Secure and efficient health data management through multiple watermarking on medical images.

The landscape of healthcare delivery and medical data management has significantly changed over the last years, as a result of the significant advancements in information and communication technologies. Complementary and/or alternative solutions are needed to meet the new challenges, especially regarding security of the widely distributed sensitive medical information. Digital watermarking is a recently established research area with many applications; nevertheless, the potential of this technology to contribute value-added services to medical information management systems has only recently started to be realized by the research community. The paper presents a review of research efforts in the area of medical-oriented watermarking and proposes a wavelet-based multiple watermarking scheme; this scheme aims to address critical health information management issues, including origin and data authentication, protection of sensitive data, and image archiving and retrieval. In accordance with the strict limitations applying to medical images, the scheme allows the definition of a region of interest (ROI) whose diagnostic value is protected, since the only additional information embedded therein aims at integrity control. The robustness of the method is enhanced through a form of hybrid coding, which includes repetitive embedding of BCH encoded watermarks. The experimental results on different medical imaging modalities demonstrate the efficiency and transparency of the watermarking scheme.

Capillary rise kinetics of some building materials.

The presence of water in masonry is one of the main factors in deterioration. Capillary rise is the most usual mechanism of water penetration into building materials. In this study the kinetics of the capillary rise phenomenon was studied for various building materials: four stones, two bricks, and six plasters. A first-order kinetic model was proposed, in which the equilibrium moisture height derived from Darcy law. The capillary height time constant found to be strongly affected by the material characteristics. Moreover, the capillary height time constant can be predicted if the average pore radius of the materials is known.

Multiple digital watermarking applied to medical imaging.

Beyond its already established wide range of applications, digital watermarking has recently started to gain a foothold in the healthcare sector. The paper discusses the potential of multiple watermarking to address a number of health information management issues, such as protection of sensitive data, origin and data authentication, image archiving and retrieval. A wavelet-based multiple watermarking scheme focusing on these medical-oriented applications is presented; the scheme allows the physician to define a Region of Interest, whose diagnostic value is explicitly protected throughout the embedding process, since the only additional information inserted therein is for the purpose of integrity control. The rest part of the image casts multiple watermarks conveying the physician's digital signature, patient's sensitive data, and keywords allowing image retrieval. In order to increase data robustness, a form of hybrid coding is applied, which includes repetitive embedding of BCH encoded watermarks.

A multiple watermarking scheme applied to medical image management.

Digital watermarking is a recently emerged research area, which has the potential of providing alternative/complementary solutions for a number of issues relating to medical data management and distribution. The present paper aims to reveal the perspectives of digital watermarking in health information systems, and proposes a wavelet-based multiple watermarking scheme that addresses the issues of medical data protection, archiving, and retrieval, as well as of origin and data authentication. The scheme applies multiple watermarking in medical images, and embeds in them the physician's digital signature, patient's personal and examination data, keywords for image retrieval, and a reference watermark for the purpose of data integrity control. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and transparency of the watermarking scheme, which conforms to the strict limitations that apply to regions of diagnostic significance.