Novel lightweight video encryption method based on ChaCha20 stream cipher and hybrid chaotic map

In the recent years, an increasing demand for securing visual resource-constrained devices become a challenging problem due to the characteristics of these devices. Visual resource-constrained devices are suffered from limited storage space and lower power for computation such as wireless sensors, internet protocol (IP) camera and smart cards. Consequently, to support and preserve the video privacy in video surveillance system, lightweight security methods are required instead of the existing traditional encryption methods. In this paper, a new light weight stream cipher method is presented and investigated for video encryption based on hybrid chaotic map and ChaCha20 algorithm. Two chaotic maps are employed for keys generation process in order to achieve permutation and encryption tasks, respectively. The frames sequences are encrypted-decrypted based on symmetric scheme with assist of ChaCha20 algorithm. The proposed lightweight stream cipher method has been tested on several video samples to confirm suitability and validation in term of encryption–decryption procedures. The performance evaluation metrics include visual test, histogram analysis, information entropy, correlation analysis and differential analysis. From the experimental results, the proposed lightweight encryption method exhibited a higher security with lower computation time compared with state-of-the-art encryption methods

Entropy analysis and image encryption application based on a new chaotic system crossing a cylinder

Designing chaotic systems with specific features is a hot topic in nonlinear dynamics. In this study, a novel chaotic system is presented with a unique feature of crossing inside and outside of a cylinder repeatedly. This new system is thoroughly analyzed by the help of the bifurcation diagram, Lyapunov exponents' spectrum, and entropy measurement. Bifurcation analysis of the proposed system with two initiation methods reveals its multistability. As an engineering application, the system's efficiency is tested in image encryption. The complexity of the chaotic attractor of the proposed system makes it a proper choice for encryption. States of the chaotic attractor are used to shue the rows and columns of the image, and then the shued image is XORed with the states of chaotic attractor. The unpredictability of the chaotic attractor makes the encryption method very safe. The performance of the encryption method is analyzed using the histogram, correlation coefficient, Shannon entropy, and encryption quality. The results show that the encryption method using the proposed chaotic system has reliable performance. - 2019 by the authors.Scopu

Hybrid Feature Selection Approach to Improve the Deep Neural Network on New Flow-Based Dataset for NIDS

Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) detects normal and malicious behavior by analyzing network traffic, this analysis has the potential to detect novel attacks especially in IoT environments. Deep Learning (DL)has proven its outperformance compared to machine learning algorithms in solving the complex problems of the real-world like NIDS. Although, this approach needs more computational resources and consumes a long time. Feature selection plays a significant role in choosing the best features only that describe the target concept optimally during a classification process. However, when handling a large number of features the selecting such relevant features becomes a difficult task. Therefore, this paper proposes Enhanced BPSO using Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) and correlation–based (CFS) classical statistical feature selection approach to solve the problem on BPSO feature selection. The selected feature subset has evaluated on Deep Neural Networks (DNN) classifiers and the new flow-based CSE-CIC-IDS2018 dataset. Experimental results have shown a high accuracy of 95% based on processing time, detection rate, and false alarm rate compared with other benchmark classifiers

An Effective Preprocessing Step Algorithm in Text Mining Application

Text mining was a process of mining the significant information from the text documents. Any text mining system was created its process by preprocessing step; which involve tokenization, stop words removal, stemming and finally creating term frequency and inverse document frequency matrix (TF-IDF matrix). These steps provide the highest time consuming stage in knowledge discovery. The proposed method tries to build effective preprocessing step to even win area of memory space and time requirements. That by proposed a method for improved stop words removal algorithm and improved stemming algorithm based porter stemming algorithm. The proposed method is tested in two levels, first level uses only vector space model which based on used traditional stop words removal and with traditional porter stemming and the second level uses vector space model with combined features of improved stop words removal algorithm and improved stemming algorithm. The results show that using second level as effective preprocessing step for text mining application achieves good performance from reducing storage space used in memory about 10% and the processing time become faster which achieves good performance to build the final TF-IDF matrix

Contrôle noradrénergique de la plasticité neurochimique et structurale dans le noyau supra-optique de l'hypothalamus chez la souris

The magnocellular neurons of supraoptic nuclei (SON) participate in the synthesis and the release of vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OT). This nucleus undergoes a reversible neurochemical and structural plasticity in response to physiological stimulations such as lactation, parturition and dehydration. Noradrenalin (NA) plays a critical role in this plasticity but the precise mechanisms of this regulation are not yet well elucidated. Indeed, many factors could be implicated in this regulation. Here we chose to study two of these factors: nitric oxide (NO) and metalloproteinases (MMP). We used an ex-vivo model of hypothalamus slices (400µm) of C3H male mouse, containing the SON, maintained in an incubation chamber, under various pharmacological conditions. These slices underwent pharmacological treatments for 1h or 4h in the presence of NA. In order to determine the implication of NO or MMP in the NA signalling pathway;,treatments by L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, inhibitor of NO), sodium nitroprusside (SNP, donor of NO), the EGTA (inhibitor of Ca+2), and phenanthroline (inhibitor of MMP) were carried out. A quantification of the two peptides synthesized by magnocellular neurons under these conditions was carried out by enzymatic immuno-assay, and the study of the expression and the activity of the different peptides and factors were carried out by immunohistochemistry, histoenzymology, and in situ zymography. In the first part of this work, we showed that NA stimulates the expression of AVP and OT validating thus our ex-vivo model. In parallel, an increase in the expression of nNOS and iNOS, and also in the activity of NADPH-diaphorase by NA was observed in the magnocellular neurons of the SON. No detection of eNOS was observed in the SON. Combining L-NAME to NA treatment, we showed that NO is implicated in the NA regulation of AVP but not that of OT. Using a blocker of the activity of nNOS we showed that NO implicated in the regulation of AVP by NA originated from nNOS and iNOS. In the second part of this work, we showed that the neurochemical plasticity induced by NA could imply ECM molecules. We showed that MMP2 and MMP9 are expressed in vasopressin and oxytocin neurons and also in astrocytes. We then showed that NA increases the expression and the activity of these MMPs in magnocellular neurons of the SON. The implication of MMP2 and MMP9 in the regulation of the AVP and the OT by NA, realized by immunohistochemistry using an inhibitor of MMPs, demonstrated that these MMPs could be one of the factors implicated in the plasticity of the magnocellular neurons of SON.Les neurones magnocellulaires du noyau supraoptique (NSO) participent à la synthèse et la libération de la vasopressine (AVP) et de l'ocytocine (OT). Ce noyau subit une plasticité neurochimique et structurale réversible en réponse aux stimulations physiologiques telles que la lactation, la parturition et la déshydratation. La noradrénaline (NA) joue un rôle critique dans cette plasticité mais les mécanismes précis de cette régulation ne sont pas encore bien élucidés. En effet plusieurs facteurs moléculaires ou cellulaires pourraient être impliqués dans cette régulation. Dans le but d'étudier les facteurs impliqués dans la régulation de l'AVP et de l'OT par la NA, nous avons choisi de nous intéresser au monoxyde azote (NO) et aux métalloprotéinases (MMP). Nous avons utilisé un modèle ex-vivo de tranches d'hypothalamus (400µm) de souris C3H mâle, contenant les NSO, maintenues en survie dans une chambre d'incubation, dans différentes conditions pharmacologiques. Ces tranches ont subi des traitements pharmacologiques pour 1h ou 4h en présence de la NA. Afin de déterminer l'implication du NO ou des MMP dans la voie de signalisation de la NA, des traitements par le L-arginine méthyl ester (L-NAME, inhibiteur de NO), le sodium nitroprusside (SNP, donneur de NO), l'EGTA (bloquer du Ca+2), et la phénanthroline (inhibiteur de MMP) ont été réalisé. Une quantification des deux peptides synthétisés par les neurones magnocellulaires dans ces conditions a été réalisée par le dosage immunoenzymatique, et l'étude de l'expression et de l'activité des différents peptides et facteurs a été réalisée par immunohistochimie, histoenzymologie, et zymographie in situ.Dans la première partie de ce travail, nous avons montré que la NA stimule l'expression de l'AVP et de l'OT validant ainsi notre modèle ex-vivo par rapport aux modèles in-vivo. Parallèlement, une augmentation de l'expression et de l'activité de la nNOS et la iNOS, ainsi que l'activité de la NADPH-diaphorase par la NA a été observé dans les neurones magnocellulaires du NSO. Aucune détection de la eNOS n'a été observée. L'utilisation de L-NAME au cours du traitement NA nous a permis de montrer que le NO est impliqué dans la voie de régulation de l'AVP par la NA mais pas dans celle de l'OT. L'analyse immunoenzymatique en utilisant un bloqueur de l'activité de la nNOS nous a permis de constater que le NO impliqué dans la régulation d'AVP par la NA provient à la fois de l'activité de la nNOS et de la iNOS.Dans le deuxième partie, nous avons montré que la plasticité neurochimique induite par la NA pourrait impliquer des molécules de la MEC. Nous avons montré que la MMP2 et la MMP9 sont exprimées dans des neurones vasopressinergiques, ocytocinergiques, ainsi que dans les astrocytes. Nous avons ensuite montré que la NA augmente l'expression et l'activité de ces MMPs dans les neurones magnocellulaires du NSO. L'implication de la MMP2 et de la MMP9 dans la régulation de l'AVP et de l'OT par la NA, réalisée par immunohistochimie en utilisant un inhibiteur des MMPs, a permis de suggérer que ces MMPs pourraient être un des facteurs impliqués dans la plasticité des neurones magnocellulaires du NSO

Fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm with level set for MRI cerebral tissue segmentation

The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, and it consists of four regions namely, gray matter, white matter, cerebrospinal fluid and background. It is widely accepted as an imaging modality for detecting a variety of conditions of the brain such as tumours, bleeding, swelling, infections, or problems associated with blood vessels. Brain images mostly contain noise, inhomogeneity and sometimes deviation. Therefore, accurate segmentation of brain images is a very difficult task. This thesis presents a new approach of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) brain tissue segmentation, which consists of three main phases: (1) Noise removal using median filter, (2) Tissue clustering based on the fuzzy c-means, and (3) Tissue segmentation using the fuzzy level set method, which finally separates white matter from gray matter. The results show that the segmentation’s accuracy rates of 98% is achieved when tested on 100 samples of MRI brain images atlas dataset

Use of Nutritional Supplements Among Gym Clubs Participants in Sulaymaniyah City, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Introduction: Using dietary supplements has gained interest amongst people who desire to enhance their body composition. However, there are scant published data regarding the use of nutritional supplements and gym users. This study is to assess the intake of nutritional and dietary supplements among gym members in Sulaymaniyah city, Iraqi Kurdistan. Methods: The results of this study are based on the responses of one hundred gym members (aged over 18 years) to a self-manage questionnaire. Results: Almost half of the sample reported taking nutritional supplements and hormones. Thirty percent of the participants were consuming different protein powders. Most dietary supplement users noticed some side effects. Supplement users should always consult their physicians and been under the supervision of professional trainers and medical practitioners. In this manner, dietary supplements should not cause any side effects such as hypertension, hepatic disturbance, kidney disorders, hepatic, kidney disturbance, and muscle pain. However, some people (gym participants) may experience allergies, upset stomach/abdominal pain, and frequent urination. Conclusion: The usage rate of fitness supplements is very high, and the users are not aware of the potential consequences or dangers of unsupervised practice or unprescribed products. Therefore, there is an immediate need to promote consumers’ awareness of this issue, and the latest scientific data must be provided to users and coaches concerning consuming supplements. &nbsp

Thresholding for medical image segmentation for cancer using fuzzy entropy with level set algorithm

In this study, an effective means for detecting cancer region through different types of medical image segmentation are presented and explained. We proposed a new method for cancer segmentation on the basis of fuzzy entropy with a level set (FELs) thresholding. The proposed method was successfully utilized to segment cancer images and then efficiently performed the segmentation of test ultrasound image, brain MRI, and dermoscopy image compared with algorithms proposed in previous studies. Results showed an excellent performance of the proposed method in detecting cancer image segmentation in terms of accuracy, precision, specificity, and sensitivity measures

Noradrenergic regulation in mouse supraoptic nucleus involves a nitric oxide pathway only to regulate arginine-vasopressin expression and not oxytocin expression.

Noradrenalin (NA) regulates the expression of arginine-vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OT) by magnocellular neurons in the supraoptic nucleus (SON) of the hypothamalus. Nitric oxide (NO) may be one of the factors involved in the NA signaling pathway regulating AVP and OT expression. To test this possibility, we used an ex vivo experimental model of mouse hypothalamus slices. Increases in AVP and OT levels in the SON were detected by immunohistochemistry and immunoenzyme assays after 1 hr and 4 hr incubations with NA (10(-4) M). There was also an increase in the expression and activity of neuronal NOS and inducible NOS in the SON as assessed by immunohistochemical and histoenzymological analysis of NADPH-diaphorase, whereas endothelial NOS was undetectable. To specify the role of NO, the slices were treated with NA and L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, an NOS inhibitor; 3 muM). This treatment for 1 hr abolished the NA-induced increase in AVP. Treatment with sodium nitroprusside (SNP, an NO donor; 0.1 mM) increased AVP levels, confirming that NO regulates AVP expression. Addition of 1 mM EGTA during the incubation with NA reduced the AVP increase by half, indicating that both nNOS and iNOS activities are involved in the regulation. A 1-hr treatment with L-NAME did not prevent the increase in OT induced by NA; similarly, treatment with SNP had no effect. These findings show that NO is involved in the regulation of AVP expression by NA and that NA control of OT expression is independent of NO. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc