Search Results (16)

Cross-domain underwater object recognition is essential for intelligent visual monitoring in marine ranching, yet domain shift caused by varying water conditions and imaging devices severely degrades model performance. Existing adversarial domain adaptation methods align feature distributions to mitigate domain shift, but they often fail to preserve the fine-grained discriminative structure required for distinguishing visually similar marine species. Discriminator-free adversarial domain adaptation constrains only the sum of singular values, leading to projection distortion, thereby degrading target discriminability. We observe that the discriminative structure of the source domain is encoded in the singular value distribution of classifier outputs, and aligning this distribution across domains, rather than its sum, preserves discriminability during knowledge transfer. Based on this insight, we propose Adversarial Spectral Distribution Alignment (ASDA). ASDA consists of Spectral Distribution Alignment (SDA), which minimizes the Wasserstein distance between source and target singular value distributions, and a Dynamic Feature Queue (DFQ) with an adaptive length schedule that provides stable spectral distribution estimates across mini-batches. By enforcing singular value ratio consistency across all principal directions, SDA achieves fine-grained alignment, which reduces domain discrepancy while preserving discriminative features. Experimental results on two underwater image datasets demonstrate that ASDA outperforms existing domain adaptation methods. Full article

As IoT systems complexity grows, transparent and trustworthy machine-learning intrusion detection systems are crucial. Post hoc explainable AI methods, such as SHAP and LIME, are the most widely used ways to explain how models work, but the degree to which these methods are robust to adversarial conditioning is understudied. In this paper, we propose to create a unified system of evaluating explanation fidelity by using three metrics: sparsity, completeness, and robustness based on minimally distorting DeepFool input perturbations. Our study benchmarks SHAP and LIME across three datasets (BoT-IoT, Edge-IIoT, and N-BaIoT) using four classifiers: CNN, DNN, LSTM, and RF. Our results demonstrate a consistent trade-off: SHAP achieves stronger feature alignment and higher completeness under attack, whereas LIME exhibits greater rank stability in terms of top-k feature overlap. However, LIME also produces more spurious attributions and offers less explanatory power than SHAP, especially in the presence of synthetic features. Our findings reveal that high model accuracy does not guarantee that the provided explanation is also high-fidelity. This investigation highlights the necessity for robustness-aware XAI in cybersecurity and provides reproducible parameters to guide the adoption of XAI in adversarial environments. Full article

As deep learning models are increasingly embedded as critical components within complex socio-technical systems, understanding and evaluating their systemic robustness against adversarial perturbations has become a fundamental concern for system safety and reliability. Deep neural networks (DNNs) are highly effective in visual recognition tasks but remain vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, which can compromise their reliability in safety-critical applications. Existing attack methods often distribute perturbations uniformly across the input, ignoring the spatial heterogeneity of model sensitivity. In this work, we propose the Spatially Distributed Perturbation Strategy with Smoothed Gradient Sign Method (SD-SGSM), a adversarial attack framework that exploits decision-dependent regions to maximize attack effectiveness while minimizing perceptual distortion. SD-SGSM integrates three key components: (i) decision-dependent domain identification to localize critical features using a deterministic zero-out operator; (ii) spatially adaptive perturbation allocation to concentrate attack energy on sensitive regions while constraining background disturbance; and (iii) gradient smoothing via a hyperbolic tangent transformation to enable fine-grained and continuous perturbation updates. Extensive experiments on CIFAR-10 demonstrate that SD-SGSM achieves near-perfect attack success rates (ASR 99.9%) while substantially reducing ${\ell }_2$ distortion and preserving high structural similarity (SSIM 0.947), outperforming both single-step and momentum-based iterative attacks. Ablation studies further confirm that spatial distribution and gradient smoothing act as complementary mechanisms, jointly enhancing attack potency and visual fidelity. These findings underscore the importance of spatially aware, decision-dependent adversarial strategies for system-level robustness assessment and the secure design of AI-enabled systems. Full article

The escalating prevalence of malware poses a significant threat to digital infrastructure, demanding robust yet efficient detection methods. In this study, we evaluate multiple Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures, including basic CNN, LeNet, AlexNet, GoogLeNet, and DenseNet, on a dataset of 11,000 malware images spanning 452 families. Our experiments demonstrate that CNN models can achieve reliable classification performance across both multiclass and binary tasks. However, we also uncover a critical weakness in that even minimal image perturbations, such as pixel modification lower than 1% of the total image pixels, drastically degrade accuracy and reveal CNNs’ fragility in adversarial settings. A key contribution of this work is spatial analysis of malware images, revealing that discriminative features concentrate disproportionately in the bottom-left quadrant. This spatial bias likely reflects semantic structure, as malware payload information often resides near the end of binary files when rasterized. Notably, models trained in this region outperform those trained in other sections, underscoring the importance of spatial awareness in malware classification. Taken together, our results reveal that CNN-based malware classifiers are simultaneously effective and vulnerable to learning strong representations but sensitive to both subtle perturbations and positional bias. These findings highlight the need for future detection systems that integrate robustness to noise with resilience against spatial distortions to ensure reliability in real-world adversarial environments. Full article

The evaluation and enhancement of image aesthetics play a pivotal role in the development of visual media, impacting fields including photography, design, and computer vision. Composition, a key factor shaping visual aesthetics, significantly influences an image’s vividness and expressiveness. However, existing image optimization methods face practical challenges: compression-induced distortion, imprecise object extraction, and cropping-caused unnatural proportions or content loss. To tackle these issues, this paper proposes an image aesthetic evaluation with composition and similarity (IACS) method that harmonizes composition aesthetics and image similarity through a unified function. When evaluating composition aesthetics, the method calculates the distance between the main semantic line (or salient object) and the nearest rule-of-thirds line or central line. For images featuring prominent semantic lines, a modified Hough transform is utilized to detect the main semantic line, while for images containing salient objects, a salient object detection method based on luminance channel salience features (LCSF) is applied to determine the salient object region. In evaluating similarity, edge similarity measured by the Canny operator is combined with the structural similarity index (SSIM). Furthermore, we introduce a Framework for Image Aesthetic Evaluation with Composition and Similarity-Based Optimization (FIACSO), which uses semantic segmentation and generative adversarial networks (GANs) to optimize composition while preserving the original content. Compared with prior approaches, the proposed method improves both the aesthetic appeal and fidelity of optimized images. Subjective evaluation involving 30 participants further confirms that FIACSO outperforms existing methods in overall aesthetics, compositional harmony, and content integrity. Beyond methodological contributions, this study also offers practical value: it supports photographers in refining image composition without losing context, assists designers in creating balanced layouts with minimal distortion, and provides computational tools to enhance the efficiency and quality of visual media production. Full article

Large language models (LLMs) pose significant challenges to content authentication, as their sophisticated generation capabilities make distinguishing AI-produced text from human writing increasingly difficult. Current detection methods suffer from limited information capture, poor rate–distortion trade-offs, and vulnerability to adversarial perturbations. We present CurveMark, a novel dual-channel detection framework that combines probability curvature analysis with dynamic semantic watermarking, grounded in information-theoretic principles to maximize mutual information between text sources and observable features. To address the limitation of requiring prior knowledge of source models, we incorporate a Bayesian multi-hypothesis detection framework for statistical inference without prior assumptions. Our approach embeds imperceptible watermarks during generation via entropy-aware, semantically informed token selection and extracts complementary features from probability curvature patterns and watermark-specific metrics. Evaluation across multiple datasets and LLM architectures demonstrates 95.4% detection accuracy with minimal quality degradation (perplexity increase < 1.3), achieving 85–89% channel capacity utilization and robust performance under adversarial perturbations (72–94% information retention). Full article

In recent years, the use of video content has experienced exponential growth. The rapid growth of video content has led to an increased reliance on various video codecs for efficient compression and transmission. However, several challenges are associated with codecs such as H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding and H.266/Versatile Video Coding (VVC) that can impact video quality and performance. One significant challenge is the trade-off between compression efficiency and visual quality. While advanced codecs can significantly reduce file sizes, they introduce artifacts such as blocking, blurring, and color distortion, particularly in high-motion scenes. Different compression tools in modern video codecs are vital for minimizing artifacts that arise during the encoding and decoding processes. While the advanced algorithms used by these modern codecs can effectively decrease file sizes and enhance compression efficiency, they frequently find it challenging to eliminate artifacts entirely. By utilizing advanced techniques such as post-processing after the initial decoding, this method can significantly improve visual clarity and restore details that may have been compromised during compression. In this paper, we introduce a Deep Residual Enhanced Feature Generative Adversarial Network as a post-processing method aimed at further improving the quality of reconstructed frames from the advanced codec VVC. By utilizing the benefits of Deep Residual Blocks and Enhanced Feature Blocks, the generator network aims to make the reconstructed frame as similar as possible to the original frame. The discriminator network, a crucial element of our proposed method, plays a vital role in guiding the generator by evaluating the authenticity of generated frames. By distinguishing between fake and original frames, the discriminator enables the generator to improve the quality of its output. This feedback mechanism ensures that the generator learns to create more realistic frames, ultimately enhancing the overall performance of the model. The proposed method shows significant gain for Random Access (RA) and All Intra (AI) configurations while improving Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) and Multi-Scale Structural Similarity Index Measure (MS-SSIM). Considering VMAF, our proposed method can obtain 13.05% and 11.09% Bjøntegaard Delta Rate (BD-Rate) gain for RA and AI configuration, respectively. In the case of the luma component MS-SSIM, RA and AI configurations get, respectively, 5.00% and 5.87% BD-Rate gain after employing our suggested proposed network. Full article

As artificial intelligence increasingly automates the recognition and analysis of visual content, it poses significant risks to privacy, security, and autonomy. Computer vision systems can surveil and exploit data without consent. With these concerns in mind, we introduce a novel method to control whether images can be recognized by computer vision systems using reversible adversarial examples. These examples are generated to evade unauthorized recognition, allowing only systems with permission to restore the original image by removing the adversarial perturbation with zero-bit error. A key challenge with prior methods is their reliance on merely restoring the examples to a state in which they can be correctly recognized by the model; however, the restored images are not fully consistent with the original images, and they require excessive auxiliary information to achieve reversibility. To achieve zero-bit error restoration, we utilize the differential evolution algorithm to optimize adversarial perturbations while minimizing distortion. Additionally, we introduce a dual-color space detection mechanism to localize perturbations, eliminating the need for extra auxiliary information. Ultimately, when combined with reversible data hiding, adversarial attacks can achieve reversibility. Experimental results demonstrate that the PSNR and SSIM between the restored images by the method and the original images are ∞ and 1, respectively. The PSNR and SSIM between the reversible adversarial examples and the original images are 48.32 dB and 0.9986, respectively. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, the method maintains high visual fidelity at a comparable attack success rate. Full article

This study proposes a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based method for virtual furniture replacement within indoor scenes. The proposed method addresses the challenge of accurately positioning new furniture in an indoor space by combining image reconstruction with geometric matching through combining spatial transformer networks and GANs. The system leverages deep learning architectures like Mask R-CNN for executing image segmentation and generating masks, and it employs DeepLabv3+, EdgeConnect algorithms, and ST-GAN networks for carrying out virtual furniture replacement. With the proposed system, furniture shoppers can obtain a virtual shopping experience, providing an easier way to understand the aesthetic effects of furniture rearrangement without putting in effort to physically move furniture. The proposed system has practical applications in the furnishing industry and interior design practices, providing a cost-effective and efficient alternative to physical furniture replacement. The results indicate that the proposed method achieves accurate positioning of new furniture in indoor scenes with minimal distortion or displacement. The proposed system is limited to 2D front-view images of furniture and indoor scenes. Future work would involve synthesizing 3D scenes and expanding the system to replace furniture images photographed from different angles. This would enhance the efficiency and practicality of the proposed system for virtual furniture replacement in indoor scenes. Full article

Achieving high attack success rate (ASR) with minimal perturbed distortion has consistently been a prominent and challenging research topic in the field of adversarial examples. In this paper, a novel method to optimize communication signal adversarial examples is proposed by focusing on low-frequency components of perturbations (LFCP). Observations on model attention towards DCT coefficients reveal the crucial role of LFCP within adversarial examples in altering the model’s predictions. As a result, selectively preserving LFCP is established as the fundamental concept of the optimization strategy. By utilizing the binary search algorithm, which considers the inconsistency in the model’s predictions as a constraint, LFCP can be effectively identified, and the aim of minimizing perturbed distortion while maintaining ASR can be achieved. Experimental results conducted on a publicly available dataset, six adversarial attacks and two DNN models, indicate that the proposed method not only significantly minimizes perturbed distortion for FGSM, BIM, PGD, and MI-FGSM but also achieves a modest improvement in ASR. Notably, even for DeepFool and BS-FGM, which introduce small perturbations and exhibit high ASRs, the proposed method can still deliver feasible performance. Full article

Increasingly massive image data is restricted by conditions such as information transmission and reconstruction, and it is increasingly difficult to meet the requirements of speed and integrity in the information age. To solve the urgent problems faced by massive image data in information transmission, this paper proposes a high-quality image compression algorithm based on unsupervised learning. Among them, a content-weighted autoencoder network is proposed to achieve image compression coding on the basis of a smaller bit rate to solve the entropy rate optimization problem. Binary quantizers are used for coding quantization, and importance maps are used to achieve better bit allocation. The compression rate is further controlled and optimized. A multi-scale discriminator suitable for the generative adversarial network image compression framework is designed to solve the problem that the generated compressed image is prone to blurring and distortion. Finally, through training with different weights, the distortion of each scale is minimized, so that the image compression can achieve a higher quality compression and reconstruction effect. The experimental results show that the algorithm model can save the details of the image and greatly compress the memory of the image. Its advantage is that it can expand and compress a large number of images quickly and efficiently and realize the efficient processing of image compression. Full article

Thin clouds in Remote Sensing (RS) imagery can negatively impact subsequent applications. Current Deep Learning (DL) approaches often prioritize information recovery in cloud-covered areas but may not adequately preserve information in cloud-free regions, leading to color distortion, detail loss, and visual artifacts. This study proposes a Sparse Transformer-based Generative Adversarial Network (SpT-GAN) to solve these problems. First, a global enhancement feature extraction module is added to the generator’s top layer to enhance the model’s ability to preserve ground feature information in cloud-free areas. Then, the processed feature map is reconstructed using the sparse transformer-based encoder and decoder with an adaptive threshold filtering mechanism to ensure sparsity. This mechanism enables that the model preserves robust long-range modeling capabilities while disregarding irrelevant details. In addition, inverted residual Fourier transformation blocks are added at each level of the structure to filter redundant information and enhance the quality of the generated cloud-free images. Finally, a composite loss function is created to minimize error in the generated images, resulting in improved resolution and color fidelity. SpT-GAN achieves outstanding results in removing clouds both quantitatively and visually, with Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) values of 98.06% and 92.19% and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) values of 36.19 dB and 30.53 dB on the RICE1 and T-Cloud datasets, respectively. On the T-Cloud dataset, especially with more complex cloud components, the superior ability of SpT-GAN to restore ground details is more evident. Full article

Computed tomography (CT) imaging is vital for diagnosing and monitoring diseases in both humans and animals, yet radiation exposure remains a significant concern, especially in animal imaging. Low-dose CT (LDCT) minimizes radiation exposure but often compromises image quality due to a reduced signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Recent advancements in deep learning, particularly with CycleGAN, offer promising solutions for denoising LDCT images, though challenges in preserving anatomical detail and image sharpness persist. This study introduces a novel framework tailored for animal LDCT imaging, integrating deep learning techniques within the CycleGAN architecture. Key components include BlurPool for mitigating high-resolution image distortion, PixelShuffle for enhancing expressiveness, hierarchical feature synthesis (HFS) networks for feature retention, and spatial channel squeeze excitation (scSE) blocks for contrast reproduction. Additionally, a multi-scale discriminator enhances detail assessment, supporting effective adversarial learning. Rigorous experimentation on veterinary CT images demonstrates our framework’s superiority over traditional denoising methods, achieving significant improvements in noise reduction, contrast enhancement, and anatomical structure preservation. Extensive evaluations show that our method achieves a precision of 0.93 and a recall of 0.94. This validates our approach’s efficacy, highlighting its potential to enhance diagnostic accuracy in veterinary imaging. We confirm the scSE method’s critical role in optimizing performance, and robustness to input variations underscores its practical utility. Full article

The safety and robustness of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have raised increasing concerns, especially in safety-critical areas, such as medical applications. Although CNNs are efficient in image classification, their predictions are often sensitive to minor, for human observers, invisible modifications of the image. Thus, a modified, corrupted image can be visually equal to the legitimate image for humans but fool the CNN and make a wrong prediction. Such modified images are called adversarial images throughout this paper. A popular method to generate adversarial images is backpropagating the loss gradient to modify the input image. Usually, only the direction of the gradient and a given step size were used to determine the perturbations (FGSM, fast gradient sign method), or the FGSM is applied multiple times to craft stronger perturbations that change the model classification (i-FGSM). On the contrary, if the step size is too large, the minimum perturbation of the image may be missed during the gradient search. To seek exact and minimal input images for a classification change, in this paper, we suggest starting the FGSM with a small step size and adapting the step size with iterations. A few decay algorithms were taken from the literature for comparison with a novel approach based on an index tracking the loss status. In total, three tracking functions were applied for comparison. The experiments show our loss adaptive decay algorithms could find adversaries with more than a 90% success rate while generating fewer perturbations to fool the CNNs. Full article

Artistic image completion assumes a significant role in the preservation and restoration of invaluable art paintings, marking notable advancements through the adoption of deep learning methodologies. Despite progress, challenges persist, particularly in achieving optimal results for high-resolution paintings. The intricacies of complex structures and textures in art paintings pose difficulties for sophisticated approaches like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), leading to issues such as small-scale texture synthesis and the inference of missing information, resulting in distortions in lines and unnatural colors. Simultaneously, patch-based image synthesis, augmented with global optimization on the image pyramid, has evolved to enhance structural coherence and details. However, gradient-based synthesis methods face obstacles related to directionality, inconsistency, and the computational burdens associated with solving the Poisson equation in non-integrable gradient fields. This paper introduces a pioneering approach, integrating Weighted Similarity-Confidence Laplacian Synthesis to comprehensively address these challenges and advance the field of artistic image completion. Experimental results affirm the effectiveness of our approach, offering promising outcomes for the preservation and restoration of art paintings with intricate details and irregular missing regions. The integration of weighted Laplacian synthesis and patch-based completion across multi-regions ensures precise and targeted completion, outperforming existing methods. A comparative analysis underscores our method’s superiority in artifact reduction and minimizing blurriness, particularly addressing challenges related to color discrepancies in texture areas. Additionally, the incorporation of pyramid blending proves advantageous, ensuring smoother transitions and preventing noticeable seams or artifacts in blended results. Based on empirical results, our method consistently outperforms previous methods across both high and low resolutions. Responding to these insights, our approach emerges as an invaluable guide for both curators and artists. The algorithm’s performance yields insights that underscore the central role of thoughtful decision making in the creation of art paintings. This guidance extends to informing choices related to color selection, brushstrokes, and various other elements integral to the artistic process. During the creation phase, employing these insights enables artists and curators to optimize not only the digitization but also the subsequent restoration process. This proves especially vital when dealing with the intricacies involved in physically restoring damaged original art paintings. Importantly, our approach not only streamlines the restoration process but also contributes significantly to the preservation and enhancement of the digital representations of these distinctive and often intricate works of art. Full article