title: Nested quantization index modulation for reversible watermarking and its application to healthcare information management systems.
abstract: Digital watermarking has attracted lots of researches to healthcare information management systems for access control, patients' data protection, and information retrieval. The well-known quantization index modulation-(QIM-) based watermarking has its limitations as the host image will be destroyed; however, the recovery of medical images is essential to avoid misdiagnosis. In this paper, we propose the nested QIM-based watermarking, which is preferable to the QIM-based watermarking for the medical image applications. As the host image can be exactly reconstructed by the nested QIM-based watermarking. The capacity of the embedded watermark can be increased by taking advantage of the proposed nest structure. The algorithm and mathematical model of the nested QIM-based watermarking including forward and inverse model is presented. Due to algorithms and architectures of forward and inverse nested QIM, the concurrent programs and special processors for the nested QIM-based watermarking are easily implemented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University, Chungli 320-01, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Lu-Ting
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Jwu-E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yaw-Shih
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Shieh
authors.forename: Hsi-Chin
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Hsin
authors.forename: Tze-Yun
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Sung
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016494:Computer Security; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D019451:Information Management / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods*; D011859:Radiography / Q000379:methods; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods