• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.180-188
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• 2018

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the melanogenesis associated transcription factor (MITF) and dopachrome tautomerase (DCT) genes on plumage coloration in Asian native duck breeds. MITF encodes a protein for microphthalmia-associated transcription factor, which regulates the development and function of melanocytes for pigmentation of skin, hair, and eyes. Among the tyrosinase-related family genes, DCT is a pigment cell-specific gene that plays important roles in the melanin synthesis pathway and the expression of skin, feather, and retina color. Methods: Five Asian duck varieties (black Korean native, white Korean native, commercial Peking, Nageswari, and Bangladeshi Deshi white ducks) were investigated to examine the polymorphisms associated with plumage colors. Among previously identified SNPs, three synonymous SNPs and one indel of MITF and nine SNPs in exon regions of DCT were genotyped. The allele frequencies for SNPs of the black and white plumage color populations were estimated and Fisher's exact test was conducted to assess the association between the allele frequencies of these two populations. Results: Two synonymous SNPs (c.114T>G and c.147T>C) and a 14-bp indel (GCTGCAAAC AGATG) in intron 7 of MITF were significantly associated with the black- and white-colored breeds (p<0.001). One non-synonymous SNP [c.938A>G (p.His313Arg)] in DCT, was highly significantly associated (p<0.001) and a synonymous SNP (c.753A>G) was significantly associated (p<0.05) with black and white color plumage in the studied duck populations. Conclusion: The results of this study provide a basis for further investigations of the associations between polymorphisms and plumage color phenotypes in Asian duck breeds.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.93-103
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose a RST resistant robust logo embedding technique for multimedia copyright protection Geometric manipulations are challenging attacks in that they do not introduce the quality degradation very much but make the detection process very complex and difficult. Watermark embedding in the normalized image directly suffers from smoothing effect due to the interpolation during the image normalization. This can be avoided by estimating the transform parameters using an image normalization technique, instead of embedding in the normalized image. Conventional RST resistant schemes that use full frame transform suffer from the absence of effective perceptual masking methods. Thus, we adopt $8\times8$ block DCT and calculate masking using a spatio-frequency localization of the $8\times8$ block DCT coefficients. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is robust against various signal processing techniques, compression and geometrical manipulations.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.384-389
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• 2009

This study was carried out to elucidate the relation between expression levels of three melanin synthesis genes (Tyrosinase, Tyrosinase-related protein 1 and Dopachrome tautomerase) according to the Melanocortin-1 receptor genotypes with coat color patterns in Hanwoo cattle, Jeju black cattle and Holsteins. Using real-time semiquantitative reverse transcription-PCR assay (RT-PCR), the expression levels of these three genes were analyzed in skin tissues from four representative coat colored areas: yellowish-brown from MC1R e/e Hanwoo, wild type black from $E^+/E^+$ Jeju black cattle (JBC), and dominant black and white pied regions from $E^D/E^D$ Holstein. The TYR, TYRP1 and DCT genes showed higher expression levels of 4.5, 2.3 and 2.5 times higher in the black skin area of Holsteins than those of from JBC, respectively (p<0.001). In addition, the expression levels of these three genes from JBC were significantly higher than those from Hanwoo cattle (p<0.001). These results show that coat color phenotypes in Hanwoo cattle, JBC and Holsteins is directly correlated with TRY, TYRP1 and DCT transcription levels, which probably reflected involvement with MC1R genotypes; e/e in Hanwoo, $E^+/E^+$ in JBC and $E^D/E^D$ in Holsteins. Consequently, this study suggested that the status of MC1R protein may not only induce the transcription activities of a series of TYR and its related genes responsible for melanin synthesis, but also determine the levels of total melanin contents in bovine skin.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.29 no.8C
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• pp.1159-1174
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• 2004

In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm for region analysis of business card images acquired in a PDA by using DCT and information pixel density. The proposed method consists of three parts: region segmentation, information region classification, and text region classification. In the region segmentation, an input business card image is partitioned into 8 f8 blocks and the blocks are classified into information and background blocks using the normalized DCT energy in their low frequency bands. The input image is then segmented into information and background regions by region labeling on the classified blocks. In the information region classification, each information region is classified into picture region or text region by using a ratio of the DCT energy of horizontal and vertical edge components to that in low frequency band and a density of information pixels, that are black pixels in its binarized region. In the text region classification, each text region is classified into large character region or small character region by using the density of information pixels and an averaged horizontal and vertical run-lengths of information pixels. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields good performance of region segmentation, information region classification, and text region classification for test images of several types of business cards acquired by a PDA under various surrounding conditions. In addition, the error rates of the proposed region segmentation are about 2.2-10.1% lower than those of the conventional region segmentation methods. It is also shown that the error rates of the proposed information region classification is about 1.7% lower than that of the conventional information region classification method.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.417-425
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• 2003

H.264, which is the latest video coding standard of both ITU-T(International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication standardization sector) and MPEG(Moving Picture Experts Group), adopts new video coding tools such as variable block size motion estimation, multiple reference frames, quarter-pel motion estimation/compensation(ME/MC), 4${\times}$4 Integer DCT(Discrete Cosine Transform), and Rate-Distortion Optimization, etc. These new video coding tools provide good coding of efficiency compared with existing video coding standards as H.263, MPEG-4, etc. However, these new coding tools require the increase of encoder complexity. Therefore, in order to apply H.264 to many real applications, fast algorithms are required for H.264 coding tools. In this paper, when encoder MacroBlock(MB) mode is decided by rate-distortion optimization tool, fast mode decision algorithm by skipping variable block size ME/MC and spatial-predictive coding, which occupies most encoder complexity, is proposed. In terms of computational complexity, the proposed method runs about 4 times as far as JM(Joint Model) 42 encoder of H.264, while the PSNR(peak signal-to-noise ratio)s of the decoded images are maintained.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.147-157
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• 2013

With the advent of the digital environment that can be accessed anytime, anywhere with the introduction of high-speed network, the free distribution and use of digital content were made possible. Ironically this environment is raising a variety of copyright infringement, and product images used in the online shopping mall are pirated frequently. There are many controversial issues whether shopping mall images are creative works or not. According to Supreme Court's decision in 2001, to ad pictures taken with ham products is simply a clone of the appearance of objects to deliver nothing but the decision was not only creative expression. But for the photographer's losses recognized in the advertising photo shoot takes the typical cost was estimated damages. According to Seoul District Court precedents in 2003, if there are the photographer's personality and creativity in the selection of the subject, the composition of the set, the direction and amount of light control, set the angle of the camera, shutter speed, shutter chance, other shooting methods for capturing, developing and printing process, the works should be protected by copyright law by the Court's sentence. In order to receive copyright protection of the shopping mall images by the law, it is simply not to convey the status of the product, the photographer's personality and creativity can be recognized that it requires effort. Accordingly, the cost of making the mall image increases, and the necessity for copyright protection becomes higher. The product images of the online shopping mall have a very unique configuration unlike the general pictures such as portraits and landscape photos and, therefore, the general image watermarking technique can not satisfy the requirements of the image watermarking. Because background of product images commonly used in shopping malls is white or black, or gray scale (gradient) color, it is difficult to utilize the space to embed a watermark and the area is very sensitive even a slight change. In this paper, the characteristics of images used in shopping malls are analyzed and a watermarking technology which is suitable to the shopping mall images is proposed. The proposed image watermarking technology divide a product image into smaller blocks, and the corresponding blocks are transformed by DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), and then the watermark information was inserted into images using quantization of DCT coefficients. Because uniform treatment of the DCT coefficients for quantization cause visual blocking artifacts, the proposed algorithm used weighted mask which quantizes finely the coefficients located block boundaries and coarsely the coefficients located center area of the block. This mask improves subjective visual quality as well as the objective quality of the images. In addition, in order to improve the safety of the algorithm, the blocks which is embedded the watermark are randomly selected and the turbo code is used to reduce the BER when extracting the watermark. The PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) of the shopping mall image watermarked by the proposed algorithm is 40.7~48.5[dB] and BER(Bit Error Rate) after JPEG with QF = 70 is 0. This means the watermarked image is high quality and the algorithm is robust to JPEG compression that is used generally at the online shopping malls. Also, for 40% change in size and 40 degrees of rotation, the BER is 0. In general, the shopping malls are used compressed images with QF which is higher than 90. Because the pirated image is used to replicate from original image, the proposed algorithm can identify the copyright infringement in the most cases. As shown the experimental results, the proposed algorithm is suitable to the shopping mall images with simple background. However, the future study should be carried out to enhance the robustness of the proposed algorithm because the robustness loss is occurred after mask process.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.10D no.6
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• pp.927-934
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• 2003

Database query optimates the selectivety of a query to find the most efficient access plan. Multi-dimensional selectivity estimation technique is required for a query with multiple attributes because the attributes are not independent each other. Histogram is practically used in most commercial database products because it approximates data distributions with small overhead and small error rates. However, histogram is inadequate for a query with multiple attributes because it incurs high storage overhead and high error rates. In this paper, we propose a novel method for multi-dimentional selectivity estimation. Compressed information from a large number of small-sized histogram buckets is maintained using the discrete cosine transform. This enables low error rates and low storage overheads even in high dimensions. Extensive experimental results show adventages of the proposed approach.