Dinu Coltuc is currently the Director of the Doctoral School in Engineering - Valahia University of Targoviste, and the Director of the Research Center for Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology of Valahia University. He served also as invited professor with ENSIEEE, Grenoble INP (Sept. – Nov. 2009 and Sept. – Dec. 2007), CNRS associate researcher with LIS Grenoble (Oct. 2005 – August 2006), invited professor PAST with ENSIEG – INP Grenoble (Feb. – July. 2000, Feb. – July. 2001, Feb. – July. 2002), invited professor with ESIA Univ. Savoie (Oct. – Dec. 1997, Oct. – Dec. 1998, Oct. – Dec. 1999), France, and associate researcher with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece (Nov. 1993- Feb. 1995). He has been PI or responsible in 14 research projects: 2 exploratory research projects (IDEI), 2 joint research projects, 1 CEEX with Valahia University and 9 research projects as Senior Researcher with the Research Center for Electrical Engineering, ICPE, Bucharest. He authored and coauthored over 100 papers (12 ISI Q1, 4 ISI Q2) in signal and image processing. He has over 2100 citations (Google Scholar). He is Senior Member IEEE (2011), Associate Editor with IEEE Trans. on Inf. Forensics and Security (since Nov. 2016) ISI Q1, Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, ISI Q2 (since Oct. 2016). He served as reviewer for more than 20 journals (IEEE T-IP, IEEE T-SP, IEEE T-MM, IEEE SPL, etc.). Among his contributions one should mention the exact histogram specification, the papers on fast max/min algorithms, multiple fast scan access memory modules and notably the ones in reversible data hiding (more than 50 papers including state-of-the-art algorithms for prediction, low distortion schemes, high embedding bit-rates, high fidelity IPVO, encrypted, robust & fragile data hiding, etc.). He already supervised 4 PhD thesis in reversible data hiding.
- Dinu COLTUCFelix Albu, is professor with Valahia University of Targoviste. Before joining the Valahia University of Targoviste in 2011, he was a researcher at FotoNation SRL (2006-2011), researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2004-2005), DSP engineer at Lake Communication, Dublin, Ireland from 2002 to 2003, post-doctoral researcher at DSP Research Group at University College Dublin, Ireland (1999-2002) and teaching assistant at the Department of Telecommunications, University "Politehnica" from Bucharest (1993-1999). Dr. Albu participated in numerous European projects (e.g. COST (1998), ESPRIT (1999-2002), VISNET and MUHCI (2004-2005)) in several European countries (France, Ireland, and Greece). He participated or led six national research grants (RP, IDEI, PCCA, PED, and bilateral types).He is author/co-author of more than 100 journal papers, book chapters, conference papers, patents in the field of active noise control, neural networks, speech and image processing and has over 1900 citations (Google Scholar). While working at FotoNation/Tessera (www.fotonation.com) he was granted 20 U.S. patents and 2 European patents in the areas of image and video processing. They were incorporated in many top-tier digital cameras and mobile phone cameras sold worldwide. He is an IEEE Senior Member since 2013, a member of the Audio Engineering Society and Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA), a reviewer for multiple prestigious IEEE, IET journals and conferences. He received four best paper awards at international conferences. Since 2015 he is an Associate Editor of Springer’s Pattern Analysis and Applications journal and since 2018 and academic editor of Hindawi’s Shock and Vibration journal. Prof. Felix Albu will be involved mainly in developing fast adaptive algorithms for prediction and in color image subsampling and display. His expertise as PI in a PED project is also welcomed.
- Felix ALBUHenri Coanda graduated in 1993 from the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications, University Politehnica of Bucharest (UPB), PhD 2004 in Automatics of UPB. Assoc. prof. Coanda is currently the Vice-Rector of the Valahia University of Targoviste. He is member of ARACIS, vice-chairman for Broadcasting Technology chapter of the Romanian IEEE section and responsible for VUT CISCO Academy. He has expertise in information theory, communication protocols, embedded systems. He contributed to the development of high bitrate multiple moduli reversible data hiding and to metadata embedding by RDH schemes.
- Henri-George COANDANicoleta Angelescu received the B.Eng. degree in Applied Electronics from Valahia University of Targoviste, Romania, in 2002. She received the M.S. degree in Advanced Telecommunications, Information Processing and Transmission Systems and the Ph.D. degree in the University Polytechnica of Bucuresti with a thesis on “Pattern recognitions with fractal analysis techniques” in 2008. She is currently assoc. prof. and the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology, Valahia University of Targoviste. She has expertise in computer programming and signal/image processing. She already contributed to the implementation and testing of numerous reversible data hiding algorithm in the frame of 3 national research projects.
- Nicoleta ANGELESCUIon Caciula has defended in 2014 a very good PhD thesis (supervised by D. Coltuc) on control distortion of RDH with publications in IEEE ICASSP, IEEE WIFS. He is currently lecturer with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology, VUT. He authored over 40 papers in his research area. He introduced optimization by linear programming in RDH and the very fruitful idea of histogram splitting and optimization on multiple histograms for low distortion RDH.
- Ion CACIULACatalin Dragoi defended an excellent PhD Thesis, supervised by D. Coltuc, in 2016 with outstanding results on prediction improvement. He is currently as. prof. with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology. Dr. Dragoi is PI in a national postdoctoral research project, PNIII-P1-1.1-PD-2016-1666, on reversible data hiding. He authored 23 publications on RDH (4 in ISI Q1 journals) with more than 350 citations (Google Scholar). He serves as reviewer for IEEE T-IFS, IEEE T-IP, IEEE T-SP, JVCI, etc. He is the main author of several important contributions in RDH, including the local prediction (the state-of-the-art in prediction for RDH), the adaptive pairing for 2D RDH as well as of the very efficient high bitrate improved multiple moduli developed in the frame of SWAT project.
- Catalin DRAGOICorneliu-Gabriel Buică graduated the Applied Electronics B.Sc. studies in July 2018, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Electronics, and Information Technology at Valahia University of Targoviste. He graduated the M.Sc. studies at the same faculty in July 2020, specialization Advanced Telecommunication Systems, Information Processing and Transmission. He is a PhD student at Doctoral School of Engineering Sciences, Valahia University of Targoviste since October 2020. His domain of study is Electrical Engineering, and he is studying about the development of RDH algorithms for color images.
- Gabriel BUICA