O romance The Recognitions (Os Reconhecimentos) do escritor norte-americano William Gaddis é um texto auto—reflexivo que retrata a trajetória de Wyatt Gwyon da infância à maturidade, na medida em que ele rejeita e busca a originalidade. O presente trabalho analisa The Recognitions enfocando a problematização dos conceitos de originalidade e autoria propostos pelo romance através de debates sobre a falsificação e o plágio, que remetem a duas noções maiores e mais importantes: autoria e originalidade. O romance questiona a presente demanda por originalidade e discute a possibilidade de ser original. Ele formula uma estética baseada em reconhecimentos que é defendida no romance e usada pelo autor na tessitura do texto. A fim de atingir seus objetivos, este trabalho apresenta os diferentes conceitos associados aos termos originalidade e original, assim como alguns das principais violações relacionadas a eles na sociedade contemporânea. Também oferece um histórico do desenvolvimento dos conceitos de originalidade e autoria na sociedade ocidental, mostrando a crescente importância da figura do autor e o desenvolvimento paralelo dos conceitos de plágio e direito autoral. Os capítulos seguintes dedicam-se a tentar fornecer um relato do romance enfocando os principais personagens, todos artistas, e também uma análise do romance à luz do background histórico e teórico apresentado nos dois primeiros capítulos. O primeiro desses capítulos de análise enfoca a trajetória de Wyatt e suas concepções artísticas. O segundo os reflexos de Wyatt na narrativa, que reforçam a estrutura auto-reflexiva do romance. E o terceiro exemplifica e analisa a estética de Wyatt baseada na noção de reconhecimento, que nada mais é do que a própria estética usada por Gaddis na composição de sua ficção. / William Gaddis’s The Recognitions (1955) is a selfreflexive novel that portrays Wyatt Gwyon’s trajectory from childhood to maturity, as he rejects and searches for originality. The present work bestows an analysis of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the problematization of originality and authorship proposed by the novel by means of the central issues of forgery and plagiarism, which bring with them two larger and more important sister-notions: authorship and originality. The novel questions the prevailing demand for originality and discusses the possibility of being original. It formulates an aesthetics of recognitions defended in the novel and used by the author in the making of this text. In order to do that, this work provides a view on the different concepts associated with the terms originality and original, as well as some of the main infringements related to them in contemporary society. It also offers an account of the development of the concepts of originality and authorship in Western society, showing the growing importance of the figure of the author and the parallel development of the concepts of plagiarism and copyright. The next three chapters are dedicated to attempt to provide an account of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the main artist characters and an analysis of the novel in the light of the theoretical and historical background provided. The first of these chapters focuses on Wyatt’s trajectory and his visions of art. The second identifies and analyses Wyatt’s mirrors in the narrative, which reinforce the self-reflective structure of the novel. And the third chapter exemplifies and analyses Wyatt’s aesthetics of recognitions, which turns out to be Gaddis’s own aesthetics in the making of his fiction.

Diploma thesis is focused on identifiers of vehicles and their parts. The thesis gives an overview about available identifiers situated on the vecihles. Further more the thesis deal with potentional forgery and altering of identifiers and as a next shows potentional ways how to detect a manipulation with them. Practipal part of thesis includes a proposal of methodology for checking vehicles based on identifiers. There was also created a cathalogue of the Skoda vehicles. It gives an overview of identifiers for selected vehicles of the brand Skoda.

Background: With the boom in the internet space and social media platforms, a large number of images are being shared. With this rise and advancements in technology, many image editing tools have made their way to giving rise to digital image manipulation. Being able to differentiate a forged image is vital to avoid misinformation or misrepresentation. This study focuses on the splicing image forgery to localizes the forged region in the tampered image. Objectives: The main purpose of the thesis is to extend the capability of the JPEG Ghost model by localizing the tampering in the image. This is done by analyzing the difference curves formed by compressions in the tampered image, and thereafter comparing the performance of the models. Methods: The study is carried out by two research methods; one being a Literature Review, whose main goal is gaining insights on the existing studies in terms of the approaches and techniques followed; and the second being Experiment; whose main goal is to improve the JPEG ghost algorithm by localizing the forged area in a tampered image and to compare three machine learning models based on the performance metrics. The machine learning models that are compared are Random Forest, XGBoost, and Support Vector Machine. Results: The performance of the above-mentioned models has been compared with each other on the same dataset. Results from the experiment showed that XGBoost had the best overall performance over other models with the Jaccard Index value of 79.8%. Conclusions: The research revolves around localization of the forged region in a tampered image using the concept of JPEG ghosts. This is We have concluded that the performance of XGBoost model is the best, followed by Random Forest and then Support Vector Machine.

An enormous amount of the historical record is currently trapped in non-indexed handwritten format. Even after being scanned into images, only a minute fraction of the existing records can be manually transcribed / indexed with reasonable amounts of time and cost. Although progress continues to be made with automatic handwriting recognition (HR), it is not yet good enough to replace manual transcription or indexing. Much of the recent HR work has focused on incremental improvements to methods based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and other similar probabilistic approaches. In this dissertation we present a fundamentally new approach to HR based on 2-D geometric warping of word images. The results of our experimentation indicate that our approach is significantly more accurate than an existing whole-word approach used for word-spotting, and may also be better than HMM-based HR approaches. Since it is a completely new method, we also believe there is potential for improvement and future work that builds on this approach. In addition, we demonstrate that the approach can be used effectively in the related application domain of signature verification and forgery detection.

The proliferation of multimedia data, including digital images and videos, has led to an increase in their misuse, such as the unauthorized sharing of sensitive content, the spread of fake news, and the dissemination of misleading propaganda. To address these issues, the research field of multimedia forensics has developed tools to distinguish genuine multimedia from fakes and identify the sources of those who share sensitive content. However, the accuracy and reliability of multimedia forensics tools are threatened by recent technological advancements in new multimedia processing software and camera devices. For example, source attribution involves attributing an image or video to a specific camera device, which is crucial for addressing privacy violations, cases of revenge porn, and instances of child pornography. These tools exploit forensic traces unique to each camera’s manufacturing process, such as Photo Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU). Nevertheless, image and video processing transformations can disrupt the consistency of PRNU, necessitating the development of new methods for its recovery. Conversely, to distinguish genuine multimedia from fakes, AI-based image and video forgery localization methods have also emerged. However, they constantly face challenges from new, more sophisticated AI-forgery techniques and are hindered by factors like AI-aided post-processing and, in the case of videos, lower resolutions, and stronger compression. This doctoral study investigates the relevance of exploiting temporal information during the parameters estimation used to reverse complex spatial transformations for source attribution, and video forgery localization in low-resolution H.264 post-processed inpainted videos. Two novel methods will be presented that model the set of parameters involved in reversing in-camera and out-camera complex spatial transformations applied to images and videos as time series, improving source attribution accuracy and computational efficiency. Regarding video inpainting localization, a novel dataset of videos inpainted and post-processed with Temporal Consistency Networks will be introduced, and we will present our solution to improve video inpainting localization by taking into account spatial and temporal inconsistencies at dense optical flow level. The research presented in this dissertation has resulted in several publications that contribute to the field of multimedia forensics, addressing challenges related to source attribution and video forgery localization.

The widespread availability of image editing tools and improvements in image processing techniques make image manipulation feasible for the general population. Oftentimes, easy-to-use yet sophisticated image editing tools produce results that contain modifications imperceptible to the human observer. Distribution of forged images can have drastic ramifications, especially when coupled with the speed and vastness of the Internet. Therefore, verifying image integrity poses an immense and important challenge to the digital forensic community. Satellite images specifically can be modified in a number of ways, such as inserting objects into an image to hide existing scenes and structures. In this thesis, we describe the use of a Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGAN) to identify the presence of such spliced forgeries within satellite images. Additionally, we identify their locations and shapes. Trained on pristine and falsified images, our method achieves high success on these detection and localization objectives.

Authenticity is an interesting and, in some ways, even a problematic term. Yet there is a very special feeling when someone observes a cultural object, knowing it is the real thing. The purpose of this thesis is to examine revealed forgeries for aspects of authenticity and discuss whether these revealed forgeries have something unique they can offer as museum objects. To form a premiss for both the analysis and the discussion of different museum objects, the thesis uses theoretical perspectives from Denis Dutton, David Lowenthal and Siân Jones regarding authenticity and cultural objects. Using the theoretical perspectives as a tool for analysis and discussion regarding the different museum objects, varying patterns of authenticity can be seen. The discussion leads to the conclusion that there are qualities revealed forgeries can offer as museum objects. They can contribute as objects of entertainment, educational purposes or as escapism, for the museum visitor. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:12:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thais Novais de Curtis.pdf: 9918014 bytes, checksum: 2b014b120b5e55edadd2af4e1851a3c5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-31 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This research aims to investigate how the counterfeit of brands and products could be inserted in the imaginary of contemporary culture as an economic and social force. The study is built on issues raised about the current expansion of the forgery market, as well as the immaterial aspect that follows them up, which focuses directly on the emotional consumption, both sensory and experiential. For the last 30 years there has been considerable effort from companies and their marketing and communication sectors in shifting consumer perceptions of what would be the functional properties of the material consumer goods for the brand values, which come to represent a whole universe of culture, experiences, feelings, affection, thereby changing the dynamics of consumption relations. The immateriality that accompanies the product, represented by the brand, is transformed into a commodity and becomes the object of consumer desire. We will examine the hypothesis that the dematerialization of products, resulting from the emergence of the immaterial economy, understood as an economy of knowledge, information and services, and the consequent branding around an universe of values, beyond, therefore, of the physical feature of consumer goods, finds one s way through a wave of forgeries that aims to associate "second line" products with brands established on consumers minds. It will be investigated recurrent immaterial properties that are ascribed to the counterfeit goods and are able to stimulate the perception of experience on individuals minds. Besides the economic value of the counterfeit goods, there are promises of satisfaction that can be fulfilled by both, the original and the copies. It will be also analyzed how the market of fakes can present itself as a marketing strategy for the dissemination of some brands. The research methodology will extend from studies of immaterial economy and its impact on individual consumer, passing through the development of brand concept and its relations with consumption, to the analysis of counterfeit industry. The authors used as reference of the research are Andrea Semprini, Antonio Negri, Gabriel Tarde, Gilles Deleuze, Gilles Lipovetsky, John Kenneth Galbraith, Juliet Schor, Loretta Napoleoni, Martin Lindstrom, Maurizio Lazzarato, Max Lenderman and Walter Benjamin, among others / A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar de que maneira as práticas de falsificação de marcas e produtos conseguiram se instalar no imaginário da cultura contemporânea, como uma força simultaneamente econômica e social. O estudo parte de questões levantadas tanto sobre a atual expansão do mercado de produtos falsificados, quanto do aspecto imaterial que os acompanha, o qual incide diretamente sobre o consumo emocional, de natureza sensorial e experiencial. Nos últimos 30 anos houve um esforço considerável das empresas e de seus setores de marketing e comunicação em deslocar a percepção dos consumidores daquilo que seriam as propriedades funcionais dos bens materiais para os valores da marca, que passam a representar então todo um universo de cultura, de experiências, de sensações, de afeto, modificando com isso a dinâmica de relações de consumo. A imaterialidade que acompanha o produto, representada pela marca, é transformada em commodity e torna-se o objeto de desejo do consumidor. Buscaremos analisar a hipótese de que a desmaterialização dos produtos decorrente da emergência da economia do imaterial, entendida como uma economia do conhecimento, de informação e de serviços, e a consequente construção das marcas em torno de um universo de valores, para além, portanto, dos suportes físicos dos bens de consumo, abre caminho a uma onda de falsificações que buscam, justamente, associar produtos de segunda linha com marcas estabelecidas no imaginário dos consumidores. Serão averiguadas as propriedades imateriais mais recorrentes que são atribuídas aos itens falsificados e capazes de estimular a percepção de experiência na mente dos indivíduos. No limite, para além do valor econômico dos bens falsificados, há as promessas de satisfação, que podem ser cumpridas tanto pelos originais quanto pelas cópias. Igualmente, serão feitas análises apontando de que forma o mercado de falsificações pode apresentar-se como estratégia de marketing para difusão de algumas marcas. A metodologia da pesquisa se estenderá desde estudos sobre a economia imaterial e seus reflexos no sujeito consumidor, passando pelo desenvolvimento do conceito de marca e suas relações com o consumo, até as análises da indústria de contrafação. Os autores que servem como referência da pesquisa são Andrea Semprini, Antonio Negri, Gabriel de Tarde, Gilles Deleuze, Gilles Lipovetsky, John Kenneth Galbraith, Juliet Schor, Loretta Napoleoni, Martin Lindstrom, Maurizio Lazzarato, Max Lenderman e Walter Benjamin, entre outros

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the impacts of the falsification of paintings on the art market and on individuals. Another aim of the thesis is to identify the risk factors of buying art works on the Czech market. The partial aim is to bring to readers a comprehensive view of the issue of the falsification of paintings on the domestic art market. The theoretical part is based on the literature that has not been published so far and maps the basic mechanisms of falsification of paintings. The practical part is based on interviews with experts, criminologists and collectors who have a personal experience of buying a forger. Based on the results of the interviews, the issues of falsification of painting works are answered, the most frequently falsified Czech artists are identified and the risk factors that lead to the purchase of counterfeit. Three artists demonstrate an analysis of expertise and forensic technique in determining the authenticity of the art work.

This project deals with designing and assembling a system for imitation of static and dynamic handwriting characteristics. This system's design takes into account special pen targeted for getting the handwriting characteristics, working with these characteristics and their imitation with a 3D printer altered for this purpose. This topic might be interesting because research about this specific field, which would include a real demonstration of how a signature can be forged using dynamic handwriting characteristics not by forger's hand, barely exists. The problem with preventing forgery is that we need to know the attack well, which is a clear motivation for this project.