A blind watermarking technique for multiple watermarks
We propose a blind watermarking technique to embed multiple watermarks simultaneously. It allows the use of correlated key to embed multiple watermarks. A dual-key system is used to reduce the chance of the removal of watermark. Each embedded watermark can be decoded/detected by its own key. One direct approach and two iterative approaches are proposed to reduce the correlation effects among the noise-like keys. Experimental results show that multiple watermarks can be embedded without significant loss in PSNR and the watermark can be detected when the watermarked image is JPEG compressed.

title: On improving the iterative watermark embedding technique for JPEG-to-JPEG watermarking
abstract: We previously proposed an iterative technique called iterative watermark embedding (IWE) for watermark embedding in JPEG compressed domains. The proposed technique embeds the watermark successfully when the quality factor of the JPEG image is high, but when the quality factor is low, not all the bits of the watermark can be embedded. This is due to uneven distribution of capacities in different regions of the image. Moreover, the computation complexity of the iterative loop is high. In this paper we improve the technique using shuffling to equalize the capacities of different regions. Also, the iterative loop is replaced by a direct approach to reduce the computational complexity. We call this direct approach Direct JPEG Watermarking Embedding (DJWE). A Human Visual System (HVS) model is used to prioritize the DCT coefficients to achieve good visual quality. Experimental results show that the watermarks are robust against Gaussian noise attack and JPEG transcoding attacks.

title: Rate estimation for H.264/AVC spatial resolution reduction
abstract: The emergence of wireless networks has posed new challenges for multimedia content providers. In particular, many existing video contents have bit-rates and resolutions far exceeding the capability of wireless networks and mobile devices and they need to be adapted before transmission. In this paper, we propose a technique using /spl rho/-domain information to estimate the bit rate of down-sampled video in the H.264/AVC format. The bit rate is estimated in two stages. In the initialization stage, we use a low-complexity algorithm to estimate the /spl rho/-domain parameters for half and quarter resolutions, respectively. In the refinement stage, the estimation error is feed-forwarded to improve the estimation accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can estimate the bit rate accurately at a wide range of down-sampling ratios.

title: Fast multi-block selection for H.264 video coding
abstract: The JVT/H.264 is the new video coding standard which achieves higher coding efficiency than previous standards such as H.263 or MPEG-2. The improvement in the rate-distortion performance in H.264 is mainly due to accurate motion estimation with different mode decision including multiple block size and multiple reference frame motion estimation. However, full exhaustive search of all block sizes is computational intensive with complexity increasing linearly with the number of allowed block size. In this paper, a fast multi-block motion estimation (FMBME) is proposed for H.264 video coding. Experimental results show that the proposed FMBME can efficiently reduce the computational cost by 58% with similar visual quality and bit rate.

title: A blind watermarking technique in JPEG compressed domain
abstract: We propose a blind watermarking technique to embed a watermark in the JPEG compressed domain. Low frequency DCT coefficients are extracted to form an M-dimensional vector. Watermarking is achieved by modifying this vector in order to point to the centroid of a particular cell. This cell is determined according to the extracted vector, private keys and the watermark. A dual-key system is used to reduce the chance of the removal of watermark. An iterative approach is used to prevent the removal of the watermark by JPEG re-quantization. Experimental results show that the watermark can be detected when the watermarked image is further compressed using a larger scaling factor.

title: Predictive motion estimation for reduced-resolution video from high-resolution compressed video
abstract: To convert a compressed video sequence to a lower-resolution compressed video, one typically needs to decompress the original sequence, down-sample each frame, and recompress it. It involves motion estimation in the reduced sequence which is computational intensive. We propose a novel fast algorithm to predict the motion vector of the reduced video by using the original motion information in the compressed bitstream. We achieve a much higher quality than existing algorithms with low additional complexity.

title: Multivariate Visualization with Data Fusion
abstract: We discuss a fusion-based visualization method to analyze a multivariate climate dataset and its metadata. The primary difference between a conventional visualization and a fusion-based visualization is that the former draws on a single image whereas the latter draws on multiple see-through layers, which are then overlaid on each other to form the final visualization. We propose optimized colormaps to highlight subtle features that would not be shown with conventional colormaps. We present fusion techniques that integrate multiple single-purpose visualization techniques into the same viewing space. Our highly flexible fusion approach allows scientists to explore multiple parameters concurrently by mixing and matching images without frequently reconstructing new visualizations from the data for every possible combination. Although our primary visualization application is climate modeling, we show with examples that our fundamental design - fusing layers of data images for multivariate visualization - can be generalized for other information visualization applications.

title: Phylogenetic Web Profiler
abstract: Phylogenetic Web Profiler (PWP) is a web-based service designed to perform phylogenetic profiling of proteins against genomes. The current version offers a selection of 63 completed genomes and available plasmids as annotated in the PEDANT genome database. Unlike currently available applications, this tool offers several choices of ortholog prediction parameters including E-value cutoff, percent length difference tolerance, and annotation similarity. Additional features include tight integration with the PEDANT database and tools to analyze properties of predicted proteins. PWP should prove very useful for the analysis of functional-linkage between proteins.

title: Dynamic Visualization of Graphs with Extended Labels

title: Data Signatures and Visualization of Scientific Data Sets
abstract: Today, as data sets used in computations grow in size and complexity, the technologies developed over the years to deal with scientific data sets have become less efficient and effective. Many frequently used operations, such as eigenvector computation, could quickly exhaust our desktop workstations once the data size reaches certain limits. On the other hand, the high-dimensional data sets we collect every day don't relieve the problem. Many conventional metric designs that build on quantitative or categorical data sets cannot be applied directly to heterogeneous data sets with multiple data types. While building new machines with more resources might conquer the data size problems, the complexity of today's computations requires a new breed of projection techniques to support analysis of the data and verification of the results. We introduce the concept of a data signature, which captures the essence of a scientific data set in a compact format, and use it to conduct analysis as if using the original. A time-dependent climate simulation data set demonstrates our approach and presents the results.

title: Graph Signatures for Visual Analytics
abstract: We present a visual analytics technique to explore graphs using the concept of a data signature. A data signature, in our context, is a multidimensional vector that captures the local topology information surrounding each graph node. Signature vectors extracted from a graph are projected onto a low-dimensional scatterplot through the use of scaling. The resultant scatterplot, which reflects the similarities of the vectors, allows analysts to examine the graph structures and their corresponding real-life interpretations through repeated use of brushing and linking between the two visualizations. The interpretation of the graph structures is based on the outcomes of multiple participatory analysis sessions with intelligence analysts conducted by the authors at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The paper first uses three public domain data sets with either well-known or obvious features to explain the rationale of our design and illustrate its results. More advanced examples are then used in a customized usability study to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach. The study results reveal not only the limitations and weaknesses of the traditional approach based solely on graph visualization, but also the advantages and strengths of our signature-guided approach presented in the paper