Nabendu Chaki is a Senior Member of IEEE and an Associate Professor in the Department Computer Science & Engineering, University of Calcutta, India. Besides editing several volumes in LNCS, Springer and other series, Nabendu has authored three text books with reputed publishers like Taylor and Francis (CRC Press), Pearson Education, etc. Dr. Chaki has published more than 100 refereed research papers in Journals and International conferences. His areas of research interests include image processing, distributed systems, and network security. Dr. Chaki has also served as a Research Assistant Professor in Ph.D. program (Software Engineering) at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He is a visiting faculty member for many universities including the University of Ca’Foscari, Venice, Italy. Dr. Chaki has contributed in SWEBOK v3 of the IEEE Computer Society as a Knowledge Area Editor for Mathematical Foundations. Besides, being an editorial board member of many internationaljournals, he has also served in the committees of more than 50 international conferences. He is the founding Chapter Chair of ACM Professional Chapter in Kolkata, India since January 2014.Soharab Hossain Shaikh is a faculty member at the A.K. Choudhury School of Information Technology, University of Calcutta, India. After B.Sc. Honors in Computer Science from University of Calcutta in 2001, he completed M.Sc. in Computer and Information Science in 2003 followed by M. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2005 from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Calcutta. He has received a fellowship from the Italian Ministry of Education for Universities and Research (MIUR) for pursuing research work at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice, Italy in 2006-2007. His research interests include image processing, computer vision, biometrics and pattern recognition. He works in active collaboration with AGH University of Science and Technology, Bialystok Technical University, Poland. Mr. Shaikh jointly holds a US-patent on Character Recognition. He has recently submitted his doctoral thesis in the domain of computer vision and image processing. He has served as the reviewer/committee member in many international conferences/symposiums and journals. He is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM. Khalid Saeed received B.Sc degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1976 from Baghdad University, M.Sc and PhD degrees from Wroclaw University of Technology, in Poland in 1978 and 1981, respectively. He received his D.Sc degree (Habilitation) in Computer Science from Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2007. He is a Professor of Computer Science at AGH University of Science and Technology in Poland. He has authored more than 190 publications including 23 edited books, Journals and Conference Proceedings, 8 text and reference books. He supervised more than 110 MSc and 12 PhD theses. His areas of interest are Biometrics, Image Analysis and Processing and Computer Information Systems. He gave 39 invited lectures and keynotes in different universities in Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. The talks were on Biometric Image Processing and Analysis. He received about 16 academic awards. Khalid Saeed is a member the editorial boards of over 15 international journals and conferences. He is an IEEE Senior Member and has been selected as IEEE Distinguished Speaker for 2011-2013and 2014-2016. Khalid Saeed is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Biometrics with Inderscience Publishers.

• Introduction.- A Comprehensive Survey on Image Binarization Techniques.- A New Image Binarization Technique using Iterative Partitioning.- A Framework for Creating Reference Image for Degraded Document Images.- Image Binarization and Its Applications.- Conclusions.

Nabendu Chaki is a Senior Member of IEEE and an Associate Professor in the Department Computer Science & Engineering, University of Calcutta, India. Besides editing several volumes in LNCS, Springer and other series, Nabendu has authored three text books with reputed publishers like Taylor and Francis (CRC Press), Pearson Education, etc. Dr. Chaki has published more than 100 refereed research papers in Journals and International conferences. His areas of research interests include image processing, distributed systems, and network security. Dr. Chaki has also served as a Research Assistant Professor in Ph.D. program (Software Engineering) at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He is a visiting faculty member for many universities including the University of Ca’Foscari, Venice, Italy. Dr. Chaki has contributed in SWEBOK v3 of the IEEE Computer Society as a Knowledge Area Editor for Mathematical Foundations. Besides, being an editorial board member of many internationaljournals, he has also served in the committees of more than 50 international conferences. He is the founding Chapter Chair of ACM Professional Chapter in Kolkata, India since January 2014.Soharab Hossain Shaikh is a faculty member at the A.K. Choudhury School of Information Technology, University of Calcutta, India. After B.Sc. Honors in Computer Science from University of Calcutta in 2001, he completed M.Sc. in Computer and Information Science in 2003 followed by M. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2005 from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Calcutta. He has received a fellowship from the Italian Ministry of Education for Universities and Research (MIUR) for pursuing research work at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice, Italy in 2006-2007. His research interests include image processing, computer vision, biometrics and pattern recognition. He works in active collaboration with AGH University of Science and Technology, Bialystok Technical University, Poland. Mr. Shaikh jointly holds a US-patent on Character Recognition. He has recently submitted his doctoral thesis in the domain of computer vision and image processing. He has served as the reviewer/committee member in many international conferences/symposiums and journals. He is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM. Khalid Saeed received B.Sc degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1976 from Baghdad University, M.Sc and PhD degrees from Wroclaw University of Technology, in Poland in 1978 and 1981, respectively. He received his D.Sc degree (Habilitation) in Computer Science from Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2007. He is a Professor of Computer Science at AGH University of Science and Technology in Poland. He has authored more than 190 publications including 23 edited books, Journals and Conference Proceedings, 8 text and reference books. He supervised more than 110 MSc and 12 PhD theses. His areas of interest are Biometrics, Image Analysis and Processing and Computer Information Systems. He gave 39 invited lectures and keynotes in different universities in Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. The talks were on Biometric Image Processing and Analysis. He received about 16 academic awards. Khalid Saeed is a member the editorial boards of over 15 international journals and conferences. He is an IEEE Senior Member and has been selected as IEEE Distinguished Speaker for 2011-2013and 2014-2016. Khalid Saeed is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Biometrics with Inderscience Publishers.

• Introduction.- A Comprehensive Survey on Image Binarization Techniques.- A New Image Binarization Technique using Iterative Partitioning.- A Framework for Creating Reference Image for Degraded Document Images.- Image Binarization and Its Applications.- Conclusions.

Nabendu Chaki is a Senior Member of IEEE and an Associate Professor in the Department Computer Science & Engineering, University of Calcutta, India. Besides editing several volumes in LNCS, Springer and other series, Nabendu has authored three text books with reputed publishers like Taylor and Francis (CRC Press), Pearson Education, etc. Dr. Chaki has published more than 100 refereed research papers in Journals and International conferences. His areas of research interests include image processing, distributed systems, and network security. Dr. Chaki has also served as a Research Assistant Professor in Ph.D. program (Software Engineering) at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He is a visiting faculty member for many universities including the University of Ca’Foscari, Venice, Italy. Dr. Chaki has contributed in SWEBOK v3 of the IEEE Computer Society as a Knowledge Area Editor for Mathematical Foundations. Besides, being an editorial board member of many internationaljournals, he has also served in the committees of more than 50 international conferences. He is the founding Chapter Chair of ACM Professional Chapter in Kolkata, India since January 2014.Soharab Hossain Shaikh is a faculty member at the A.K. Choudhury School of Information Technology, University of Calcutta, India. After B.Sc. Honors in Computer Science from University of Calcutta in 2001, he completed M.Sc. in Computer and Information Science in 2003 followed by M. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2005 from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Calcutta. He has received a fellowship from the Italian Ministry of Education for Universities and Research (MIUR) for pursuing research work at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice, Italy in 2006-2007. His research interests include image processing, computer vision, biometrics and pattern recognition. He works in active collaboration with AGH University of Science and Technology, Bialystok Technical University, Poland. Mr. Shaikh jointly holds a US-patent on Character Recognition. He has recently submitted his doctoral thesis in the domain of computer vision and image processing. He has served as the reviewer/committee member in many international conferences/symposiums and journals. He is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM. Khalid Saeed received B.Sc degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1976 from Baghdad University, M.Sc and PhD degrees from Wroclaw University of Technology, in Poland in 1978 and 1981, respectively. He received his D.Sc degree (Habilitation) in Computer Science from Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2007. He is a Professor of Computer Science at AGH University of Science and Technology in Poland. He has authored more than 190 publications including 23 edited books, Journals and Conference Proceedings, 8 text and reference books. He supervised more than 110 MSc and 12 PhD theses. His areas of interest are Biometrics, Image Analysis and Processing and Computer Information Systems. He gave 39 invited lectures and keynotes in different universities in Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. The talks were on Biometric Image Processing and Analysis. He received about 16 academic awards. Khalid Saeed is a member the editorial boards of over 15 international journals and conferences. He is an IEEE Senior Member and has been selected as IEEE Distinguished Speaker for 2011-2013and 2014-2016. Khalid Saeed is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Biometrics with Inderscience Publishers.

• Introduction.- A Comprehensive Survey on Image Binarization Techniques.- A New Image Binarization Technique using Iterative Partitioning.- A Framework for Creating Reference Image for Degraded Document Images.- Image Binarization and Its Applications.- Conclusions.