procedures. Therefore, preventing unauthorized access to image data is crucial by encrypting images to protect sensitive data or privacy. The methods and algorithms for masking or encoding images vary from simple spatial-domain methods to frequency-domain methods, which are the most complex and reliable. In this paper, a new cryptographic system based on the random key generator hybridization methodology by taking advantage of the properties of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to generate an indefinite set of random keys and taking advantage of the low-frequency region coefficients after the DCT stage to pass them to a subsystem consisting of an Reversible Logic Gate (RLG) group to obtain the secret keys that are passed to Rivest Shamir Adleman (RSA) to finish encrypting the image. The results indicate that the proposed method has the ability to generate a very large set of highly complex and secure secret keys that can be used later in the encryption stage. Moreover, the number and complexity of those keys will change each time the image is changed, and this represents the contribution of the proposed method. They experienced no time loss throughout the encryption and decryption processes when using RLG, which indicates that the proposed system did a good job in making different keys from the same image. And it differs in the strength of the key from one image to another, depending on the nature of the color imge

Mesopotamian Buffaloes: Endangered Genetic Resource, Review

The water buffalo of Iraq are river type (Bubalus bubalis), some scholars think they are most closely related to the water buffalo of India, but white patches which is rather common on the foreheads indicate some influence of Nile breed, this latter influence of course could be quite recent (ALhamadany, 2015), while recent molecular studies referred indicated that Mesopotamian buffaloes were from River type and large animal as well well very large variation between animals and buffalo populations due to absent of genetic improvement (Jaayid and Hamd). There were many historical and archeological studies that had different debate about Mesopotamian buffalo origin still need more molecular genetic studies [1]. Buffalo breeders (Maadan), in Iraq represents living descendants of the ancient Sumerians, divided to Nomads and Villagers [2]. These ancient genetic recourses in Iraq, go through many drastic impacts during three decades, environmental, economical and wars, lead to decline of population and breeders displacement [3], that need conservation plans to be adopted and protect this ancient animal, which achieved by Ministry of Agriculture. Baghdad, involved Artificial Insemination project, sponsored by FAO and supported breeders by loans

APPLICATION OF PRESSURE MEASURES TO PREDICT PROPULSIVE FORCES EXERTED BY THE HAND DURING SWIMMING

The aim of this study is to investigate the validity of the pressure method to predict propulsive forces exerted by the hand during swimming. The use of pressure measures has been developed to predict hydrodynamic forces acting on the hand in swimming; however, the method has not been validated during swimming. Three swimmers were asked to swim without a kicking motion against a counter-weight in a towing system and to keep their position the same. The pressure method predicted the mean propulsive force by 25±12% differences from the known weights. The difference may be due to the propulsive force due to the forearm. This study estimated the hand propulsions due to drag and lift forces reliably, which can be useful information for a swimmer and coach

Robust Framework to Combine Diverse Classifiers Assigning Distributed Confidence to Individual Classifiers at Class Level

We have presented a classification framework that combines multiple heterogeneous classifiers in the presence of class label noise. An extension of m-Mediods based modeling is presented that generates model of various classes whilst identifying and filtering noisy training data. This noise free data is further used to learn model for other classifiers such as GMM and SVM. A weight learning method is then introduced to learn weights on each class for different classifiers to construct an ensemble. For this purpose, we applied genetic algorithm to search for an optimal weight vector on which classifier ensemble is expected to give the best accuracy. The proposed approach is evaluated on variety of real life datasets. It is also compared with existing standard ensemble techniques such as Adaboost, Bagging, and Random Subspace Methods. Experimental results show the superiority of proposed ensemble method as compared to its competitors, especially in the presence of class label noise and imbalance classes

The Poet as Translator: The Poetic Vision of John Betjeman

Rainer Maria Rilke (1989) describes the quest of the poet as that of saying the “unsayable.” Similarly, poets like Ezra Pound and Octavio Paz suggest that when the poetic essence is beyond the words, then the poem enters the realm of the “untranslatable” and invites an act of translation. John Betjeman recognizes the complexity that is inherent to the heritage of the Modernist School which renders poetry to be as incomprehensible as any foreign language. This paper argues that Betjeman diverts from the stylistic density of the Modernist tradition because he discerns a similar unintelligibility in a receding English culture. Hence, translation becomes not only a vocation but an inevitability that looms large considering the social and political upheavals he witnessed. Drawing on Rilke and Paz’s understanding of the act of translation as seeking meaning “beyond the words per se” (Jackson, 2011), this paper explores Betjeman’s attempts to translate a condition which is both “unsayable” and foreign, which afflicted Englishness as a cultural locus

JOINT LOADING WHILE PERFORMING A SIDE-STEP CUTTING MANOUEVRE ON ARTlClAL GRASS TURF WITH DIFFERENT INFILL DEPTHS

The aim of this study was to determine differences in the joint loadings when performing side-step action on artificial grass turf with different infill depths. Significant changes in the ankle inversion angle (Ankle angle Y; p=0.01; ES=0.73), ankle inversion/eversion moment (Ankle moment Y; p=0.03; ES=0.54) and ankle abduction-adduction moment (Anklemoment Z; p=0.01; ES=0.76) at GRFSeak suggests greater loadings, in particular, at the ankle jint when performing the side-step manoeuvres on artificial grass turfs with thicker infill depths; indicating that all of the lower extremity adaptations to execute the stepside occurs at the ankle rather than the knee. A change in infill depths will cause the body posture to adopt a change in technique when executing the side-step manoeuvre. It is possible that greater joint moments elicited could be of risk to the athletes

KNEE JOINT LOADINGS OF ATHLETES PERFORMING THE SIDE-STEP CUTTING MANOEUVRES UNDER TWO DIFFERENT CONDITIONS

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in knee joint loading of athletes performing the side-step cutting manoeuvres under two different conditions (fatigued vs. non-fatigued). Lower limb joint kinematics and kinetics of 12 inter-varsity soccer players (6 males and 6 females) performing side-step tasks in two conditions were quantified using 10 optical cameras and Kistler™ force-platform. Fatigue conditions elicited significantly higher sagittal knee joint loadings (Mext, FPeak_GRF_Z, FPeak_AP_GRF and ?°GRF_Z_IC) then non-fatigued suggesting that athletes when fatigued adopted different strategies to compensate the changes to their environment