The Magna Carta and the Constitution

The Magna Carta and the U. S. Constitution are closely related since the former is a cornerstone for the latter. Magna Carta The rule of law is enshrined in Magna Carta which was issued in 1215 by King John of England to appease land barons. The rule of law asserts that all persons must comply with laws of the nation irrespective of king or any other privileged person. Although Magna Carta is silent about king’s immunity, the document does impose limit on king’s power.The barons has the authority to invoke the provisions of Chapter 61 of the Magna Carta’s original version which states that the king should not ignore or violate the traditions, customs or laws and could not take any arbitrary actions against his subjects. 1 Magna Carta provides for rule of law, ensures fairness of laws, contains commitment to due process of law and gives respect for economic rights. While these rights were the privileges given to barons in England by way of declarations in Magna Ca rta, the founders of the U.  S. drew inspiration from Magna Carta and made these rights applicable to all the citizens of America and became part of the Bill of Rights. Magna Carta is therefore a source for the U. S. Constitution.The Bill of Rights 1791; which representing 10 amendments as part of the 1st amendment to the U. S. Constitutions. Clause 39 of Magna Carta provides that no freeman shall be punished except by lawful judgment by his peers or by the laws of the land. This was to prevent the King to deliver sentences without the authority of law.The U. S. Constitution provides for rule of law by which no person is above the law. In this context both, Magna Carta and the U. S. Constitution are similar. Whereas the Magna Carta was issued by the Monarch, the U. S. Constitution was given by Americans unto themselves. The 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution includes the stipulation of due process, this provides for fair trial before depriving any person of his life, liberty or property. The trial is what is meant by due process.Again it must be a fair trial as part of the due process. In The Magna Carta, the due process of law is known by law of the land and legal judgment of peers. In order to constitute due process, there should be a right to fair and public trial, right to be present at the trial, presence of an impartial jury, right to be heard as part of one’s own defense. Besides, the laws must be in written form, taxes must be for only public purpose, and property can be taken only for public purpose with due compensation.In this way The Magna Carta pales in comparison due to not being as descriptive as the U. S. Constitution for the meaning of due process. Both Magna Carta and the U. S. Constitution require that laws shall be fair and discriminatory. Thus, Magna Carta and the U. S. Constitution share many things in common. Magna Carta of 1215 was a bold initiative of the then King, without which the U. S. Constitution would have taken s till longer time to be what it is today.

Character Developments: in Cold Blood

Character Development: Techniques Truman Capote used several techniques to develop the characterization of the killers in his book, In Cold Blood. But primarily, Truman Capote uses anecdotes to describe the characters of Dick and Perry. An anecdote being, â€Å"a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. † He does this by describing their child lives, and how they became who they are in the present.An example of how Capote described the character of Perry is: â€Å" He was seven years old, a hated, hating half-breed child living in a California orphanage run by nuns- shrouded disciplinarians who whipped him for wetting his bed. † Not only does he use anecdotes for describing Dick and Perry’s childhood but also their problems they face in their present lives at the time. Such as Dick’s sexual interests in younger girls, â€Å" He was sorry he felt as he did about her, for his sexual interest in female children was a failing of which he was ‘sincerely ashamed. ’† Or when Capote quotes Perry about the murder of Mr.Clutter, saying; â€Å" I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken right up to the moment I cut his throat. † This quote describes and confirms how Perry was insane during the murders that he committed. Capote uses this quote on purpose, because it describes how Perry’s intention was not to hurt anyone but it was a simple act of taking his frustration upon the Clutter family. Meaning that his anger was not because of the Clutter family, they just ended up receiving the end of Perry’s anger. In the story it seems as though the reader feels sympathetic towards the killers; Dick and Perry.Truman Capote does this mostly by describing the childhood of the killers, and what they went through as children that made a major impact on them now. Perry however, is more sympathized than Dick. It seems as though Perry had a ‘rougher upbringing’ than Dick did. For an example, when his sister sends him a letter of how disappointed she and her father are in his decisions. â€Å" Your present confinement is embarrassing to me as well as Dad – not because of what you did but the fact that you don't show me any signs of sincere regret and seem to show no respect for any laws, people or anything. Even though Perry made horrible decisions in his life, reading parts of this letter, sympathy can be a common emotion that the reader feels to see how much Perry was a disappointment to his family. Of course another key factor Capote used to gain sympathy from the readers was by writing them in the killers’ point of view. This way, you know more about the killers and their upbringing, and it makes you wonder if they really knew what they were doing.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Chapter 23

Part V Lamb I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Chapter 23 We rode Vana north toward the Silk Road, skirting the great Indian desert that had almost killed Alexander the Great's forces as they returned to Persia after conquering half of the known world, three centuries before. Although it would have saved a month to cut through the desert, Joshua was not confident about his ability to conjure enough water for Vana. A man should learn the lessons of history, and although I insisted that Alexander's men had probably been tired from all that conquering, while Josh and I had basically been sitting around at the beach for two years, he insisted we take the less hostile route through Delhi, and north into what is now Pakistan until we joined the Silk Road once again. A little ways down the Silk Road I thought we received another message from Mary. We had stopped to have a short rest. When we resumed the journey, Vana happened to walk over where she had just done her business and the pile was pressed into the perfect likeness of a woman's face, dark poo against the light gray dust. â€Å"Look, Josh, there's another message from your mother.† Josh glanced and looked away. â€Å"That's not my mother.† â€Å"But look, in the elephant poop, it's a woman's face.† â€Å"I know, but it's not my mother. It's distorted because of the medium. It doesn't even look like her. Look at the eyes.† I had to climb to the back of the elephant to get another angle on it. He was right, it wasn't his mother. â€Å"I guess you're right. The medium obscured the message.† â€Å"That's what I'm saying.† â€Å"I'll bet it looks like someone's mom, though.† With the detour around the desert, we were nearly two months getting to Kabul. Although Vana was an intrepid walker, as I have mentioned, she was a less than agile climber, so we often had to take long detours to get her through the mountains of Afghanistan. Josh and I both knew that we could not take her into the high, rocky desert once we passed Kabul, so we agreed to leave the elephant with Joy, if we could find the erstwhile courtesan. Once in Kabul we asked around the market for any news of a Chinese woman named Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, but no one had heard of her, nor had they seen a woman simply named Joy. After a full day of searching, Joshua and I were about to abandon the search for our friend when I remembered something she had once said to me. I asked a local tea seller. â€Å"Is there a woman who lives around here, a very rich woman perhaps, who calls herself the Dragon Lady or something like that?† â€Å"Oh, yes sir,† the fellow said, and he shuddered as he spoke, as if a bug had run across his neck. â€Å"She is called the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess.† â€Å"Nice name,† I said to Joy as we rode through the massive stone gates into the courtyard of her palace. â€Å"A woman alone, it helps to have your reputation precede you,† said the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess. She looked almost exactly as she had almost nine years ago when we had left, except perhaps that she wore a little more jewelry. She was petite, and delicate, and beautiful. She wore a white silk robe embroidered with dragons and her blue-black hair hung down her back almost to her knees, held in place by a single silver band that just kept it from sweeping around her shoulders when she turned. â€Å"Nice elephant,† she added. â€Å"She's a present,† Joshua said. â€Å"She's lovely.† â€Å"Do you have a couple of camels you can spare, Joy?† I asked. â€Å"Oh, Biff, I had really hoped that you two would sleep with me tonight.† â€Å"Well, I'd love to, but Josh is still sworn off the muffin.† â€Å"Young men? I have a number of man-boys I keep around for, well, you know.† â€Å"Not those either,† Joshua said. â€Å"Oh Joshua, my poor little Messiah. I'll bet no one made you Chinese food for your birthday this year either?† â€Å"We had rice,† Joshua said. â€Å"Well, we'll see what the Accursed Dragon Princess can do to make up for that,† said Joy. We climbed down from the elephant and exchanged hugs with our old friend, then a stern guard in bronze chain mail led Vana away to the stables and four guards with spears flanked us as Joy led us into the main house. â€Å"A woman alone?† I said, looking at the guards that seemed to stand at every doorway. â€Å"In my heart, darling,† Joy said. â€Å"These aren't friends, family, or lovers, these are employees.† â€Å"Is that the Accursed part of your new title?† Joshua said. â€Å"I could drop it, just be the Cruel Dragon Princess, if you two want to stay on.† â€Å"We can't. We've been called home.† Joy nodded dolefully and led us into the library (filled with Balthasar's old books), where coffee was served by young men and women who Joy had obviously brought from China. I thought of all the girls, my friends and my lovers, who had been killed by the demon so long ago, and swallowed my coffee around a lump in my throat. Joshua was as excited as I had seen him in a long time. It might have been the coffee. â€Å"You won't believe the wonderful things I've learned since I left here, Joy. About being the agent of change (change is at the root of belief, you know), and about compassion for everyone because everyone is part of another, and most important, that there is a bit of God in each of us – in India they call it the Divine Spark.† He rambled on like that for an hour, and eventually my melancholy passed and I was infected by Joshua's enthusiasm for the things he had learned from the Magi. â€Å"Yes,† I added, â€Å"and Josh can climb inside a standard-size wine amphora. You have to bust him out with a hammer, but it's interesting to watch.† â€Å"And you, Biff?† Joy asked, smiling into her cup. â€Å"Well, after supper I'll show you a little something I like to call Water Buffalo Teasing the Seeds out of the Pomegranate.† â€Å"That sounds – â€Å" â€Å"Don't worry, it's not that hard to learn. I have pictures.† We were four days at Joy's palace, enjoying comfort, food, and drink such as we hadn't experienced since we'd last seen her. I could have stayed forever, but on the morning of the fifth day Joshua stood at the entrance to Joy's bedchamber, his satchel slung over his shoulder. He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. We shared breakfast with Joy and she met us at the gate to say good-bye. â€Å"Thanks for the elephant,† she said. â€Å"Thanks for the camels,† Joshua said. â€Å"Thanks for the sex book,† Joy said. â€Å"Thanks for the sex,† I said. â€Å"Oh, I forgot, you owe me a hundred rupees,† Joy said. I had told her about Kashmir. The Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess grinned at me. â€Å"Just kidding. Be well, my friend. Keep that amulet I gave you and remember me, huh?† â€Å"Of course.† I kissed her and climbed on my camel's back, then coaxed him to his feet. Joy embraced Joshua and kissed him on the lips, hard and long. He didn't seem to be trying to push her away. â€Å"Hey, we had better go, Josh,† I said. Joy held the Messiah at arm's length and said, â€Å"You are always welcome here, you know that?† Josh nodded, then climbed on his camel. â€Å"Go with God, Joy,† he said. As we rode through the gates of the palace the guards shot fire arrows that trailed long tails of sparks over us until they exploded above the road ahead: Joy's last good-bye to us, a tribute to the friendship and arcane knowledge we had all shared. It scared the bejeezus out of the camels. After we had been on the road awhile, Joshua asked, â€Å"Did you say goodbye to Vana?† â€Å"I intended to, but when I went to the stable she was practicing her yoga and I didn't want to disturb her.† â€Å"No kidding?† â€Å"Really, she was sitting in one of the postures you taught her.† Joshua smiled. It didn't hurt anything for him to believe that. The journey on the Silk Road through the high deserts took us over a month, but it was fairly uneventful, except for one attack by a small group of bandits. When I caught the first two spears they flung at me and flung them right back, wounding the two who had thrown them, they turned and ran. The weather was mild, or as mild as one can expect in a deadly and brutal desert, but by now Joshua and I had traveled so much in this sort of harsh country that there was little that affected us. Just before we reached Antioch, however, a sandstorm whipped up out of the desert that left us hiding between our camels for two days, breathing through our shirts and washing the mud out of our mouths every time we took a drink. The storm settled enough to travel, and we were at a veritable gallop in the streets of Antioch when Joshua located an inn by impacting with its sign on his forehead. He was knocked back off his camel and sat up in the street with blood streaming down his face. â€Å"Are you hurt badly?† I asked, kneeling beside him. I could barely see in the driving dust. Joshua looked at the blood on his hands where he had touched his forehead. â€Å"I don't know. It doesn't hurt that badly, but I can't tell.† â€Å"Inside,† I said, helping him to his feet and through the door of the inn. â€Å"Shut the door,† the innkeeper shouted as the wind whipped through the room. â€Å"Were you born in a barn?† â€Å"Yeah,† said Joshua. â€Å"He was,† I said. â€Å"Angels on the roof, though.† â€Å"Shut the damn door,† said the innkeeper. I left Joshua sitting there by the door while I went out and found shelter for the camels. When I returned Joshua was wiping his face with a linen cloth that someone had handed to him. A couple of men stood over him, eager to help. I handed the cloth to one of them and examined Josh's wounds. â€Å"You'll live. A big bump and two cuts, but you'll live. You can't do the healing thing on – â€Å" Joshua shook his head. â€Å"Hey, look at this,† one of the travelers who had helped Joshua said, holding up the piece of linen Joshua had used to wipe his face. The dust and blood from Josh's face had left a perfect likeness on the linen, even handprints where he'd gotten blood from his head wound. â€Å"Can I keep this?† the fellow said. He was speaking Latin, but with a strange accent. â€Å"Sure,† I said. â€Å"Where are you fellahs from?† â€Å"We're from the Ligurian tribe, from the territories north of Rome. A city on the Po river called Turin. Have you heard of it?† â€Å"No, I haven't. You know, you fellahs can do what you want with that cloth, but out on my camel I've got some erotic drawings from the East that are going to be worth something someday. I can let you have them for a very fair price.† The Turinians went off holding their pathetic swath of muddy cloth like it was some kind of holy relic. Ignorant bastards wouldn't know art if you nailed them to it. I bandaged Joshua's wounds and we checked into the inn for the night. In the morning we decided to keep our camels and take the land route home through Damascus. As we passed out of the gates of Damascus on the final leg home, Joshua started to worry. â€Å"I'm not ready to be the Messiah, Biff. If I'm being called home to lead our people I don't even know where to start. I understand the things I want to teach, but I don't have the words yet. Melchior was right about that. Before anything you have to have the word.† â€Å"Well it's not just going to come to you in a flash here on the Damascus road, Josh. That sort of thing doesn't happen. You're obviously supposed to learn what you need to know in its own time. To everything a season, yada, yada, yada†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"My father could have made learning all this easier. He could have just told me what I was supposed to do.† â€Å"I wonder how Maggie's doing. You think she got fat?† â€Å"I'm trying to talk about God here, about the Divine Spark, about bringing the kingdom to our people.† â€Å"I know you are, so am I. Do you want to do all of that without help?† â€Å"I guess not.† â€Å"Well, that's why I was thinking about Maggie. She was smarter than us before we left, she's probably smarter than us now.† â€Å"She was smart, wasn't she? She wanted to be a fisherman,† said Josh, grinning. I could tell that the thought of seeing Maggie tickled him. â€Å"You can't tell her about all the whores, Josh.† â€Å"I won't.† â€Å"Or Joy and the girls. Or the old woman with no teeth.† â€Å"I won't tell her about any of them, not even the yak.† â€Å"There was nothing with the yak. The yak and I weren't even on speaking terms.† â€Å"You know, she probably has a dozen children by now.† â€Å"I know.† I sighed. â€Å"They should be mine.† â€Å"And mine.† Joshua sighed back. I looked at him as he rode beside me in a sea of gently loping camel waves. He was staring off at the horizon, looking forlorn. â€Å"Yours and mine? You think they should be yours and mine?† â€Å"Sure, why not. You know I love all the little – â€Å" â€Å"You are such a doofus sometimes.† â€Å"Do you think she'll remember us? I mean, how we all were back then?† I thought about it and shuddered. â€Å"I hope not.† No sooner did we pass into Galilee than we began to hear about what John the Baptist was doing in Judea. â€Å"Hundreds have followed him into the desert,† we heard in Gischala. â€Å"Some say he is the Messiah,† one man told us in Baca. â€Å"Herod is afraid of him,† said a woman in Cana. â€Å"He's another crazy holy man,† said a Roman soldier in Sepphoris. â€Å"The Jews breed them like rabbits. I hear he drowns anyone who doesn't agree with him. First sensible idea I've heard since I was sent to this accursed territory.† â€Å"May I have your name, soldier?† I asked. â€Å"Caius Junius, of the Sixth Legion.† â€Å"Thank you. We'll keep you in mind.† To Josh I said, â€Å"Caius Junius: front of the line when we start shoving Romans out of the kingdom into the fiery abyss.† â€Å"What did you say?† said the Roman. â€Å"No, no, don't thank me, you earned it. Right at the front of the line you go, Caius.† â€Å"Biff!† Josh barked, and once he had my attention he whispered, â€Å"Try not to get us thrown into prison before we get home, please.† I nodded and waved to the legionnaire as we rode away. â€Å"Just crazy Jew talk. Pay no attention. Whimper Fidelis,† I said. â€Å"We have to find John after we see our families,† Joshua said. â€Å"Do you think that he's really claiming to be the Messiah?† â€Å"No, but it sounds like he knows how to get the word out.† We rode into Nazareth a half hour later. I suppose we expected more upon our arrival. Cheering maybe, little children running at our heels begging for tales of our great adventures, tears and laughter, kisses and hugs, strong shoulders to bear the conquering heroes through the streets. What we'd forgotten was that while we were traveling, having adventures, and experiencing wonders, the people of Nazareth had been living through the same old day-to-day crap – a lot of days had passed, and a lot of crap. When we rode up to Joshua's old house, his brother James was working outside under the awning, shaving a piece of olive wood into a strut for a camel saddle. I knew it was James the moment I saw him. He had Joshua's narrow hooked nose and wide eyes, but his face was more weathered than Josh's, and his body heavier with muscle. He looked ten years older than Joshua rather than the two years younger that he was. He put down his spoke shave and stepped out in the sunlight, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. â€Å"Joshua?† Joshua tapped his camel on the back of his knees with the long riding crop and the beast lowered him to the ground. â€Å"James!† Joshua climbed off the camel and went to his brother, his arms out as if to embrace him, but James stepped back. â€Å"I'll go tell Mother that her favorite son has returned.† James turned away and I saw the tears literally shoot out of Joshua's eyes into the dust. â€Å"James,† Joshua was pleading. â€Å"I didn't know. When?† James turned and looked his half brother in the eye. There was no pity there, no grief, just anger. â€Å"Two months ago, Joshua. Joseph died two months ago. He asked for you.† â€Å"I didn't know,† Joshua said, still holding his arms out for the embrace that wasn't going to come. â€Å"Go inside. Mother has been waiting for you. She starts every morning wondering if this is the day you'll return. Go inside.† He turned away as Joshua went past him into the house, then James looked up at me. â€Å"The last thing he said was ‘Tell the bastard I love him.'† â€Å"The bastard?† I said as I coaxed my camel to let me down. â€Å"That's what he always called Joshua. ‘I wonder how the bastard is doing. I wonder where the bastard is today?' Always talking about the bastard. And Mother yammering on always about how Joshua did this, and Joshua did that, and what great things Joshua would do when he returned. And all the while I'm the one looking out for my brothers and sisters, taking care of them when Father got sick, taking care of my own family. Still, was there any thanks? A kind word? No, I was doing nothing more than paving Joshua's road. You have no idea what it's like to always be second to Joshua.† â€Å"Really,† I said. â€Å"You'll have to tell me about that sometime,† I said. â€Å"Tell Josh if he needs me I'll be at my father's house. My father is still alive, isn't he?† â€Å"Yes, and your mother too.† â€Å"Oh good, I didn't want to put one of my brothers through breaking the painful news.† I turned and led my camel away. â€Å"Go with God, Levi,† James said. I turned. â€Å"James, it is written, ‘To the work you are entitled, but not the fruits thereof.'† â€Å"I've never heard that. Where is that written?† â€Å"In the Bhagavad Gita, James. It's a long poem about going into battle, and this warrior's god tells him not to worry about killing his kinsmen in battle, because they are already dead, they just don't know it yet. I don't know what made me think of it.† My father hugged me until I thought he'd broken my ribs, then he handed me off to my mother, who did the same until she seemed to come to her senses, then she began to cuff me about the head and shoulders with her sandal, which she had whipped off with surprising speed and dexterity for a woman her age. â€Å"Seventeen years you're gone and you couldn't write?† â€Å"You don't know how to read.† â€Å"So you couldn't send word, smart mouth?† I fended off the blows by directing their energy away from me, as I had been taught at the monastery, and soon two small boys who I didn't recognize were catching the brunt of the beating. Fearing lawsuits from small strangers, I caught my mother's arms and hugged them to her sides as I looked at my father, nodded to the two little ones, and raised my eyebrows as if to say, Who are the squirts? â€Å"Those are your brothers, Moses and Japeth,† my father said. â€Å"Moses is six and Japeth is five.† The little guys grinned. Both were missing front teeth, probably sacrificed to the squirming harpy I was currently holding at bay. My father beamed as if to say, I can still build the aqueduct – lay a little pipe, if you know what I mean – when I need to. I scowled as if to say, Look, I was barely able to hold on to my respect for you when I found out what you did to make the first three of us; these little fellows are only evidence that you've no memory for suffering. â€Å"Mother, if I let you go will you calm down?† I looked over her shoulder at Japeth and Moses. â€Å"I used to tell people she was besought by a demon, do you guys do that?† I winked at them. They giggled as if to say, Please, end our suffering, kill us, kill us now, or kill this bitch that plagues us like the torments of Job. Okay, maybe I was just imagining that's what they were saying. Maybe they were just giggling. I let my mother go and she backed off. â€Å"Japeth, Moses,† Mother said, â€Å"come meet Biff. You've heard your father and me talk about our oldest disappointment – well, this is him. Now run and get your other brothers, I'll go fix something nice.† My brothers Shem and Lucius brought their families and joined us for dinner and we all lay around the table as Mother served us something nice, I'm not sure what it was. (I know I've said that I was the oldest of three brothers, and obviously, with the squirts, it was five, but dammit, by the time I met Japeth and Moses I was too old to have the time to torment them, so they never really paid their dues as brothers. They were more like, oh, pets.) â€Å"Mother, I've brought you a gift from the East,† I said, running out to the camel to retrieve a package. â€Å"What is it?† â€Å"It's a breeding mongoose,† I said, tapping on the cage. The little scamp tried to bite the pad off of my finger. â€Å"But there's only one.† â€Å"Well, there were two, but one escaped, so now there's one. They'll attack a snake ten times their size.† â€Å"It looks like a rat.† I lowered my voice and whispered conspiratorially, â€Å"In India, the women train them to sit on their heads like hats. Very fashionable. Of course the fad hasn't reached Galilee yet, but in Antioch, no self-respecting woman will go out of the house without wearing a mongoose.† â€Å"Really,† said Mother, looking at the mongoose in a new light. She took the cage and stowed it gently away in the corner, as if it contained a delicate egg, rather than a vicious miniature of herself. â€Å"So,† said Mother, waving to her two daughters-in-law and the half-dozen grandchildren that loitered near the table, â€Å"your brothers married and gave me grandchildren.† â€Å"I'm happy for them, Mother.† Shem and Lucius hid their grins behind a crust of flatbread the same way they did when we were little and Mother was giving me hell. â€Å"All the places you traveled, you never met a nice girl you could settle down with?† â€Å"No, Mother.† â€Å"You can marry a gentile, you know. It would break my heart, but why did the tribes almost wipe out the Benjamites if it wasn't so a desperate boy could marry a gentile if he needs to? Not a Samaritan, but, you know, some other gentile. If you have to.† â€Å"Thanks, Mother, I'll keep that in mind.† Mother pretended to find some lint or something on my collar, which she picked at while she said, â€Å"So your friend Joshua never married either? You heard about his little sister Miriam, didn't you?† Here her voice went to a conspiratorial whisper. â€Å"Started wearing men's clothes and ran off to the island of Lesbos.† Back to normal nudging tone. â€Å"That's Greek, you know? You boys didn't go to Greece on your travels, did you?† â€Å"No, Mother, I really have to go.† I tried to stand and she grabbed me. â€Å"It's because your father has a Greek name, isn't it? I told you, Alphaeus, change the name, but you said you were proud of it. Well, I hope you're proud of it now. What's next, Lucius here will start hanging Jews on crosses like the other Romans?† â€Å"I'm not a Roman, Mother,† Lucius said wearily. â€Å"Lots of good Jews have Latin names.† â€Å"Not that it matters, Mother, but how do you think they get more Greeks?† To my mother's credit, she stopped for a second to think. I used the lull to escape. â€Å"Nice to see you guys.† I nodded to all of my relatives, old and new. â€Å"I'll come by and visit before I go. I have to go check on Joshua.† And I was out the door. I threw the door open at Joshua's old house without even knocking, nearly coldcocking Joshua's brother Judah in the process. â€Å"Josh, you've got to bring the kingdom soon or I'm going to have to kill my mother.† â€Å"She still plagued by demons?† asked Judah, who looked exactly as he had when he was four, except for the beard and the receding hairline, but he was as wide-eyed and goofy of smile as he had ever been. â€Å"No, I was just being hopeful when I used to say that.† â€Å"Will you join us for supper?† said Mary. Thank God she had aged: gone a little thicker around the hips and waist, developed some lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. Now she was just the second or third most beautiful creature on earth. â€Å"Love to,† I said. James must have been home with his wife and children, as I guessed were the other sisters and brothers, except for Miriam, and I'd already been apprised of her whereabouts. At the table it was only Mary, Joshua, Judah, his pretty wife, Ruth, and two little redheaded girls that looked like their mother. I expressed my condolences for the family's loss, and Joshua filled me in on the timing of events. About the time that I spotted Mary's portrait on the temple wall in Nicobar, Joseph had taken ill with some disease of the water. He started peeing blood, and in a week he was bedridden. He lingered only a week longer before he died. He'd been buried for two months now. I looked at Joshua as Mary related this part of the story and he shook his head, meaning, too long in the grave, there's nothing I can do. Mary had known nothing about a message calling us home. â€Å"Even if you two had only been in Damascus you'd have been lucky to get here in time. He went so fast.† She was strong, had recovered somewhat from the loss, but Joshua appeared to still be in shock. â€Å"You have to go find Joshua's cousin John,† Mary said. â€Å"He's been preaching about the coming of the kingdom, of preparing the way for the Messiah.† â€Å"We've heard,† I said. â€Å"I'll stay here with you, Mother,† Joshua said. â€Å"James is right, I have responsibilities. I've shirked them too long.† Mary touched her son's face and looked in his eyes. â€Å"You will leave in the morning and you will find John the Baptist in Judea and you will do what God has ordained you do since he placed you in my womb. Your responsibilities are not to a bitter brother or an old woman.† Joshua looked at me. â€Å"Can you leave in the morning? I know it's soon after being gone so long.† â€Å"Actually, I thought I'd stay, Josh. Your mother needs someone to look after her, and she's still a relatively attractive woman. I mean, a guy could do worse.† Judah aspirated an olive pit and began coughing furiously until Joshua pounded him on the back and the pit shot across the room, leaving Judah gasping and staring at me through watery red eyes. I put my hand on Joshua and Judah's shoulders. â€Å"I think I can learn to love you both as sons.† I looked at the pretty but shy Ruth, who was tending the little girls. â€Å"And you, Ruth, I hope that you can learn to love me as a slightly older, but incredibly attractive close uncle. And you, Mary – â€Å" â€Å"Will you go with Joshua to Judea, Biff?† Mary interrupted. â€Å"Sure, first thing in the morning.† Joshua and Judah were still staring at me as if they'd both been smacked in the face with a large fish. â€Å"What?† I said. â€Å"How long have you guys known me? Jeez. Grow a sense of humor.† â€Å"Our father died,† said Joshua. â€Å"Yeah, but not today,† I said. â€Å"I'll meet you here in the morning.† The next morning, as we rode through the square, we passed Bartholomew, the village idiot, who looked no worse or less filthy for the years gone by, and who seemed to have come to some sort of understanding with his doggy friends. Instead of jumping all over him as they always had, now they sat quietly before him in a group, as if listening to a sermon. â€Å"Where have you been?† Bart called to us. â€Å"In the East.† â€Å"Why did you go there?† â€Å"We were looking for the Divine Spark,† Joshua said. â€Å"But we didn't know that when we left.† â€Å"Where are you going?† â€Å"To Judea, to find John the Baptist.† â€Å"He should be easier to find than the Spark. Can I come?† â€Å"Sure,† I said. â€Å"Bring your things.† â€Å"I don't have any things.† â€Å"Then bring your stench.† â€Å"That will follow on its own,† Bartholomew said. And thus we became three.

Obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Obesity - Essay Example A big size of the budget on farm subsidies is spent on crops like wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. (Edwards). This is how nutritionists link obesity to farm subsidies. The products made from these crops are mostly unhealthy and contribute to the disease. Data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey shows 35.7% of adults and 17% of children and adolescents are obese. (Ogden) Americans have been battling obesity for a long time. One cause of the disease is eating unhealthy foods. I do not agree that farm subsidies should be blamed for American’s obesity problem. It is true that farm subsidies make food items cheap. However, Americans can choose not to buy these foods. Farm subsidies are not forcing consumers to buy their products. Currently, there are other healthier options in the market. There are Americans who are not obese by choice. If an individual really wanted to overcome obesity, it should not start and stop with just food choices. Also, the fast food industry should be challenged into creating their menu more health-friendly. Fast food is a necessary aspect of American culture because of how busy people are. Despite this, I believe sufficient research on the part of these fast food companies will enable them to create fast food items that are nutritious as well. Lastly, continuous information about the dangers of obesity and its causes should be given to schools and neighborhoods. Media can help with this. I think if people are constantly re minded about obesity they will start eating for their health and not for their

VoFR, VoIP and ATM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

VoFR, VoIP and ATM - Essay Example This need of companies has resulted in the development of packet switching technologies. The integrated networks came to be known as 'Voice over Frame Relay' (VoFR), 'Voice over IP' (VoIP) and 'Voice over ATM' (VoATM). As the technology improves, it becomes cheaper. Due to this not only big corporates but small business houses and even schools and colleges will adopt these technologies in the near future. In 'Frame Relay' and IP the data is represented in the form of variable sized packets or frames. In ATM data is chopped into small cells which results in increased switching rate of data through the network. Unlike circuit switching where different time intervals are allocated to different links, the packet switching dynamically allots bandwidth to various links based on their transmission activity. ATM has been designed to reduce delays whereas the other two, FR and IP, have the disadvantage of having delays over circuit switching technologies. However the use of access devices such as routers that use sophisticated schemes enables to overcome this limitation. These schemes include 'Prioritization', 'Fragmentation', 'Silence Suppression' and 'Voice Compression'. The network developers of both service providers and en... Similarly for enterprise network developers the main attraction towards these technologies is the cost savings associated with toll bypass and tandem switching. Besides the cost of development, the maintenance cost is also les. Also, more efficient network control and management is achieved. 'Finally, packet based voice systems offer access to newly enhanced services such as unified messaging and application control. These, in turn, promise to increase the productivity of users and differentiate services' (cisco.com, 2005). The voice-data integration technologies have improved rapidly in recent years due to the eagerness shown by both developers and customers. The demand has increased as the customers are much more interested in investing in these technologies to enjoy integrated voice applications. The network developers have been fortunate enough in this case as there has been advancement in the areas such standards, technology and network performance. Overview of the technologies A general background of these technologies and the basic principles and features are given one by one in this section below:- Voice over Frame Relay (VoFR) Definition VoFR uses a router to carry voice traffic like telephone calls and faxes over a frame relay network. Deployment The most used packet voice technology in networks is VoFR generally used in corporates. Prioritization Frame relays use access devices which put 'Tags' on different applications setting priority to all of them depending on the sensitivity they show towards delay. The higher priority voice packets are allowed to move first and till that time the others are kept waiting. Fragmentation The data packets in this case are divided into small fragments which results

Business law corporate personality, Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business law corporate personality, - Essay Example The most important concept that flows from the incorporation of a company is that of limited liability whereby the shareholders tend to be liable only to the unpaid amounts of shares and so the company as a separate legal entity is held accountable for its own debts. Corporate personality has been in use for a long period of time but the area of law developed when small businesses used the notion so as to create limited liability. The turning point of corporate personality was the decision of Salomon v Salomon1. In Salomon, a leather merchant incorporated a company and completed the formalities by appointing his family members as shareholders which was a requirement of the Companies Acts at that point in time. In his personal capacity, he appointed himself as managing director and subsequently purchased the sole trading business. The main concern was the over valuation of the business placed by him, but this was mainly due to his confidence in the success of the business. The company subsequently went in to liquidation and a liquidator was appointed by the court who in turn evaluated that the company was a sham and had been used as an instrument to defraud creditors. The Court of Appeal accepted the evaluation of the liquidator, however, the Hou se of Lords reversed the decision stated that the Court of Appeal had used a moralistic approach and went on to say it was irrelevant that some of the shareholders were used merely to fulfill a technicality and so the use of corporate personality could be made by any person who intended to pursue what was his own business and thus the company set up in this case found to be a separate legal entity and not an agent or trustee of the person controlling it.2 The case set a cornerstone for the doctrine of separate legal entity and separated the company from its shareholders. This concept has

Reader response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Reader response - Essay Example For someone like me, who has worked for hours to narrow down on objective and summary statements, it is disappointing to know that my hard work can go unnoticed! Contrary to Rands screening technique, Mulligan in his article mentions that some hiring managers look at the education of the candidate first focusing on their degree, major, graduation date and GPA. Now this, I am willing to live with! One thing that I found very useful in these readings is the information that a resume should be simple and should provide a glimpse into the most recent years of professional career focusing on the key accomplishments and skills. It should also have a hook – which would leave hiring managers with a question to know more about the candidate. After reading the different perspectives of hiring managers, I feel encouraged because I now know how to write my resume - focusing more on the professional experience, skills and extracurricular activities and less on objective and summary statement – since some managers find it

What is information technology How is it changing our working lives Essay

What is information technology How is it changing our working lives - Essay Example sts that Information Technology is here and it will stay on for a very long period of time, until it gets replaced by some other advanced technology in the times to come (Wehn 1998). What is most important to decipher on the part of a world citizen is that Information Technology has played such a vital role in changing the lives of the people that it is almost impossible to negate the positives which have been brought about with the passage of time. Also what could be expected from Information Technology in the future remains a mystery because the marvels embedded within the domains of the same remain to be seen in the times to follow. Information Technology is an enabling force because it makes people think of the possibilities and eventualities that can arise from its incorporation within the systems and procedures of the present times. The manner in which Information Technology has come about as a facilitating agent has made even the staunchest critics realize that its due role is immense and Information Technology will be able to pave the way between the link that remains in a person’s needs and his desires. The gadgets, electrical appliances, cell phones, laptops, etc are all the marvels of Information Technology and many other things are also bracketed under the same heading (Wulf 1995). Information Technology makes use of the communication mechanisms that are there amongst the people and their desires so that their most potent needs could be fulfilled in the most feasible manner. If these needs are not properly addressed, there is enough room to make amends so that the ranks of Information Technology are taken care of in the most apt manner possible. Also what summarizes the debate of Information Technology stems from the fact what researchers have been able to devise with the passage of time and what they expect from the same in the times to come (Diwan 2002). These researchers and scientists believe that Information Technology is a force that will

Stock Exchange, Railways and Company Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Stock Exchange, Railways and Company Law - Essay Example The liability of the investors that have provided funds for the company is limited to these funds. Managers are elected to protect shareholders' interests and their main task is to increase their wealth with employees being a functional daily segment of this task. Big joint stock companies usually trade their shares to the public and thus the ownership and distribution of the benefits of the company can change over time. The fist joint stock companies occurred in the UK and in Europe and mainly dealt with trade. At the beginning of 19th Century the UK corporate law had no clear statement of whether corporation was a private or public person as the majority of the shares within such companies were held by private individuals and not by the state. US had experienced at this time some court cases which lead to the decision that identification of the separate corporate personality must be cleared. Industrial revolution has lead to enormous capital accumulation which was a very favorable field for development of joint stock companies which at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the UK industry prevailed in the sectors of insurance, utilities, transportation and shipping2 and were legally viewed as partnerships and not as corporations. The major faults within such a legal entity were the "inability to sue and be sued using a joint name, the lack of power to proceed in common law against one partner , the fact that one partner could bind the whole against their will, the difficulty of getting rid of an unwanted partner, and generally the ease of fraud amongst partners"3. Liverpool's bill after numerous debates made the metal joint stock companies present annual report on their actions to the House of Parliament. Shares were then personal property selling of which was a formal transaction and only after 1815 more than 140 company shares were quoted on stock exchange which increased the need for legalization of such trade and has lead to rising sues. Some scholars argue that some sort of limited liability which is now one of the joint stock company features, already existed in the late seventeenth century as shareholders could not be arrested for their debt and be subject to bankruptcy charges, and the shareholders were not liable by personal possessions for the debt of the company. This may have lead to promoting incorporating of businessmen and unincorporated companies were in disadvantage comparing to the former. The law of the early eighteenth century was more tolerant to creditors rather than debtors as the latter could be put into prison for minor debt and thus people who made up the incorporated company were as the legal body of the company themselves. Only in the middle of the 19th century the reform had brought the corporate personality separation where the persons within incorporated companies were different from the joint stock venture entity, while investors within unincorporated company were as one. This difference c an be seen even from the referral to such companies in the press and literature, where until the middle of the nineteenth century incorporated and unincorporated companies were both referred to as "they". From the middle of the

Personal statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personal Statement Example nd respected Business Schools in the United Kingdom, the International reputation of the department of Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations has attracted many local and international students, and I believe the institution will definitely offer one of the most intellectually stimulating environments to pursue my career goals. My interest in the study areas of marketing, public relations and advertisement was first aroused during shortly after I began my undergraduate studies in humanities foundation (Sociology, Media & Computer Information Technology) at Bellerby College, Oxford. Undertaking this course has not only enabled me to establish a solid theoretical foundation in communications and media but has also enhanced my quantitative as well as interpersonal skills. In addition, my preference for communication and sociology makes me to find public relations to be an instrumental field to my dream career of being a Communications and Media Manager in a well established organization. I am particularly enthusiastic to learn about how different business enterprises embrace varied social media utilities to remain relevant in face of the rapidly evolving marketing conditions. Besides, I want to learn about how a business’ responsiveness to social issues that unravel during its course of operation can impact the achievement of the overall strategic goals. I have also developed deep insights into ways of conceptualizing and developing creative communication actions for both advertisement and public relations. I posses exemplary skills in communication and media, which have been helpful in letting me tailor adverts in a way that suits the target group. Besides, I am proficient in matching different types of social media utilities with given audience in varied advertising contexts and marketing endeavors. In integrating these efforts into public relations, I believe that I will be better positioned to build cross-functional groups that are capable of executing

Organisational Change And Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Organisational Change And Development - Essay Example It has three stages or phases, viz. design, planning and implementation. As much as organizations differ in their internal leadership and cultural set up, the theoretical approaches to change also differ. For instance there are entrepreneurial, bureaucratic and autocratic organizations or/and leadership styles. They need equally diverse and effective theoretical approaches for change. Nowadays nature and the needs of the organizations are changing rapidly and organizational development is changing to meet the changing need of the organization. Thus typical organizational development activities include some forms such as team building, organizational assessment, carrier development, training, coaching, leadership development and change management. It is aim to improve health and effectiveness of the individual and organizational level. It was Kurt Lewin who first suggested a model based on force field. According to Lewin a typical business organization is in equilibrium at a given time. Two opposing forces act on the organization to bring it in to equilibrium. These forces were named by him as driving forces and restraining forces. The former consists of those elements within the organization seeking to change the direction of the organization constantly while the latter is opposed to such changes. When these two forces match each other's strength, the organization would not experience any disequilibrium. However when the driving forces become stronger change becomes inevitable. Thus the organization moves in to a new equilibrium. Thus Lewin came up with new ideas of group dynamics and action research based on organizational development process which is a growing field in many modern organizational approaches. It is often connected with organizational effectiveness.Another theoretical construct on organizational c hange is based on research carried out by Rosabeth Moss Kanter who argued that it is not necessary to have the backing of the management to bring about change. For instance according to this theory the organization requires authority power, vision, leadership, management and cultural change so that a better view of the organization's capabilities can be obtained. However Kanter suggested that irrespective of where a certain individual employee is in the organization there would be no exclusive power given to one of them to change the organization. These theories were followed by some other not so important variants. Analysis During the past two decades organizational change and development has become a very important aspect in the modern day management practice. Change is more appropriate when everything else has failed to ensure the continuous survival of the business (Clark, 1999). However change and development in itself might not be desirable when the degree of resistance to change becomes stronger because when resistance gathers momentum that in itself is an indicator of the existence of other solutions. If organizational change and development were focused on improving critical success factors related to financial management, Human Resource

Financial Analysis of Steel Industry - Arcelormittal and Us Steel Essay Example for Free

Financial Analysis of Steel Industry Arcelormittal and Us Steel Essay Stock Evaluation Project Steel Industry Industry Analysis Steel is a part of metals and mining industry which is highly cyclical in nature, and when the economy at large suffers, this industry suffers with it. The most recent five years have been a struggle for this particular industry along with uncertain economic indicators, and steel companies’ stocks have trended downwards. The metals and mining industry is comprised of companies that engage in exploration, mine development, and ore mining. The industry includes precious metals mining for metals such as gold, silver, platinum as well as mining and processing industrial metals such as steel, copper, aluminum. The industry is mature, cyclical, capital intensive and dominated by large companies. Some of the major names in the Steel Sector of this industry are Commercial Metals (CMC), Steel Dynamics (STLD), Reliance Steel (RS), AK Steel (AKS), ArcelorMittal (MT), U.S.Steel (X). The US steel industry is currently worth more than $50 billion with annual growth rates around 1% to 2%. Process chains are long with high production volumes. Recently, large quantities of low-cost imports have impeded growth. However, the industry has seen enhanced productivity, energy efficiency, and higher yield due to restructuring, downsizing, and widespread implementation of new technologies. In the coming years, overcapacity and price instability may remain critical. Thereby, efficient production, better-suited products, enhanced capacity utilization and environmentally friendly practices are vital factors to future success. Demand comes from transportation, packaging, consumer electronics, construction, aerospace and power companies, which leads industry, overtly responsive to economic conditions. Companies are responding to pricing pressures through consolidation and vertical integration, which is aimed at streamlining the supply chain. Future growth for the US metals and mining industry also depends upon demand from BRIC nations, developing countries, and domestic consumers. The industry has always faced a number of challenges including environmental concerns, deteriorating ore grades, overproduction, technological changes, and the global economy. Intense competition from nations such as Canada, Russia, China and Mexico pose threats to the US mining industry because those nations have lower labor costs, lax  environmental regulations and lower operating costs. Sustainability of high prices, resurgent global demand, particularly from the Asia-Pacific region, and signs of increasing industrial output across Europe and the United States may boost industry performance. Conclusively, in anticipation of J-curve yield in the industry index, we can expect greater demand in near future due to a combination of rising GDP, another increase in auto sales, and inventory accumulation by distributors, which would further lead to an increase in the volume of steel shipped in 2013. In the Figure 1.1 below, one could clearly see the downward trend of the Dow Jones US Steel Index for the last five years. And as we all know, what goes down comes back up therefore, we must rebalance our portfolios along with this cyclicality. Figure 1.1 Dow Jones US Steel Index (Point and Figure Chart) U.S.Steel (X) United States Steel was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. United States Steel Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the production and sale of steel products primarily in North America and Europe. The company has gone through a business cycle in the past 10 years and currently at its low yet a stable condition. This is due to several reasons, which are explained clearly by the ratios and the Z-score, as plotted by the help of Altman Z’s Model. The companys liquidity has been fairly stable besides the times of 2008-2009 financial crises. If we smooth out an average for turnover measure, we could also conclude that the company’s management is doing fairly well in using the assets. Financial Leverage measure seems to be the only component affecting the Altman Z Score significantly, inflicting a bias in the usage of the model to solely depend on this method of deriving the company health. Also, if we draw a line at 2.0 ratio level, there is a bubble growth in the Z-score during 2005 and 2008, as shown in the figure 1.2 below. Figure 1.2 Altman Z-score Model for U.S.Steel ArcelorMittal (MT) ArcelorMittal engages in the production and marketing of finished and semi-finished carbon steel and stainless steel products worldwide. The company serves automotive, appliance, engineering, construction, energy, and machinery industries. The company, formerly known as Mittal Steel Company N.V., was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. The stock performance has been quite interesting for this company over past 10-12 years. From $0.63/per share in 2001 to the highs of $97 just prior to its downfall, to $12/share approx. after 12 years, tells us a lot about the business cycle of steel sector. As plotted by the ratios derived by Altman Z-Score model below, it is very clear that besides Turnover and Financial Leverage ratios, no other ratio changed significantly in last 10 years and the company stock performed rationally if we consider business cycle but irrationally, if we consider the all other financial measures. Again the spike in the Z-score in the early 2000s reflects the spike in Financial Leverage of the company. However, at this point in time, the company looks as in congruence to the low levels of the industry, yet healthy and we could anticipate an upcoming up-trend in its performance. Figure 1.3 Altman Z-Score model for ArcelorMittal

Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique

Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique ABSTRACT Steganography is a technique used to hide the message in vessel data by embedding it. The Vessel Data which is visible is known as external information and the data which is embedded is called as internal information.The extrenal information is not much useful to the data owner. The techniques used in Steganography makes hard to detect hidden message within an image file. By this technique we are not only sending a message but also we are hiding the message. Steganography system is designed to encode and decode a secret file embedded in image file with a random Least Significant Bit(LSB) insertion technique. By using this technique the secret data are spread out among the image data in a random manner with the help of a secret key. The key generates pseudorandom numbers and identifies where and in which order hidden message is laid out. The advantage of using this method is that it includes cryptography. In cryptography, diffusion is applied to secret message. INTRODUCTION: The information communicated comes in number of forms and is used in various number of applications. In large number of these applications, it is desired that the communication has to be done in secrete. Such secret communication ranges from the obvious cases of bank transfers, corporate communications, and credit card purchases,and large percentage of everyday e-mail. Steganography is an ancient art of embedding a message in such a way that no one,except the sender and the recipient,suspects the existence of the message. Most of the newer applications use Steganography as a watermark, to protect a copy right on information. The forms of Steganography vary, but unsurprisingly, innocuous spam messages are turning up more often containing embedded text. A new transform domain technique for embedding the secret information in the integer wavelet which is transformed on a cover image is implemented here. A technique which is used to scramble a secrete or a confidential message in order to make it unreadable for a third party is known as the Cryptography.Now-a-days its commonly used in the internet communications.cryptography can hide the content of the message but it cant hide the location of the secrete message.This is how the attackers can target even an encrypted message.Water marking is the another information of hiding the digital data or a picture or musical sound.The main purpose of this watermarking information is to protect the copyright or the ownership of the data.In this technique the robustness of the embedded evidence,that can be very small, is the most important.The external information which is visible is the valuable information in the watermarking technique. steganography is a technique which is used to make the confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding the message in some dummy data such as the digital image or a speech sound.There is a research topic about the steganography known as the steganalysis.The main objective of this steganalysis is to find out the stego file among the given files.It is a technique which is used to detect the suspicious image or sound file which is embedded with the crime related information.So,we need to make a sniffer-dog-program to break the steganography.However,it is too difficult to make a program that really works. All the traditional steganography techniques have very limited information-hiding capacity.They can hide only 10% (or less) of the data amounts of the vessel.This is because the principle of those techniques which were either to replace a special part of the frequency components of the vessel image, or to replace all the least significant bits which are present in a multivalued image with the secrete information.In the new steganography which we are using uses an image as the vesel data, and we need to embed the secrete information in to the bit planes of the vessel.The percentage of information hiding capacity of a true color image is around 50.All the noise-like regions in the bit planes of the vessel image can be replaced with the secret data without deteriorating the quality of the image,which is known as BPCS-Steganography, which stands for Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation Steganography. BACKGROUND HISTORY: The word Steganography is of Greek origin and means â€Å"covered, or hidden writing†. Its ancient origins can be traced back to 440BC. THEORY: Steganography is a technique which is used now a days to make confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding it in to some innocent looking vessel data or a dummy data such as a digital image or a speech sound.In a multi bit data structure a typical vessel is defined as a color image having Red,Green and blue components in it.By using a special extracting program and a key the embedded information can be extracted,the technique of steganography is totally different from file deception or file camouflage techniques. A technique to hide the secrete data in a computer file which almost looks like a steganography is known as a file deception or file camouflage.But actually, it is defined as a trick which is used to disguise a secret-data-added file as a normal file.This can be done as most of the computer file formats have some dont-care portion in one file.For instance if we take some file formats as jpeg,mpeg3 or some word file these looks like the original image,sound or document respectively on the computer.Some of them could have misunderstood that such a trick is a type of Steganography.However,such files can have an extra lengthy file sizes, and they can be easily detected by most of the computer engineers.So, by this we can understand that the file deception is totally different from that of the steganographic techinque which we are discussing here. Many of the Steganography software which is in the market today is based on the file decepetion.If we find a steganography program that increases the output file size just by the amount we have embedded, then the program is obviously a file deception.If there is some secrete data then we should encrypt in such a way that it is not readable for the third party.A solution to Keep secrete information very safe is known as Data Encryption.It is totally based on scrambling the data by using some type of the secrete key. However,encrypting the data will draw more attention of the people who have not encrypted the data.So, it is very to the owner to know whether the data is encrypted or not.By, this we can know that the encrypting is not enough. There is another solution which is known steganography. There are two types of data in steganography, one is the secret data that is very valuable and the other is a type of media data vessel or carrier or dummy data.Vessel data is essential, but it is not so valuable.It is defined as the data in which the valuable data is embedded. The data which is already embedded in the vessel data is called stego data.By using the stego data we can extract the secret or the valuable data. For embedding and extracting the data we need a special program and a key. A typical vessel is an image data with Red, Green, and Blue color components present in it in a 24 bits pixel structure. The illustration below shows a general scheme of Steganography. Steganography is a technique which is used to hide secret data by embedding it in some innocent looking media data like Mona lisa in the above picture.The data which is embedded is very safe because Steganography hides both the content and the location of the secret information.In the media data there are many different methods to embed the data.It is highly impossible to detect which method is used for embedding the data.Steganography can co-operate with cryptography in the sense that it can embed the encrypted secret data and make it much safer. The most important point in the steganography technique is that the stego data does not have any evidence that some extra data is embedded there.In other way, the vessel data and the stego data must be very similar.The user of the steganography should discard the original vessel data after embedding,so that no one can compare the stego and the original data. It is also important that the capacity for embedding the data is large.As it is larger it is better.Of all the currently available steganography methods the BPCS method is the best. LEAST SIGNIFICANT BIT INSERTION One of the most common techniques used in Steganographytoday is called least significant bit (LSB) insertion. This method is exactly what it sounds like; the least significant bits of the cover-image are altered so that they form the embeddedinformation. The following example shows how the letter A can be hidden in the first eight bytes of three pixels in a 24-bit image. Pixels: (00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111 11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001) A: 01000001 Result: (00100110 11101001 11001000) (00100110 11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The three underlined bits are the only three bits that were actually altered. LSB insertion requires on average that only half the bits in an image be changed. Since the 8-bit letter A only requires eight bytes to hide it in, the ninth byte of the three pixels can be used to begin hiding the next character of the hidden message. A slight variation of this technique allows for embedding the message in two or more of the least significant bits per byte. This increases the hidden information capacity of the cover-object, but the cover-object is degraded more, and therefore it is more detectable. Other variations on this technique include ensuring that statistical changes in the image do not occur. Some intelligent software also checks for areas that are made up of one solid color. Changes in these pixels are then avoided because slight changes would cause noticeable variations in the area .While LSB insertion is easy to implement, it is also easily attacked. Slight modifications in the color palette and simple image manipulations will destroy the entire hidden message. Some examples of these simple image manipulations include image resizing and cropping. Applications of Steganography : Steganography is applicable to, but not limited to, the following areas. Confidential communication and secret data storing. Protection of data alteration Access control system for digital content distribution. Media Database systems. The area differs in what feature of the Steganography is utilized in each system. 1. Confidential communication and secret data storing: The â€Å"secrecy† of the embedded data is essential in this area. Historically, Steganography have been approached in this area.Steganography provides us with: (A).Potential capacity to hide the existence of confidential data. (B).Hardness of detecting the hidden (i.e., embedded ) data. (C).Strengthening of the secrecy of the encrypted data. In practice , when you use some Steganography, you must first select a vessel data according to the size of the embedding data.The vessel should be innocuous.Then,you embed the confidential data by using an embedding program (which is one component of the Steganography software ) together with some key .When extracting , you (or your party ) use an extracting program (another component) to recover the embedded data by the same key (â€Å"common key â€Å" in terms of cryptography ).In this case you need a â€Å"key negotiation â€Å" before you start communication. 2. Protection of data alteration: We take advantage of the fragility of the embedded data in this application area. The embedded data can rather be fragile than be very robust. Actually, embedded data are fragile in most steganography programs. However, this fragility opens a new direction toward an information-alteration protective system such as a Digital Certificate Document System. The most novel point among others is that no authentication bureau is needed. If it is implemented, people can send their digital certificate data to any place in the world through Internet. No one can forge, alter, nor tamper such certificate data. If forged, altered, or tampered, it is easily detected by the extraction program. 3. Access control system for digital content distribution: In this area embedded data is hidden, but is explained to publicize the content. Today, digital contents are getting more and more commonly distributed by Internet than ever before. For example, music companies release new albums on their Webpage in a free or charged manner. However, in this case, all the contents are equally distributed to the people who accessed the page. So, an ordinary Web distribution scheme is not suited for a case-by-case and selective distribution. Of course it is always possible to attach digital content to e-mail messages and send to the customers. But it will takes a lot of cost in time and labor. If you have some valuable content, which you think it is okay to provide others if they really need it, and if it is possible to upload such content on the Web in some covert manner. And if you can issue a special access key to extract the content selectively, you will be very happy about it. A steganographic scheme can help realize a this type of system. We have developed a prototype of an Access Control System for digital content distribution through Internet. The following steps explain the scheme. (1) A content owner classify his/her digital contents in a folder-by-folder manner, and embed the whole folders in some large vessel according to a steganographic method using folder access keys, and upload the embedded vessel (stego data) on his/her own Webpage. (2) On that Webpage the owner explains the contents in depth and publicize worldwide. The contact information to the owner (post mail address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.) will be posted there. (3) The owner may receive an access-request from a customer who watched that Webpage. In that case, the owner may (or may not) creates an access key and provide it to the customer (free or charged). In this mechanism the most important point is, a selective extraction is possible or not. 4. Media Database systems: In this application area of steganography secrecy is not important, but unifying two types of data into one is the most important. Media data (photo picture, movie, music, etc.) have some association with other information. A photo picture, for instance, may have the following. The title of the picture and some physical object information. The date and the time when the picture was taken. The camera and the photographers information. DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING BACKGROUND: Digital image processing is an area that is characterized by the need for extensive experimental work to establish the viability of the proposed solutions to a given problem. An important characteristic which is underlying in the design of image processing systems is the significant level of testing the experimentation that normally required before arriving at an acceptable solution. This characteristic implies that the ability to formulate approaches quickly prototype candidate solutions generally plays a major role in reducing the cost time required to arrive at a viable system implementation. What is DIP? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. When both the coordinates x and y the amplitude values of function â€Å"f† all have finite discrete quantities, then we call that image as a digital image. The field DIP refers to processing a digital image by the means of a digital computer. A image which is composed of finite number of elements,each element has particular location and value is named as a digital image.These elements are called as pixels. As we know that vision is the most advanced of our sensor,so image play the single most important role in human perception.However, humans are limited to the visual band of the EM spectrum but the imaging machines cover almost the entire EM specturm,ranging from the gamma waves to radio waves.These can operate also on the images generated by the sources that humans are not accustomed to associating with the image. There is no agreement among the authors regarding where the image processing stops and other related areas such as the image analysis and computer vision start.Sometimes a difference is made by defining image processing as a discipline in which both the input output at a process are the images. This is limiting somewhat artificial boundary.The area which is present in between the image processing and computer vision is image analysis(Understanding image). There are no clear-cut boundaries in the continuum from the image processing at one end to complete vision at the other end . However, one useful paradigm is to consider the three types of computerized processes in this continuum: low-level, mid-level, the high-level processes.The Low-level process involves the primitive operations such as image processing which is used to reduce noise, contrast enhancement image sharpening. A low- level process is characterized by the fact that both the inputs outputs are images. Tasks such as segmentation, description of an object to reduce them to a form suitable for computer processing classification of individual objects is the Mid level process on images. A mid-level process is characterized by the fact that the inputs given to the image are generally images but the outputs are attributes extracted from those images. Finally the higher- level processing involves â€Å"Making sense† of an ensemble of recognized objects, as in image an alysis at the far end of the continuum performing the cognitive functions normally associated with human vision. As already defined Digital image processing, is used successfully in broad range of areas of exceptional social economic value. What is an image? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. Gray scale image: A grayscale image can be defined as a function I (xylem) of the two spatial coordinates of the image plane. Assume I(x, y)as the intensity of the image at the point (x, y) on the image plane. I (xylem) takes all non-negative values assume that the image is bounded by a rectangle [0, a]  ´[0, b]I: [0, a]  ´ [0, b]  ® [0, info) Color image: It can be represented by the three functions, as R (xylem) for red, G (xylem) for green andB (xylem) for blue. An image may be continuous with respect to x and y coordinates of the plane and also in the amplitude.Converting such an image into a digital form requires the coordinates and the amplitude to be digitized.Digitizing the values of the coordinates is called sampling. Digitizing the values of the amplitude is called quantization. Coordinate convention: The result which is generated by using sampling and quantization is a matrix of real numbers.There are two principal ways to represent the digital images.Assume that an image with function f(x,y) is sampled in such a way that the resulting image has M rows and N columns.then the size of the image is MXN.The values of coordinates (xylem) are the discrete quantites.For the notational clarity and convenience, we can use the integer values for these discrete coordinates. In many of the image processing books, the image origin is defined at (xylem)=(0,0).The values of the next coordinate along with the first row of the image are (xylem)=(0,1).It is very important to keep in our mind that the notation (0,1) is used to signify the second sample along with the first row. It does not mean that these are the actual values of the physical coordinates,when the image was sampled.The figure below shows the coordinates convention. Note that the x ranges from 0 to M-1 and y ranges from 0 to N-1 in i nteger increments. The coordinate convention which is used in the toolbox to denote arrays is different from that of the preceding paragraph in two minor ways. Firstly, instead of using (xylem) in the toolbox it uses the notation (race) to indicate the rows and the columns. Note:However,the order of coordinates are the same as in the previous paragraph, in the sense the first element of the coordinate topples, (alb), refers to a row and the second one to a column. The other difference is that the origin of the coordinate system is at (r, c) = (1, 1); r ranges from 1 to M and c from 1 to N in the integer increments.The documentation of the IPT refers to the coordinates. Less frequently toolbox also employs another coordinate convention called spatial coordinates, which uses x to refer to column and y to refer to row. This is the quite opposite of our use of variables x and y. Image as Matrices: The discussion which we have done leads to the following representation for a digitized image function: f (0,0) f(0,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(0,N-1) f(1,0) f(1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(1,N-1) f(xylem)= . . . . . . f(M-1,0) f(M-1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(M-1,N-1) The right side of this equation represents a digital image by the definition. Each element which is in this array is called an image element, picture element, pixel or a pel. The terms image or pixel are used throughout the our discussions from now to denote a digital image and its elements. A digital image can be represented by a MATLAB matrix naturally as : f(1,1) f(1,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. f(1,N) f(2,1) f(2,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(2,N) . . . f = . . . f(M,1) f(M,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.f(M,N) Where f(1,1) = f(0,0) (note use of a monoscope font to denote the MATLAB quantities). We can see clearly that the two representations are identical, except for the shift in the origin. The notation f(p ,q) denotes that the element is located in row p and the column q. For example f(6,2) denotes that the element is in the sixth row and second column of the matrix f. Typically here we use the letters M and N to denote the number of rows and columns respectively in a matrix. A 1xN matrix is known as a row vector whereas an Mx1 matrix is known as a column vector. A 11 matrix is a scalar matrix. Matrices in the MATLAB are stored in variables with different names such as A, a, RGB, real array etc All variables in Matlab must begin with a letter and can contain only letters, numerals and underscores. As noted previously,all the MATLAB quantities are written using the mono-scope characters. We use the conventional Roman or italic notation such as f(x ,y), for the mathematical expressions Reading Images: Using the function imread the images are read into the MATLAB environment. The syntax for this is: imread(‘filename) Format name Description recognized extension TIFF Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff JPEG Joint Photograph Experts Group .jpg, .jpeg GIF Graphics Interchange Format .gif BMP Windows Bitmap .bmp PNG Portable Network Graphics .png XWD X Window Dump .xwd Here filename is a string containing the complete image file(including applicable extensions if any).For example the command line >> f = imread (‘8. jpg); reads the JPEG (in the above table) image chestxray into image array f. Note that the use of the single quotes (‘) is to delimit the string filename. The semicolon at the end of a command line is used for suppressing output in the MATLAB. If the semicolon is not includedthen the MATLAB displays the results of the operation(s) specified only in that line. The prompt symbol(>>) says that it is the beginning of the command line, as it appears in the MATLAB command window. When in the preceding command line there is no path included in the filename, imread reads the file from current directory and if that fails then it tries to find the file in MATLAB search path. An easy way to read an image from a specified directory is to include a full or relative path to that directory in filename. For example, >> f = imread ( ‘E:myimageschestxray.jpg); This reads an image from a folder called myimages on the E: drive, whereas >> f = imread(‘ . myimageschestxray .jpg); It reads an image from myimages subdirectory of the current of the current working directory. Current directory window on the MATLAB desktop toolbar displays the MATLABs current working directory and provides a simple and a manual way to change it. The table above lists some of the most popular image/graphics formats supported by imread and imwrite. Function size gives the row and the column dimensions of an image: >> size (f) ans = 1024 * 1024 The above function is particularly useful in programming when used in the following form to automatically determine the size of an image: >>[M,N]=size(f); The syntax above returns the number of rows(M) and columns(N) present in the image. On whole the function displays the additional information about an array. For instance ,the statement >> whos f gives Name size Bytes Class F 1024*1024 1048576 unit8 array Grand total is 1048576 elements using 1048576 bytes The unit8 entry shown refers to one of the several MATLAB data classes. A semicolon at the end of a line has no effect ,so normally one is not used. Displaying Images: To diplay images on the MATLAB desktop we can use a function called imshow, which has the basic syntax: imshow(f,g) Where f is referred as an image array, and g as the number of intensity levels which are used to display it. If g is omitted here ,then by default it takes 256 levels .using the syntax imshow(f,{low high}) By using the above syntax it displays an image as black all values less than or equal to low and as white all values greater than or equal to high. The values which are in between are displayed as intermediate intensity values using the default number of levels .The final syntax is Imshow(f,[ ]) Sets the variable low to the minimum value of array f and high to its maximum value. This form of imshow is useful in displaying the images that have a low dynamic range or that have positive and negative values. Function named â€Å"pixval† is used frequently in order to display the intensity values of the individual pixels interactively. This function displays a cursor which is overlaid on an image. As and when the cursor is moved over the particular image with the mouse the coordinates of the cursor position and the corresponding intensity values are shown on the display that appears below the figure window .When working with the color images, the coordinates as well as the red, green and blue components are also displayed. If the left button of the mouse is clicked and then held pressed, pixval displays the Euclidean distance between the initial and the current cursor locations. The syntax form of interest here is Pixval which shows a cursor on the last image displayed. Clicking the button X on the cursor window turns it off. The following statements read from a disk an image called rose_512.tif extract basic information about that image and display it using imshow : >>f=imread(‘rose_512.tif); >>whos f Name Size Bytes Class F 512*512 262144 unit8 array Grand total is 262144 elements using 262144 bytes >>imshow(f) A semicolon at the end of an imshow line has no effect, so normally it is not used. If another image named g, is displayed using imshow, MATLAB replaces the image which is in the screen with the new image. To keep the first image and output the second image, we use a function figure as follows: >>figure ,imshow(g) Using the statement >>imshow(f),figure ,imshow(g) displays both the images. Keep in mind that more than one command can be written on a line ,as long as different commands are properly delimited by commas or semicolons. As mentioned, a semicolon is normally used whenever it is desired to suppress screen outputs from a command line. Suppose that we have just read an image h and find that using imshow produces an image. It is clearly understood that this image has a low dynamic range, which can be remedied for display purposes by using the statement. >>imshow(h,[ ]) WRITING IMAGES: By using the function imwrite images are written to disk ,which has the following basic syntax: Imwrite (f,filename) With the above syntax, the string which is contained in the filename must include a recognized file format extension.Alternatively, a desired format can be specified explicitly with a third input argument. >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1,tif) Or >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1.tif) In the above example the command writes f to a TIFF file named patient10_run1: If filename contains no information on the path of the file, then imwrite saves the file in the current working directory. The imwrite function can have some other parameters depending up on the e file format selected. Most of the work in the following chapter deals either with JPEG or TIFF images ,so we focus attention here on these formats. More general imwrite syntax which is applicable only to JPEG images is imwrite(f,filename.jpg,,quality,q) where q is an integer which is in between 0 and 100(the lower the number higher the degradation due to JPEG compression). For example, for q=25 the applicable syntax is >> imwrite(f,bubbles25.jpg,quality,25) The image for q=15 has false contouring which is barely visible, but this effect becomes quite applicable for q=5 and q=0.Thus, an expectable solution with some margin for error is to compress all the images with q=25.In order to get an idea of compression achieved and to obtain other image file details, we can use the function imfinfo which has syntax. Imfinfo filename Here filename implies the complete file name of the image stored in the disk. For example, >> imfinfo bubbles25.jpg outputs the following information(note that some fields contain no information in this case): Filename: ‘bubbles25.jpg FileModDate: 04-jan-2003 12:31:26 FileSize: 13849 Format: ‘jpg Format Version: ‘ ‘ Width: 714 Height: 682 Bit Depth: 8 Color Depth: ‘grayscale Format Signature: ‘ ‘ Comment: { } Where size of the file is in bytes. The number of bytes in the original image is simply corrupted by multiplying width by height by bit depth and then dividing the result by 8. The result is 486948.Dividing file size gives the compression ratio:(486948/13849)=35.16.This compression ratio was achieved. While maintaining the image quality consistent with the requirements of the appearance. In addition to obvious advantages in storage space, this reduction allows the transmission of approximately 35 times the amount of uncompressed data per unit time. The information fields which are displayed by imfinfo can be captured to a so called structure variable that can be for the subsequent computations. Using the receding example and assigning the n Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique Image Based Steganographyusing LSB Insertion Technique ABSTRACT Steganography is a technique used to hide the message in vessel data by embedding it. The Vessel Data which is visible is known as external information and the data which is embedded is called as internal information.The extrenal information is not much useful to the data owner. The techniques used in Steganography makes hard to detect hidden message within an image file. By this technique we are not only sending a message but also we are hiding the message. Steganography system is designed to encode and decode a secret file embedded in image file with a random Least Significant Bit(LSB) insertion technique. By using this technique the secret data are spread out among the image data in a random manner with the help of a secret key. The key generates pseudorandom numbers and identifies where and in which order hidden message is laid out. The advantage of using this method is that it includes cryptography. In cryptography, diffusion is applied to secret message. INTRODUCTION: The information communicated comes in number of forms and is used in various number of applications. In large number of these applications, it is desired that the communication has to be done in secrete. Such secret communication ranges from the obvious cases of bank transfers, corporate communications, and credit card purchases,and large percentage of everyday e-mail. Steganography is an ancient art of embedding a message in such a way that no one,except the sender and the recipient,suspects the existence of the message. Most of the newer applications use Steganography as a watermark, to protect a copy right on information. The forms of Steganography vary, but unsurprisingly, innocuous spam messages are turning up more often containing embedded text. A new transform domain technique for embedding the secret information in the integer wavelet which is transformed on a cover image is implemented here. A technique which is used to scramble a secrete or a confidential message in order to make it unreadable for a third party is known as the Cryptography.Now-a-days its commonly used in the internet communications.cryptography can hide the content of the message but it cant hide the location of the secrete message.This is how the attackers can target even an encrypted message.Water marking is the another information of hiding the digital data or a picture or musical sound.The main purpose of this watermarking information is to protect the copyright or the ownership of the data.In this technique the robustness of the embedded evidence,that can be very small, is the most important.The external information which is visible is the valuable information in the watermarking technique. steganography is a technique which is used to make the confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding the message in some dummy data such as the digital image or a speech sound.There is a research topic about the steganography known as the steganalysis.The main objective of this steganalysis is to find out the stego file among the given files.It is a technique which is used to detect the suspicious image or sound file which is embedded with the crime related information.So,we need to make a sniffer-dog-program to break the steganography.However,it is too difficult to make a program that really works. All the traditional steganography techniques have very limited information-hiding capacity.They can hide only 10% (or less) of the data amounts of the vessel.This is because the principle of those techniques which were either to replace a special part of the frequency components of the vessel image, or to replace all the least significant bits which are present in a multivalued image with the secrete information.In the new steganography which we are using uses an image as the vesel data, and we need to embed the secrete information in to the bit planes of the vessel.The percentage of information hiding capacity of a true color image is around 50.All the noise-like regions in the bit planes of the vessel image can be replaced with the secret data without deteriorating the quality of the image,which is known as BPCS-Steganography, which stands for Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation Steganography. BACKGROUND HISTORY: The word Steganography is of Greek origin and means â€Å"covered, or hidden writing†. Its ancient origins can be traced back to 440BC. THEORY: Steganography is a technique which is used now a days to make confidential information imperceptible to the human eyes by embedding it in to some innocent looking vessel data or a dummy data such as a digital image or a speech sound.In a multi bit data structure a typical vessel is defined as a color image having Red,Green and blue components in it.By using a special extracting program and a key the embedded information can be extracted,the technique of steganography is totally different from file deception or file camouflage techniques. A technique to hide the secrete data in a computer file which almost looks like a steganography is known as a file deception or file camouflage.But actually, it is defined as a trick which is used to disguise a secret-data-added file as a normal file.This can be done as most of the computer file formats have some dont-care portion in one file.For instance if we take some file formats as jpeg,mpeg3 or some word file these looks like the original image,sound or document respectively on the computer.Some of them could have misunderstood that such a trick is a type of Steganography.However,such files can have an extra lengthy file sizes, and they can be easily detected by most of the computer engineers.So, by this we can understand that the file deception is totally different from that of the steganographic techinque which we are discussing here. Many of the Steganography software which is in the market today is based on the file decepetion.If we find a steganography program that increases the output file size just by the amount we have embedded, then the program is obviously a file deception.If there is some secrete data then we should encrypt in such a way that it is not readable for the third party.A solution to Keep secrete information very safe is known as Data Encryption.It is totally based on scrambling the data by using some type of the secrete key. However,encrypting the data will draw more attention of the people who have not encrypted the data.So, it is very to the owner to know whether the data is encrypted or not.By, this we can know that the encrypting is not enough. There is another solution which is known steganography. There are two types of data in steganography, one is the secret data that is very valuable and the other is a type of media data vessel or carrier or dummy data.Vessel data is essential, but it is not so valuable.It is defined as the data in which the valuable data is embedded. The data which is already embedded in the vessel data is called stego data.By using the stego data we can extract the secret or the valuable data. For embedding and extracting the data we need a special program and a key. A typical vessel is an image data with Red, Green, and Blue color components present in it in a 24 bits pixel structure. The illustration below shows a general scheme of Steganography. Steganography is a technique which is used to hide secret data by embedding it in some innocent looking media data like Mona lisa in the above picture.The data which is embedded is very safe because Steganography hides both the content and the location of the secret information.In the media data there are many different methods to embed the data.It is highly impossible to detect which method is used for embedding the data.Steganography can co-operate with cryptography in the sense that it can embed the encrypted secret data and make it much safer. The most important point in the steganography technique is that the stego data does not have any evidence that some extra data is embedded there.In other way, the vessel data and the stego data must be very similar.The user of the steganography should discard the original vessel data after embedding,so that no one can compare the stego and the original data. It is also important that the capacity for embedding the data is large.As it is larger it is better.Of all the currently available steganography methods the BPCS method is the best. LEAST SIGNIFICANT BIT INSERTION One of the most common techniques used in Steganographytoday is called least significant bit (LSB) insertion. This method is exactly what it sounds like; the least significant bits of the cover-image are altered so that they form the embeddedinformation. The following example shows how the letter A can be hidden in the first eight bytes of three pixels in a 24-bit image. Pixels: (00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111 11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001) A: 01000001 Result: (00100110 11101001 11001000) (00100110 11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The three underlined bits are the only three bits that were actually altered. LSB insertion requires on average that only half the bits in an image be changed. Since the 8-bit letter A only requires eight bytes to hide it in, the ninth byte of the three pixels can be used to begin hiding the next character of the hidden message. A slight variation of this technique allows for embedding the message in two or more of the least significant bits per byte. This increases the hidden information capacity of the cover-object, but the cover-object is degraded more, and therefore it is more detectable. Other variations on this technique include ensuring that statistical changes in the image do not occur. Some intelligent software also checks for areas that are made up of one solid color. Changes in these pixels are then avoided because slight changes would cause noticeable variations in the area .While LSB insertion is easy to implement, it is also easily attacked. Slight modifications in the color palette and simple image manipulations will destroy the entire hidden message. Some examples of these simple image manipulations include image resizing and cropping. Applications of Steganography : Steganography is applicable to, but not limited to, the following areas. Confidential communication and secret data storing. Protection of data alteration Access control system for digital content distribution. Media Database systems. The area differs in what feature of the Steganography is utilized in each system. 1. Confidential communication and secret data storing: The â€Å"secrecy† of the embedded data is essential in this area. Historically, Steganography have been approached in this area.Steganography provides us with: (A).Potential capacity to hide the existence of confidential data. (B).Hardness of detecting the hidden (i.e., embedded ) data. (C).Strengthening of the secrecy of the encrypted data. In practice , when you use some Steganography, you must first select a vessel data according to the size of the embedding data.The vessel should be innocuous.Then,you embed the confidential data by using an embedding program (which is one component of the Steganography software ) together with some key .When extracting , you (or your party ) use an extracting program (another component) to recover the embedded data by the same key (â€Å"common key â€Å" in terms of cryptography ).In this case you need a â€Å"key negotiation â€Å" before you start communication. 2. Protection of data alteration: We take advantage of the fragility of the embedded data in this application area. The embedded data can rather be fragile than be very robust. Actually, embedded data are fragile in most steganography programs. However, this fragility opens a new direction toward an information-alteration protective system such as a Digital Certificate Document System. The most novel point among others is that no authentication bureau is needed. If it is implemented, people can send their digital certificate data to any place in the world through Internet. No one can forge, alter, nor tamper such certificate data. If forged, altered, or tampered, it is easily detected by the extraction program. 3. Access control system for digital content distribution: In this area embedded data is hidden, but is explained to publicize the content. Today, digital contents are getting more and more commonly distributed by Internet than ever before. For example, music companies release new albums on their Webpage in a free or charged manner. However, in this case, all the contents are equally distributed to the people who accessed the page. So, an ordinary Web distribution scheme is not suited for a case-by-case and selective distribution. Of course it is always possible to attach digital content to e-mail messages and send to the customers. But it will takes a lot of cost in time and labor. If you have some valuable content, which you think it is okay to provide others if they really need it, and if it is possible to upload such content on the Web in some covert manner. And if you can issue a special access key to extract the content selectively, you will be very happy about it. A steganographic scheme can help realize a this type of system. We have developed a prototype of an Access Control System for digital content distribution through Internet. The following steps explain the scheme. (1) A content owner classify his/her digital contents in a folder-by-folder manner, and embed the whole folders in some large vessel according to a steganographic method using folder access keys, and upload the embedded vessel (stego data) on his/her own Webpage. (2) On that Webpage the owner explains the contents in depth and publicize worldwide. The contact information to the owner (post mail address, e-mail address, phone number, etc.) will be posted there. (3) The owner may receive an access-request from a customer who watched that Webpage. In that case, the owner may (or may not) creates an access key and provide it to the customer (free or charged). In this mechanism the most important point is, a selective extraction is possible or not. 4. Media Database systems: In this application area of steganography secrecy is not important, but unifying two types of data into one is the most important. Media data (photo picture, movie, music, etc.) have some association with other information. A photo picture, for instance, may have the following. The title of the picture and some physical object information. The date and the time when the picture was taken. The camera and the photographers information. DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING BACKGROUND: Digital image processing is an area that is characterized by the need for extensive experimental work to establish the viability of the proposed solutions to a given problem. An important characteristic which is underlying in the design of image processing systems is the significant level of testing the experimentation that normally required before arriving at an acceptable solution. This characteristic implies that the ability to formulate approaches quickly prototype candidate solutions generally plays a major role in reducing the cost time required to arrive at a viable system implementation. What is DIP? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. When both the coordinates x and y the amplitude values of function â€Å"f† all have finite discrete quantities, then we call that image as a digital image. The field DIP refers to processing a digital image by the means of a digital computer. A image which is composed of finite number of elements,each element has particular location and value is named as a digital image.These elements are called as pixels. As we know that vision is the most advanced of our sensor,so image play the single most important role in human perception.However, humans are limited to the visual band of the EM spectrum but the imaging machines cover almost the entire EM specturm,ranging from the gamma waves to radio waves.These can operate also on the images generated by the sources that humans are not accustomed to associating with the image. There is no agreement among the authors regarding where the image processing stops and other related areas such as the image analysis and computer vision start.Sometimes a difference is made by defining image processing as a discipline in which both the input output at a process are the images. This is limiting somewhat artificial boundary.The area which is present in between the image processing and computer vision is image analysis(Understanding image). There are no clear-cut boundaries in the continuum from the image processing at one end to complete vision at the other end . However, one useful paradigm is to consider the three types of computerized processes in this continuum: low-level, mid-level, the high-level processes.The Low-level process involves the primitive operations such as image processing which is used to reduce noise, contrast enhancement image sharpening. A low- level process is characterized by the fact that both the inputs outputs are images. Tasks such as segmentation, description of an object to reduce them to a form suitable for computer processing classification of individual objects is the Mid level process on images. A mid-level process is characterized by the fact that the inputs given to the image are generally images but the outputs are attributes extracted from those images. Finally the higher- level processing involves â€Å"Making sense† of an ensemble of recognized objects, as in image an alysis at the far end of the continuum performing the cognitive functions normally associated with human vision. As already defined Digital image processing, is used successfully in broad range of areas of exceptional social economic value. What is an image? An image is defined as a two-dimensional function f(x, y), where x y are the spatial coordinates, the amplitude of function â€Å"f† at any pair of coordinates (x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that particular point. Gray scale image: A grayscale image can be defined as a function I (xylem) of the two spatial coordinates of the image plane. Assume I(x, y)as the intensity of the image at the point (x, y) on the image plane. I (xylem) takes all non-negative values assume that the image is bounded by a rectangle [0, a]  ´[0, b]I: [0, a]  ´ [0, b]  ® [0, info) Color image: It can be represented by the three functions, as R (xylem) for red, G (xylem) for green andB (xylem) for blue. An image may be continuous with respect to x and y coordinates of the plane and also in the amplitude.Converting such an image into a digital form requires the coordinates and the amplitude to be digitized.Digitizing the values of the coordinates is called sampling. Digitizing the values of the amplitude is called quantization. Coordinate convention: The result which is generated by using sampling and quantization is a matrix of real numbers.There are two principal ways to represent the digital images.Assume that an image with function f(x,y) is sampled in such a way that the resulting image has M rows and N columns.then the size of the image is MXN.The values of coordinates (xylem) are the discrete quantites.For the notational clarity and convenience, we can use the integer values for these discrete coordinates. In many of the image processing books, the image origin is defined at (xylem)=(0,0).The values of the next coordinate along with the first row of the image are (xylem)=(0,1).It is very important to keep in our mind that the notation (0,1) is used to signify the second sample along with the first row. It does not mean that these are the actual values of the physical coordinates,when the image was sampled.The figure below shows the coordinates convention. Note that the x ranges from 0 to M-1 and y ranges from 0 to N-1 in i nteger increments. The coordinate convention which is used in the toolbox to denote arrays is different from that of the preceding paragraph in two minor ways. Firstly, instead of using (xylem) in the toolbox it uses the notation (race) to indicate the rows and the columns. Note:However,the order of coordinates are the same as in the previous paragraph, in the sense the first element of the coordinate topples, (alb), refers to a row and the second one to a column. The other difference is that the origin of the coordinate system is at (r, c) = (1, 1); r ranges from 1 to M and c from 1 to N in the integer increments.The documentation of the IPT refers to the coordinates. Less frequently toolbox also employs another coordinate convention called spatial coordinates, which uses x to refer to column and y to refer to row. This is the quite opposite of our use of variables x and y. Image as Matrices: The discussion which we have done leads to the following representation for a digitized image function: f (0,0) f(0,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(0,N-1) f(1,0) f(1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(1,N-1) f(xylem)= . . . . . . f(M-1,0) f(M-1,1) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ f(M-1,N-1) The right side of this equation represents a digital image by the definition. Each element which is in this array is called an image element, picture element, pixel or a pel. The terms image or pixel are used throughout the our discussions from now to denote a digital image and its elements. A digital image can be represented by a MATLAB matrix naturally as : f(1,1) f(1,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. f(1,N) f(2,1) f(2,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. f(2,N) . . . f = . . . f(M,1) f(M,2) †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.f(M,N) Where f(1,1) = f(0,0) (note use of a monoscope font to denote the MATLAB quantities). We can see clearly that the two representations are identical, except for the shift in the origin. The notation f(p ,q) denotes that the element is located in row p and the column q. For example f(6,2) denotes that the element is in the sixth row and second column of the matrix f. Typically here we use the letters M and N to denote the number of rows and columns respectively in a matrix. A 1xN matrix is known as a row vector whereas an Mx1 matrix is known as a column vector. A 11 matrix is a scalar matrix. Matrices in the MATLAB are stored in variables with different names such as A, a, RGB, real array etc All variables in Matlab must begin with a letter and can contain only letters, numerals and underscores. As noted previously,all the MATLAB quantities are written using the mono-scope characters. We use the conventional Roman or italic notation such as f(x ,y), for the mathematical expressions Reading Images: Using the function imread the images are read into the MATLAB environment. The syntax for this is: imread(‘filename) Format name Description recognized extension TIFF Tagged Image File Format .tif, .tiff JPEG Joint Photograph Experts Group .jpg, .jpeg GIF Graphics Interchange Format .gif BMP Windows Bitmap .bmp PNG Portable Network Graphics .png XWD X Window Dump .xwd Here filename is a string containing the complete image file(including applicable extensions if any).For example the command line >> f = imread (‘8. jpg); reads the JPEG (in the above table) image chestxray into image array f. Note that the use of the single quotes (‘) is to delimit the string filename. The semicolon at the end of a command line is used for suppressing output in the MATLAB. If the semicolon is not includedthen the MATLAB displays the results of the operation(s) specified only in that line. The prompt symbol(>>) says that it is the beginning of the command line, as it appears in the MATLAB command window. When in the preceding command line there is no path included in the filename, imread reads the file from current directory and if that fails then it tries to find the file in MATLAB search path. An easy way to read an image from a specified directory is to include a full or relative path to that directory in filename. For example, >> f = imread ( ‘E:myimageschestxray.jpg); This reads an image from a folder called myimages on the E: drive, whereas >> f = imread(‘ . myimageschestxray .jpg); It reads an image from myimages subdirectory of the current of the current working directory. Current directory window on the MATLAB desktop toolbar displays the MATLABs current working directory and provides a simple and a manual way to change it. The table above lists some of the most popular image/graphics formats supported by imread and imwrite. Function size gives the row and the column dimensions of an image: >> size (f) ans = 1024 * 1024 The above function is particularly useful in programming when used in the following form to automatically determine the size of an image: >>[M,N]=size(f); The syntax above returns the number of rows(M) and columns(N) present in the image. On whole the function displays the additional information about an array. For instance ,the statement >> whos f gives Name size Bytes Class F 1024*1024 1048576 unit8 array Grand total is 1048576 elements using 1048576 bytes The unit8 entry shown refers to one of the several MATLAB data classes. A semicolon at the end of a line has no effect ,so normally one is not used. Displaying Images: To diplay images on the MATLAB desktop we can use a function called imshow, which has the basic syntax: imshow(f,g) Where f is referred as an image array, and g as the number of intensity levels which are used to display it. If g is omitted here ,then by default it takes 256 levels .using the syntax imshow(f,{low high}) By using the above syntax it displays an image as black all values less than or equal to low and as white all values greater than or equal to high. The values which are in between are displayed as intermediate intensity values using the default number of levels .The final syntax is Imshow(f,[ ]) Sets the variable low to the minimum value of array f and high to its maximum value. This form of imshow is useful in displaying the images that have a low dynamic range or that have positive and negative values. Function named â€Å"pixval† is used frequently in order to display the intensity values of the individual pixels interactively. This function displays a cursor which is overlaid on an image. As and when the cursor is moved over the particular image with the mouse the coordinates of the cursor position and the corresponding intensity values are shown on the display that appears below the figure window .When working with the color images, the coordinates as well as the red, green and blue components are also displayed. If the left button of the mouse is clicked and then held pressed, pixval displays the Euclidean distance between the initial and the current cursor locations. The syntax form of interest here is Pixval which shows a cursor on the last image displayed. Clicking the button X on the cursor window turns it off. The following statements read from a disk an image called rose_512.tif extract basic information about that image and display it using imshow : >>f=imread(‘rose_512.tif); >>whos f Name Size Bytes Class F 512*512 262144 unit8 array Grand total is 262144 elements using 262144 bytes >>imshow(f) A semicolon at the end of an imshow line has no effect, so normally it is not used. If another image named g, is displayed using imshow, MATLAB replaces the image which is in the screen with the new image. To keep the first image and output the second image, we use a function figure as follows: >>figure ,imshow(g) Using the statement >>imshow(f),figure ,imshow(g) displays both the images. Keep in mind that more than one command can be written on a line ,as long as different commands are properly delimited by commas or semicolons. As mentioned, a semicolon is normally used whenever it is desired to suppress screen outputs from a command line. Suppose that we have just read an image h and find that using imshow produces an image. It is clearly understood that this image has a low dynamic range, which can be remedied for display purposes by using the statement. >>imshow(h,[ ]) WRITING IMAGES: By using the function imwrite images are written to disk ,which has the following basic syntax: Imwrite (f,filename) With the above syntax, the string which is contained in the filename must include a recognized file format extension.Alternatively, a desired format can be specified explicitly with a third input argument. >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1,tif) Or >>imwrite(f,patient10_run1.tif) In the above example the command writes f to a TIFF file named patient10_run1: If filename contains no information on the path of the file, then imwrite saves the file in the current working directory. The imwrite function can have some other parameters depending up on the e file format selected. Most of the work in the following chapter deals either with JPEG or TIFF images ,so we focus attention here on these formats. More general imwrite syntax which is applicable only to JPEG images is imwrite(f,filename.jpg,,quality,q) where q is an integer which is in between 0 and 100(the lower the number higher the degradation due to JPEG compression). For example, for q=25 the applicable syntax is >> imwrite(f,bubbles25.jpg,quality,25) The image for q=15 has false contouring which is barely visible, but this effect becomes quite applicable for q=5 and q=0.Thus, an expectable solution with some margin for error is to compress all the images with q=25.In order to get an idea of compression achieved and to obtain other image file details, we can use the function imfinfo which has syntax. Imfinfo filename Here filename implies the complete file name of the image stored in the disk. For example, >> imfinfo bubbles25.jpg outputs the following information(note that some fields contain no information in this case): Filename: ‘bubbles25.jpg FileModDate: 04-jan-2003 12:31:26 FileSize: 13849 Format: ‘jpg Format Version: ‘ ‘ Width: 714 Height: 682 Bit Depth: 8 Color Depth: ‘grayscale Format Signature: ‘ ‘ Comment: { } Where size of the file is in bytes. The number of bytes in the original image is simply corrupted by multiplying width by height by bit depth and then dividing the result by 8. The result is 486948.Dividing file size gives the compression ratio:(486948/13849)=35.16.This compression ratio was achieved. While maintaining the image quality consistent with the requirements of the appearance. In addition to obvious advantages in storage space, this reduction allows the transmission of approximately 35 times the amount of uncompressed data per unit time. The information fields which are displayed by imfinfo can be captured to a so called structure variable that can be for the subsequent computations. Using the receding example and assigning the n