Copyright Protection for Digital Images on Portable Devices

The astonishing rapid diffusion of portable devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets, etc.) has had a big, and often positive, impact on our every-day life. These devices have new advanced features developed specifically because of user demand. For example, it is now possible to publish directly the pictures obtained by means of the internal camera of a smartphone on our social network accounts, or on an image hosting service. It is therefore important to have tools, on the portable devices, that can prove the ownership of the pictures and to use them before publishing images. Digital watermarking techniques are commonly used for the copyright protection of images and videos. We have developed a tool for portable devices based on the Android OS that allows the embedding of a digital visible or invisible watermark into a digital image

Multiband and Lossless Compression of Hyperspectral Images

Hyperspectral images are widely used in several real-life applications. In this paper, we investigate on the compression of hyperspectral images by considering different aspects, including the optimization of the computational complexity in order to allow implementations on limited hardware (i.e., hyperspectral sensors, etc.). We present an approach that relies on a three-dimensional predictive structure. Our predictive structure, 3D-MBLP, uses one or more previous bands as references to exploit the redundancies among the third dimension. The achieved results are comparable, and often better, with respect to the other state-of-art lossless compression techniques for hyperspectral images

Compression and protection of multidimensional data

2013 - 2014The main objective of this thesis is to explore and discuss novel techniques related to the compression and protection of multidimensional data (i.e., 3-D medical images, hyperspectral images, 3-D microscopy images and 5-D functional Magnetic Resonance Images). First, we outline a lossless compression scheme based on the predictive model, denoted as Medical Images Lossless Compression algorithm (MILC). MILC is characterized to provide a good trade-off between the compression performances and reduced usage of the hardware resources. Since in the medical and medical-related fields, the execution speed of an algorithm, could be a “critical” parameter, we investigate the parallelization of the compression strategy of the MILC algorithm, which is denoted as Parallel MILC. Parallel MILC can be executed on heterogeneous devices (i.e., CPUs, GPUs, etc.) and provides significant results in terms of speedup with respect to the MILC. This is followed by the important aspects related to the protection of two sensitive typologies of multidimensional data: 3-D medical images and 3-D microscopy images. Regarding the protection of 3-D medical images, we outline a novel hybrid approach, which allows for the efficient compression of 3-D medical images as well as the embedding of a digital watermark, at the same time. In relation to the protection of 3-D microscopy images, the simultaneous embedding of two watermarks is explained. It should be noted that 3-D microscopy images are often used in delicate tasks (i.e., forensic analysis, etc.). Subsequently, we review a novel predictive structure that is appropriate for the lossless compression of different typologies of multidimensional data... [edited by Author]XIII n.s

Levobetaxolol hydrochloride: a review of its pharmacology and use in the treatment of chronic open-angle glaucoma and ocular hypertension

Levobetaxolol is a cardioselective β-blocker that has been demonstrated to reduce intraocular pressure in patients affected with primary open-angle glaucoma and ocular hypertension. Levobetaxolol may be an effective neuroprotectant because of its great capacity to block sodium and calcium influx, which might confer a neuroprotective activity. Experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated the effects of levobetaxolol on ocular hemodynamics and visual field, and the pharmacologic differences between β-blockers currently used for the treatment of elevated IOP have become of more than academic interest since a number of studies have shown improvements to various extents. Unlike the initially manufactured 0.5% ophthalmic solution, levobetaxolol is suspended in a different delivery vehicle in levobetaxolol ophthalmic suspension, to increase the ocular tolerance and allow a similarity of effect with a 2-fold reduced concentration (0.25%)

Editorial Paper for the Special Issue “Algorithms in Hyperspectral Data Analysis”

This Special Issue contains four papers focused on hyperspectral data analysis [...

Lossless, Multiband, on Board, Compression of Hyperspectral Images

Hyperspectral remote sensing produces a huge amount of three-dimensional digital data: the hyperspectral images. Hyperspectral images are used to recognize objects and to classify materials on the surface of the earth. They are considered a useful tool in different real-life applications. In this paper we propose a novel approach for the efficient lossless compression of hyperspectral images, which is based on a predictive coding model. Our approach relies on a three-dimensional predictive structure that uses, one or more, previous bands as references to exploit the redundancies among the third dimension. The proposed technique uses limited resources in terms of CPU and memory usage. The achieved results are comparable, and often better, with respect to the other state-of-art lossless compression techniques for hyperspectral images

Visualization, Band Ordering and Compression of Hyperspectral Images

Air-borne and space-borne acquired hyperspectral images are used to recognize objects and to classify materials on the surface of the earth. The state of the art compressor for lossless compression of hyperspectral images is the Spectral oriented Least SQuares (SLSQ) compressor (see [1–7]). In this paper we discuss hyperspectral image compression: we show how to visualize each band of a hyperspectral image and how this visualization suggests that an appropriate band ordering can lead to improvements in the compression process. In particular, we consider two important distance measures for band ordering: Pearson’s Correlation and Bhattacharyya distance, and report on experimental results achieved by a Java-based implementation of SLSQ

Copyright protection for digital images on portable devices

The astonishing rapid diffusion of portable devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets, etc.) has had a big, and often positive, impact on our every-day life. These devices have new advanced features developed specifically because of user demand. For example, it is now possible to publish directly the pictures obtained by means of the internal camera of a smartphone on our social network accounts, or on an image hosting service. It is therefore important to have tools, on the portable devices, that can prove the ownership of the pictures and to use them before publishing images. Digital watermarking techniques are commonly used for the copyright protection of images and videos. We have developed a tool for portable devices based on the Android OS that allows the embedding of a digital visible or invisible watermark into a digital image

Sur la compression sans perte d'imagerie médicale multidimensionnelle

International audienceNowadays, many technologies involved for medical examinations produce multidimensional images. Such data need to be managed in an effective manner in order to be efficiently stored and transmitted. In such scenarios, data compression techniques are essential to improve the efficiency of transmission and storage. Lossless compression techniques are generally preferred, since medical images are often sensitive and important data. Indeed, through lossless compression techniques, the original data can be exactly restored. In this paper, we define a predictive structure well suited for the lossless compression of multidimensional medical images. We experimentally tested our approach on several datasets, including a dataset of 3-D Computed Tomography (CT), 3-D Magnetic Resonance (MR) and 5-D fMRI images. The experimental results we achieved outperform other state-of-the-art approaches for 3-D medical images.Actuellement, de nombreuses technologies impliquées dans les examens médicaux produisent des images multidimensionnelles. Ces données doivent être gérées de manière adéquates pour être stockées et transmises efficacement. Dans ces scénarios, les techniques de compression des données sont essentielles pour améliorer l'efficacité de la transmission et du stockage. Les techniques de compression sans perte sont généralement préférées, car les images médicales sont souvent des données sensibles et importantes. En effet, grâce à des techniques de compression sans perte, les données d'origine peuvent être exactement restaurées. Dans cet article, nous définissons une structure prédictive bien adaptée à la compression sans perte d'images médicales multidimensionnelles. Nous avons testé expérimentalement notre approche sur plusieurs ensembles de données, y compris un ensemble de données de la tomodensitométrie 3-D (TDM), de la résonance magnétique 3-D (IRM) et de l'IRMf 5-D. Les résultats expérimentaux que nous avons obtenus surpassent d'autres approches de pointe pour les images médicales 3-D

A Lossless Invisible Watermarking Scheme for Hyperspectral Images

Hyperspectral images are an important source of information that is widely used to recognize objects and to classify materials on the surface of the earth. Often hyperspectral data need to be adequately protected. In this paper, we describe a lossless invisible watermarking scheme that embeds hidden information into a hyperspectral image. Our scheme can be coupled with digital signature techniques, in order to guarantee the inalterability of the hyperspectral data