In digital images, protecting sensitive visual information against unauthorized access is considered a critical issue; robust encryption methods are the best solution to preserve such information. This paper introduces a model designed to enhance the performance of the Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA) in encrypting images. Two approaches have been suggested for the image cipher process as a preprocessing step before applying the Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA). The step mentioned earlier aims to de-correlate and weaken adjacent pixel values as a preparation process before the encryption process. The first approach suggests an Affine transformation for image encryption at two layers, utilizing two different key sets for each layer. Th

Recently, a new secure steganography algorithm has been proposed, namely, the secure Block Permutation Image Steganography (BPIS) algorithm. The new algorithm consists of five main steps, these are: convert the secret message to a binary sequence, divide the binary sequence into blocks, permute each block using a key-based randomly generated permutation, concatenate the permuted blocks forming a permuted binary sequence, and then utilize a plane-based Least-Significant-Bit (LSB) approach to embed the permuted binary sequence into BMP image file format. The performance of algorithm was given a preliminary evaluation through estimating the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of the stego image for limited number of experiments comprised hiding

Software testing is a vital part of the software development life cycle. In many cases, the system under test has more than one input making the testing efforts for every exhaustive combination impossible (i.e. the time of execution of the test case can be outrageously long). Combinatorial testing offers an alternative to exhaustive testing via considering the interaction of input values for every t-way combination between parameters. Combinatorial testing can be divided into three types which are uniform strength interaction, variable strength interaction and input-output based relation (IOR). IOR combinatorial testing only tests for the important combinations selected by the tester. Most of the researches in combinatorial testing appli

In this study, an efficient compression system is introduced, it is based on using wavelet transform and two types of 3Dimension (3D) surface representations (i.e., Cubic Bezier Interpolation (CBI)) and 1 st order polynomial approximation. Each one is applied on different scales of the image; CBI is applied on the wide area of the image in order to prune the image components that show large scale variation, while the 1 st order polynomial is applied on the small area of residue component (i.e., after subtracting the cubic Bezier from the image) in order to prune the local smoothing components and getting better compression gain. Then, the produced cubic Bezier surface is subtracted from the image signal to get the residue component. Then, t

In the past two decades, maritime transport traffic has increased, especially in the case of container flow. The BAP (Berth Allocation Problem) (BAP) is a main problem to optimize the port terminals. The current manuscript explains the DBAP problems in a typical arrangement that varies from the conventional separate design station, where each berth can simultaneously accommodate several ships when their entire length is less or equal to length. Be a pier, serve. This problem was then solved by crossing the Red Colobuses Monkey Optimization (RCM) with the Genetic Algorithm (GA). In conclusion, the comparison and the computational experiments are approached to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method contrasted with other

Carbon dioxide geo-sequestration (CGS) into sediments in the form of (gas) hydrates is one proposed method for reducing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and, thus reducing global warming and climate change. However, there is a serious lack of understanding of how such CO2 hydrate forms and exists in sediments. We thus imaged CO2 hydrate distribution in sandstone, and investigated the hydrate morphology and cluster characteristics via x-ray micro-computed tomography in 3D in-situ. A substantial amount of gas hydrate (∼17% saturation) was observed, and the stochastically distributed hydrate clusters followed power-law relations with respect to their size distributions and surface area-volume relationships. The layer-

Objective: The study aimed to 1) measure the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Iraqi pharmacy and medical students at a number of universities in Baghdad using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and 2) investigate the association between various sociodemographic factors and students’ HADS scores. Methods: This study was based on a cross-sectional descriptive design in four universities in Baghdad, Iraq. Depression and anxiety were screened using an Arabic version of the HADS. An online survey was administered via Qualtrics to convenience samples of students at four colleges of pharmacy and a college of medicine between March and June 2018. Multiple linear regression was used to identify factors associated

This work aims to develop a secure lightweight cipher algorithm for constrained devices. A secure communication among constrained devices is a critical issue during the data transmission from the client to the server devices. Lightweight cipher algorithms are defined as a secure solution for constrained devices that require low computational functions and small memory. In contrast, most lightweight algorithms suffer from the trade-off between complexity and speed in order to produce robust cipher algorithm. The PRESENT cipher has been successfully experimented on as a lightweight cryptography algorithm, which transcends other ciphers in terms of its computational processing that required low complexity operations. The mathematical model of