Charles G. Boncelet

• PhD
• University of Delaware

Group cohesiveness is a compelling and often studied composition in group dynamics and group performance. The enormous number of web images of groups of people can be used to develop an effective method to detect group cohesiveness. This paper introduces an automatic group cohesiveness prediction method for the 7th Emotion Recognition in the Wild (...

Group cohesiveness is a compelling and often studied composition in group dynamics and group performance. The enormous number of web images of groups of people can be used to develop an effective method to detect group cohesiveness. This paper introduces an automatic group cohesiveness prediction method for the 7th Emotion Recognition in the Wild (...

A graph neural network (GNN) for image understanding based on multiple cues is proposed in this paper. Compared to traditional feature and decision fusion approaches that neglect the fact that features can interact and exchange information, the proposed GNN is able to pass information among features extracted from different models. Two image unders...

This paper presents a hybrid deep learning network submitted to the 6th Emotion Recognition in the Wild (EmotiW 2018) Grand Challenge [9], in the category of group-level emotion recognition. Advanced deep learning models trained individually on faces, scenes, skeletons and salient regions using visual attention mechanisms are fused to classify the...

Entropy coders fall into several general categories: Huffman and Huffman-like coders that parse the input into fixed length pieces and encode each with a vari-able length output, arithmetic coders that take an arbi-trarily long string as an input and encode with a single output string, and Tunstall-like coders that parse the in-put into variable le...

We describe a new image steganography method that uses permutations of selected pixels to hide information. The basic idea is that a subset of pixels is selected by a keyed random number generator. The values of these pixels are altered by as little as possible but such that the sorted ordering of these values corresponds to a specific permutation....

Electrical connection systems and methods are disclosed. An electrical system includes an electrical plug and an electrical receptacle. The electrical plug has at least one prong having at least one opening. The electrical receptacle has at least one socket, an electrical contact positioned within the at least one socket, a light source positioned...

We consider an anomaly detection problem. We are interested in whether or not a stream of data contains an unusual number or distribution of positives. Abstractly, the problem can be stated as follows: given a binary string, we wish to determine if the number or distribution of 1's differs significantly from a known spontaneous rate. Furthermore, w...

We consider the following question: given a sequence X1, . . . , Xn of binary values, how likely is it that the sequence was the output of n i.i.d. Bernoulli trials? And if it was not, can we detect the presence of clustering - increased local density on smaller consecutive intervals - in a reliable way? In this paper we propose a relatively simple...

Noise occurs in images for many reasons. Probably the most frequently occurring noise is additive Gaussian noise. It is widely used to model thermal noise and, under some often reasonable conditions, is the limiting behavior of other noises, e.g., photon counting noise and film grain noise. Gaussian noise is a part of almost any signal. For example...

Steganography techniques can be used to convey hidden information. If done well, the information is difficult to discover and is unknown to an observer. The detection of steganography, known as steganalysis, is an important research pursuit. In previous work, we developed a method of steganalysis for images with messages embedded by an LSB plusmn1...

We present a rate insensitive method for detecting steganog- raphy using ±1 embedding. ±1 embedding is generally con- sidered to be difficult to detect. In prior work, we developed a high performing method based on statistics computed by a lossless image compressor. However, the method suffered a weakness that the embedding rate needed to be known....

We present results of an experiment to detect the presence of ±1 embedding in digital images employing a realistic operating scenario. The ±1 embedding steganography (also known as LSB matching) is simple to implement but not easy to detect. Many of the results presented in the literature to date demonstrate detection performance for a system tha...

A new method of steganalysis for images with embedded messages is presented. We consider two embedding methods: least significant bit (LSB) replacement and plusmn1 LSB embedding. Our method uses lossless image compression to generate statistics that are fed into a support vector machine classifier. We compare results against the pairs method, one o...

We present a new message authentication code (MAC) called the cyclic redundancy check-noise-tolerant message authentication code (CRC-NTMAC). The CRC-NTMAC improves upon the recently developed NTMAC. Unlike conventional MACs, such as the keyed-hash MAC (HMAC), the CRC-NTMAC and NTMAC tolerate a modest number of errors, such as might be caused by a...

We present a method for detecting steganography using plusmn1 embedding. The method uses a lossless compression technique to compress the last two bitplanes in an effort to model the image structure where the data may be hidden. A small number of statistics are then computed using the model and fed into a support vector machine to classify detectio...

We present a context-weighting algorithm that adaptively weights in real-time three-context models based on their relative accuracy. It can automatically select the better model over different regions of an image, producing better probability estimates than using either one of these models exclusively. Combined with the previously proposed block ar...

In this paper, we present a new approach, the image CRC Noise Tolerant Message Authentication Code (image CRC- NTMAC), to ensure the credibility of multimedia, such as images. The image CRC-NTMAC can accuratelyidentifythe specific regionsof the image that have been modified and vis- ibly displaythe authenticationresult. Moreover,the tolerance to th...

We present a new lossless image compression algorithm called BCTW, for bitplane context tree weighting, and a correspond- ing study into lossless image compression using several num- ber representations and various algorithms. BCTW processes the image bitplane by bitplane and uses Context Tree Weight- ing (CTW) to estimate the probability of each p...

PMAC is a medium access protocol designed for wireless sensor networks. The protocol is based on exploiting the periodicity inherent in carrier sensing schemes like CSMA/CA combined with a relaxed time-access arbitration regime among the competing nodes. Transmission and reception of data frames are made to be strictly receiver-triggered events whi...

We present a new message authentication code (MAC) called the BCH-NTMAC. The BCH-NTMAC improves on the recently developed CRC-NTMAC and the NTMAC. Similar to the CRC-NTMAC and the NTMAC, the BCH-NTMAC can tolerate a modest number of errors, such as might be caused by a noisy communications channel. Moreover, all these new NTMACs provide estimates o...

We present a new scheme to reduce the communications requirements for sending noise-tolerant message authentication codes (NTMACs), by sending the NTMAC's over direct sequence spread spectrum wireless channels. We greatly reduce the number of chips required by replacing each sub-MAC with a chip sequence (sub-tag) considered as a whole, while all ad...

This paper introduces a new construct, called the Noise Tolerant Message Authentication Code (NTMAC), for noisy message authentication. The NTMAC can tolerate a small number of errors, such as might be caused by a noisy communications channel. The NTMAC uses a conventional Message Authentication Code (MAC) in its constructions and it inherits the c...

We present a new method of steganalysis, the detection of hidden messages, for least significant bits (LSB) replacement embedding. The method uses lossless image compression algorithms to model images bitplane by bitplane. The basic premise is that messages hidden by replacing LSBs of image pixels do not possess the same statistical properties and...

This chapter discusses the problem of compressing binary images. A binary image is one where each pixel takes on one of two colors, conventionally black and white. Binary images are widely used in facsimile communication and in digital printing. This chapter reviews traditional compression methods, newer standards, and some of the recent research.

Noise occurs in images for many reasons. Probably the most frequently occurring noise is additive Gaussian noise. It is widely used to model thermal noise and, under some often reasonable conditions, is the limiting behavior of other noises, e.g., photon counting noise and film grain noise. Gaussian noise is a part of almost any signal. For example...

In this paper, we present a new scheme to reduce the communications requirements to send message authentication tags (MAC's), by sending the MAC's over direct sequence spread spectrum wireless channels. We greatly reduce the number of chips required by considering the chip sequence as a whole. In one example, based on the IS-95 CDMA digital cellula...

We present a new method for authenticating and tamperproofing images. It is based on the recently developed NT-MAC (noise tolerant message authentication code). The NTMAC is designed for multimedia transmitted over noisy channels. Unlike ordinary cryptographic codes, the NT-MAC fails gradually in the presence of noise or bit errors. In this work, w...

A context-weighting algorithm as an improvement of previously proposed block arithmetic coder for image compression (BACIC) is presented. The proposed algorithm weights two context models, so that it can automatically select the better model over different regions of an image, producing better probability estimates. The overall performance of this...

We present a two-part method for lossless image compression: the first is a simple transformation based on JPEG-LS and the second is the use of a general purpose file compressor such as gzip, bzip2 or rk. The transformation is invertible and uses only integer arithmetic. It achieves no compression directly; however, on some images, it can significa...

In this paper, we present a new method for authenticating messages. The method is suitable in situations where severe power or computational constraints prevent the use of conventional authentication algorithms. It is based on a computationally simple message authentication code (MAC) and the generation of a chain of keys that have a limited lifeti...

This paper presents the block arithmetic coding for image compression (BACIC) algorithm: a new method for lossless bilevel image compression which can replace JBIG, the current standard for bilevel image compression. BACIC uses the block arithmetic coder (BAC): a simple, efficient, easy-to-implement, variable-to-fixed arithmetic coder, to encode im...

In this paper, we present two tamper-detection techniques. The first is a fragile technique that can detect the most minor changes in a marked image using a DCT-based data hiding method to embed a tamper-detection mark. The second is a semi-fragile technique that detects the locations of significant manipulations while disregarding the less importa...

This study introduces error control to the block arithmetic coding for image compression (BACIC): a new method for lossless bilevel image compression. BACIC can successfully transmit bilevel images when channel bit error rates are as high as 10(-3) while providing compression ratios twice that of G3, the only facsimile standard which incorporates e...

Many digital steganographic systems employ the capacity of an additive white Gaussian noise (WGN) channel as a performance metric. We present results that show that this capacity metric understates the capacity potential of these systems and propose a more accurate measure based on the arbitrary noise channel. This measure is compared to the capaci...

Many applications could be enhanced by the ability to transmit images over narrow-bandwidth noisy channels. Robust source coding provides both the compression and noise mitigation that is necessary for successful image transmission in hostile environments without channel coding. In this paper, two methods of robust source coding are presented. The...

In this paper, we present a new method of digital steganography, entitled spread spectrum image steganography (SSIS). Steganography, which means "covered writing" in Greek, is the science of communicating in a hidden manner. Following a discussion of steganographic communication theory and review of existing techniques, the new method, SSIS, is int...

One of the greatest advantages of the ubiquitous Internet, the free and easy transmission of information, is also one of its greatest weaknesses, leading to the copying and outright theft of information. Of particular interest to the readers of this journal is the theft of images and videos. A content provider may want to publish information withou...

In this paper, we introduce a new multiresolution watermarking method for digital images. The method is based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Pseudo-random codes are added to the large coefficients at the high and middle frequency bands of the DWT of an image. It is shown that this method is more robust to proposed methods to some common i...

One of the greatest advantages of the ubiquitous Internet, the free and easy transmission of information, is also one of its greatest weaknesses, leading to the copying and outright theft of information. Of particular interest to the readers of this journal is the theft of images and videos. A content provider may want to publish information withou...

We present a new method of embedding information within digital images, called spread spectrum image steganography (SSIS). Steganography, which means “covered writing” in Greek, is the science of communicating in a hidden manner. SSIS conceals a message of substantial length within digital imagery while maintaining the original image size and dynam...

We present a method of embedding information within digital images, called spread spectrum image steganography (SSIS) along with its payload capacity. Steganography is the science of communicating in a hidden manner. SSIS conceals a message of substantial length within digital imagery while maintaining the original image size and dynamic range. The...

Robust source coding provides both compression and noise mitigation without channel coding. In this paper, two methods of robust source coding are presented. The first is DPCM incorporating a nonlinear filter; the second is Predictive Trellis-Coded Quantization (PTCQ), whose prediction filter is also nonlinear. Findings show that the incorporation...

. In this paper we present a new method for reliable blind image steganography that can hide and recover a message of substantial length within digital imagery while maintaining the original image size and dynamic range. Image processing, error-control coding, and spread spectrum techniques are utilized to conceal hidden data and the performance of...

In this paper# weintroduce a new multiresolution water# marking method for digital images. The method is based on the discrete wavelet transform #DWT#. Pseudo#random codes are added to the large coe#cients at the high and middle frequency bands of the DWT of an image. It is shown that this method is more robust to often proposed methods to some com...

BACIC is a new method of lossless bi-level image compression introduced to replace JBIG and G3, the current standards for bi-level and facsimile image compression. This paper applies the BACIC (block arithmetic coding for image compression) algorithm to reduced grayscale and full grayscale image compression. BACIC's compressed files are slightly sm...

We introduce a new multiresolution watermarking method for digital images. The method is based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Pseudo-random codes are added to the large coefficients at the high and middle frequency bands of the DWT of an image. It is shown that this method is more robust to often proposed methods to some common image dist...

We propose a new scheme for multicasting in a binary tree that combines packet self-replication and routing in a space- division ATM switch. We revisit Law and Leon-Garcia's approach for packet self-replication and routing. Then we propose a new packet self-replication and routing scheme using only 2b address bits for a b-level binary tree. This me...

Many battlefield applications require the ability to transmit images over narrow bandwidth noisy channels. Previous research has demonstrated that the utilization of predictive trellis-coded quantization (PTCQ) incorporating a nonlinear prediction filter results in a method of robust source coding. Robust source coding provides both compression and...

1. ABSTRACT Despite considerable appeal in the statistics literature, the Huber estimate is little used in engineering. We believe this is due primarily to two factors: difficulty computing the es-timate and the need for a corresponding scale estimate. We present a variation of the Huber estimate which we call the "trimmed-Huber" estimate that addr...

We propose a new design for a self-routing, space-division fast packet switch for ATM B-ISDN. This is an expansion switch based on binary expansion, concentration, and combination of neighboring blocks of packets. Internal buffers are needed for local synchronization and packet buffering for eventualities of path collision and/or next stage buffer...

Robust source coding provides both compression and noise mitigation without channel coding. Two methods of robust source coding are presented. The first is DPCM incorporating a nonlinear filter; the second is predictive trellis-coded quantization (PTCQ), whose prediction filter is also nonlinear. Findings show that the incorporation of the nonlinea...

Finding optimal kinematics for manipulators dedicated to working within enclosed workspaces can be applied to assembly-line tasks such as welding, grinding, and spray-painting within automobile interiors. This paper presents a method of designing redundant and hyper-redundant manipulators for enclosed workspaces. A heuristic search is used to gener...

This correspondence examines the use of nonlinear edge enhancers as prefilters for edge detectors. The filters are able to convert smooth edges to step edges and suppress noise simultaneously. Thus, false alarms due to noise are minimized and edge gradient estimates tend to be large and localized. This leads to significantly improved edge maps

The Internet Routing Project, referred to in this report as the 'Highball Project', has been investigating architectures suitable for networks spanning large geographic areas and capable of very high data rates. The Highball network architecture is based on a high speed crossbar switch and an adaptive, distributed, TDMA scheduling algorithm. The sc...

We discuss the combination of block arithmetic coding (BAC), a technique for entropy compression, and error correcting coding. In essence, this is a joint source-channel coding problem. BAC is used to entropy code the input sequence and ordinary linear block codes are used to combat channel errors

Presents two VLSI architectures for multidimensional order statistic filtering. The first architecture is a parallel VLSI design suitable for implementing generalized, multidimensional, order statistic filtering. The design maintains the samples in sorted order and updates the order as new samples arrive and old samples leave. The samples carry tag...

We introduce “Block Arithmetic Coding” (BAC), a technique for entropy coding that combines many of the advantages of ordinary stream arithmetic coding with the simplicity of block codes. The code is variable length in to fixed out (V to F), unlike Huffman coding which is fixed in to variable out (F to V). We develop two versions of the coder: 1) an...

A new class of rank-order-based filters, called lower-upper-middle (LUM) filters, is introduced. The output of these filters is determined by comparing a lower- and an upper-order statistic to the middle sample in the filter window. These filters can be designed for smoothing and sharpening, or outlier rejection. The level of smoothing done by the...

First Page of the Article

1 Abstract This paper describes a scheduling algorithm for high speed, TDMA communication networks. The problem is to find a route and determine switch schedules so that a burst of information can traverse the network from source to destination. We show that this problem is difficult, i.e., that several simple variations are NP- complete, We presen...

This paper describes a scheduling algorithm for high speed, TDMA communication networks. The problem is to find a route and determine switch schedules so that a burst of information can traverse the network from source to destination. We show that this problem is difficult, i.e., that several simple variations are NP-complete. We present an algorit...

We introduce an adaptive variant of the LUM smoother. The smoother operates on a sliding window and is designed to eliminate impulsive components with minimal distortion. In any particular window, the amount of filtering is adjusted based upon the quasi range measures of dispersion. As the results of simulations indicate, in most cases, the adaptiv...

Based on a recently developed class of sorting networks, new VLSI architectures suitable for order statistic filtering are developed. The major advantage of these architectures is minimal response-time regardless of the number of stages in the pipeline; an effective characteristic for implementing recursive order statistic filters. The devised word...

This paper considers the problem of prefiltering images to enhance edge detection. In particular, several order statistics based sharpeners are considered with a traditional linear technique, unsharp masking. The order statistics sharpeners include the LUM sharpener, the CS-filter, and the GOS filter.

We introduce the LUM filter for both smoothing and sharpening. The LUM filter is a moving window estimator that does the following: it finds the order statistics by sorting the samples in the window, and it compares a lower order statistic, an upper order statistic, and the middle sample. The two order statistics define a range of 'normal' values....

Algorithms for computing the distributions of order statistic related estimators with moving or multiple windows are presented. These algorithms may be used to compute joint distributions of moving window estimators, such as moving median filters, or of estimators made from ranking operations on multiple windows, such as many stacked or morphologic...

A network architecture called Highball and a preliminary design for a prototype, wide-area data network designed to operate at speeds of 1 Gbps and beyond are described. It is intended for applications requiring high speed burst transmissions where some latency between requesting a transmission and granting the request can be anticipated and tolera...

Nonlinear filters are analyzed from a spectral point of view. The equivalent frequency behavior of a filter is described by its linear part, which represents the linear nonrecursive filter, that best matches, in the mean-square sense, the behavior of the filter. The class considered includes all the order statistic filters (L-filters) such as media...

This paper discusses two examples of the design and use of order statistic filters in image compression. The first example is a pre-filter. The pre-filter is designed to gently smooth the image to promote better compression. However, this filter must not blur edges significantly. Various order statistic estimators, such as a simple median, are idea...

This paper considers an image filter to remove small features of low contrast based on a simple model of a quantum limited detector. That is, it removes image noise that can't be seen or that, in other circumstances, can't represent real information. The filtering scheme asks how large an area can be covered with one color without introducing visib...

The removal of noise by a class of order statistic filters, called multistage order statistic filters or multiwindow filters, is described. These filters take `ranks of ranks'. A new filter type is defined and its equivalence under special circumstances to a filter defined in the literature is shown. This filter's deterministic and statistical prop...

The L l -filters are introduced to generate the order statistic filters (L-filters) and the nonrecursive linear, or finite-duration impulse-response (FIR), filters. Such estimators are particularly effective filtering signals that do not necessarily follow Gaussian distributions. They can be designed to restore one-dimensional or multidimensional s...

The method presented to detect and quantify the porosity value content of composite materials is part of a development effort to establish an integrated ultrasonic evaluation system 1. The overall research effort aims to automate the NDE process and predict mechanical and structural properties of composite materials using NDE techniques. The ultras...

We present the results of a study of error free compression of digitized medical x-ray images. This study used high resolution (2048 x 1684), high quality (8 to 11 bits per pixel) images, each approximately 5 Mbytes before compression. Since the medical community is very reluctant to introduce unnecessary noise into their imaging, we require error-...

Median filters and the more general order-statistic-based filters have proven very useful in filtering signals corrupted by noise with heavier tails than the Gaussian, in filtering signals with jumps or edges, or in situations where both occur. The author presents two simple recursive definitions for the k th order statistic taken from n samples. F...

A generalized framework for the description of a large class of nonlinear filters is introduced. This framework includes nonrecursive linear filters (FIR), order statistic filters (OSF or L-filters), L l -filters, Volterra filters, and ZNL-LTI filters. The L l -filters have been proposed to generalize and combine FIR and OSF filters. LMS and RLS al...

We are interested in multi-agent contracting, in which customers must solicit the resources and capabilities of other, self-interested agents in order to accomplish their goals. Goals may involve the execution of multi-step plans, in which different ...

We consider the problem of implementing the Kalman filter recursions in square root information filter form. We suggest a general linear, dynamical model which directly incorporates the fact that many of the unknowns are not time varying. The resulting implementation is widely applicable, numerically sound, and extends easily to smoothing problems.

We consider the problem of computing the DFT and present two reductions over the standard formula. In the special case of an N-point sequence with N = 2^l, the number of multiplications per output point required by this algorithm is, at most, N/4 - 1 and, on the average, N/6 - 1. Each output point requires no more than N - 1 additions. In...

We consider the problem of robustifying the Kalman filter. First, we review some known approaches to the problem. Then we establish the equivalence between the Kalman filter and a particular least squares regression problem. We suggest that the regression problem be solved robustly. Some well known approaches for doing this are discussed. Finally,...

The development of approaches and algorithms for robust signal processing are discussed. Robust signal processing, refers to the problem of smoothing, filtering or estimating noisy and unknown signals. The linear estimation problem in the formalism of linear regression is considered. The specific problem of filtering or smoothing a discrete time se...