(Press-News.org) Existing colour systems, such as RGB and CYMK, are all text-based and require a large range of values to represent different colours, making them difficult to compute and time-consuming to convert. Recently, researchers from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) made a breakthrough by inventing an innovative colour system, called “C235”, based on prime numbers, enabling efficient encoding and effective colour compression. It can unify existing colour systems and has the potential to be applied in various applications, like designing an energy-saving LCD system and colourizing DNA codons.
Currently, the two most commonly used colour systems are RGB (Red, Green, Blue), a light-colour system that contains 3×256 values of letter symbols, and CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key black), a pigment-colour system that contains 4×100 values of letter symbols. Other colour frames such as HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) are derived from RGB and CMYK.
While these colour systems are widely adopted, they have many disadvantages. The letter-based colour codes make them difficult to explicitly express the relationship between colours and compute through mathematical operations, and ineffective in conversions among different colours. Also, each of the R, G and B, encoded as (r, g, b), in the RGB system has 256 values [0, 1, 2, …, 255], while each of the C, M, Y and K in the CMYK system has 100 values. It is difficult to distribute and allocate so many colours and hues on a colour wheel, and a large number of colour values may cause a huge computational burden for combining some of them to generate preferred colours.
To overcome these shortcomings and make a better colour system, a research team led by Professor Way Kuo, President and University Distinguished Professor at CityU, recently created a new and innovative colour framework, C235, based on the prime number theory and Goldbach's conjecture to encode colours and colourize objects.
“Our proposed C235 system offers a unified representation for the efficient encoding and effective manipulation of colour,” said President Kuo. “It opens the door to manipulating colour and light in a broad range of applications.”
The new C235 colour system uses the first three prime numbers, 2, 3 and 5, to represent the three basic colours, red, green and blue, respectively. By using multiplication operations, researchers derived individual codes for each colour lightness and thickness, allowing various colours to be superimposed and mixed.
In the C235 colour system, code <2> is for red, <3> is for green and <5> is for blue. Code <6> = <2X3> is for yellow (Y), code <15> = <3X5> is for cyan (C), code <18> = <3X6> is for yellow-green (YG), and code <45> = <3X15> is for cyan-green (CG). A colour in the C235 system is also associated with a grey level for its lightness/thickness. Since <30> = <2X3X5> represents a white light, the research team uses the powers of 30 (such as 301, 302, 303) to indicate the greyness levels. The general rule is that a higher power represents a darker or thicker colour.
The proposed C235 colour system has many advantages over existing colour systems. First, it is easier to digitalize, as all colours are represented by digital prime numbers. And because of the special property of prime numbers, each colour has only one code. Secondly, the C235 colour system can realize fast conversion between RGB and CMYK systems, and it can compress millions of colours to 1% with Goldbach's conjecture and put them on the same colour wheel, which requires much less storage space, facilitates fast access. Also, it is faster to compute, as various colours in the C235 colour system can overlap and be mixed easily.
The research team showed that the proposed C235 colour system has a lot of potential applications. For example, every pixel on a traditional LCD screen (used on TVs, monitors and mobile phones) needs a total of 24 pulses to drive the LEDs to emit red, green and blue light. But with C235, the number of pulses needed is only a quarter of that needed for a conventional LCD, saving a lot of time and electricity.
The C235 colour system allows users to conveniently merge light and colour and facilitates the design of smart lighting systems, which can be widely used in fashion shows, painting exhibitions and commodity displays. Furthermore, the proposed C235 colour system can be readily adapted for colourizing DNA codons and any objects with multiple attributes.
The findings were published in the scientific journal Light: Science & Applications, under the title “Unifying colours by primes”.
President Kuo, also a Senior Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study at CityU, is the corresponding author of the research. The first author is Professor Li Han-Lin, former professor in the Department of Management Science of CityU. Other collaborators include Professor Fang Shu-Cherng, from North Carolina State University, and Professor Bertrand M. T. Lin, from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
This research received funding from the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study of CityU.
https://www.cityu.edu.hk/research/stories/2023/03/02/cityu-scholars-unify-colour-systems-using-prime-numbers
END
CityU scholars unify color systems using prime numbers
2023-03-02
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
UCD Archaeologist receives prestigious Dan David Prize for research on the invisible workforce behind ancient forms of art
2023-03-02
The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, has announced University College Dublin (UCD) Archaeologist, Dr Anita Radini, as one of nine recipients for 2023.
Each of the winners - who work in Kenya, Denmark, Israel, Canada, the US and Ireland - will receive $300,000 (USD) in recognition of their achievements as emerging scholars and to support their future endeavours in the study of the human past. Dr Radini is the first in Ireland to receive this award.
“Our winners represent the next generation of historians,” said Ariel ...
Putting a price tag on the amenity value of private forests
2023-03-02
When it comes to venturing into and enjoying nature, forests are the people’s top choice – at least in Denmark. This is also reflected in the sales prices of properties with private forest. But beyond earnings potential, this first study of its kind, conducted by the University of Copenhagen, puts a price tag on the so-called amenity value of Danish private forests.
Forests have a nearly therapeutic effect on humans. Perhaps that is why eight out of ten of Danes have wandered in the woods over ...
The map to human and animal behavior
2023-03-02
What are humans? What are animals? And what makes humans unique? The comparative psychologist Fumihiro Kano has set himself a life goal to answer those questions. On 28 February 2023 it was announced that the scientist from the Cluster of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz will receive the Manfred Fuchs Prize from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities of the State Baden-Württemberg for his interdisciplinary work in animal behaviour research.
Photo gallery for the article: https://www.campus.uni-konstanz.de/en/science/the-map-to-human-behaviour
Fumihiro ...
Resistance training improves sleep quality and reduces inflammation in older people with sarcopenia
2023-03-02
Sarcopenia is the decline of skeletal muscle mass with age, leading to loss of muscle strength (to move objects, shake hands etc.) and performance (walking and making other routine movements effectively). It involves chronic inflammation and is associated with cognitive alterations, heart disease and respiratory disorders. In short, it affects the quality of life, reducing independence and increasing the risk of injury, falls and even death.
Sarcopenia affects 15% of adults over the age of 60 and 46% of those over 80. Sleep disorders are also common in these age groups. The aging ...
Bald eagles aren’t fledging as many chicks due to avian influenza
2023-03-02
Bald eagles are often touted as a massive conservation success story due to their rebound from near extinction in the 1960s.
But now a highly infectious virus may put that hard-fought comeback in jeopardy.
Published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, new research from the University of Georgia showed highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as H5N1, is killing off unprecedented numbers of mating pairs of bald eagles.
“Even just one year of losses of productivity like we’ve documented regionally is very concerning and could have effects for decades to come if representative of broader regions,” said ...
New podcast gives parents a “Pediatrician Next Door”
2023-03-02
Imagine if harried parents could get the scientific and clinical expertise of a pediatrician just by walking only a few steps next door. That’s the premise of a new podcast, The Pediatrician Next Door, by Dr. Wendy Hunter, M.D. She brings decades of experience in emergency and primary pediatric care to answer burning questions that parents are reluctant to ask.
“In the emergency room, I saw a great many frustrated parents and their kids who didn’t always get their questions answered by their pediatrician because there just wasn’t time in the clinic,” said Dr. Hunter. “Or, they didn’t have access to their ...
Existing chest scans offer new opportunities for predicting surgical risks
2023-03-02
Instead of special heart scans, physicians can use images of the chest captured months earlier, and for other reasons, to estimate patients’ risk of heart attack or death during several kinds of major surgeries, a new study shows.
Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine analyzed existing computed tomography (CT) scans to estimate levels of hardened (calcified) fatty plaque deposits in the heart’s three largest blood vessels. They found that patients with greater buildup of this plaque had higher chances of developing serious health issues following surgery.
Major surgeries, which usually ...
Using radar to predict Alzheimer’s disease and fall accidents
2023-03-02
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed a method for predicting fall accidents and cognitive illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease by reading a person’s walking pattern with the aid of a radar sensor. The small sensor can be attached to furniture, walls and ceilings, both in the home and in a healthcare setting.
“Our method is both precise and easy to use. It can help healthcare staff to carry out a more reliable risk analysis and tailor interventions to achieve a significant effect early on. Hopefully it can ...
2023 GOLD Report proposes a new definition of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
2023-03-02
New York, NY – March 02, 2023 – Despite COPD’s pervasiveness, it is generally assumed that the main instigator in its development is tobacco smoking. The 2023 Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease or GOLD report is proposing a new definition of COPD, one that acknowledges the key pathogenic role of tobacco smoking but accounts for other factors that also contribute to COPD. The report is now available online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The GOLD 2023 report ...
Physicians should screen youth for cyberbullying, social media use
2023-03-02
Most adolescents and young adults have experienced bullying in some form, with about one-third of them experiencing cyberbullying, contributing to mental health concerns. Cyberbullying involves electronic communication such as texts, emails, online videos and social media, which has become increasingly problematic over the last few decades. Several reasons include the anonymity it allows, the fact that it is not as easily monitored, and that adolescents and young adults have easier access to devices.
In an article published in the journal Primary Care Clinical ...