Concrete Scheme Research Articles

Automatic Design and Monitoring of Mass Concrete Based on Information Technology

Mass concrete construction has the characteristics of large scale, complex technology, high professional requirements, and complex management. In this paper, information technology is introduced into the construction process of mass concrete, aiming to develop a system that integrates the automatic design and visual management of mass concrete construction monitoring schemes to improve its construction efficiency. In this paper, the automatic design of a mass concrete construction monitoring scheme is designed, the information of its data acquisition terminal sensor is extended, and the sensor information model is created based on the IFC framework. Finally, this paper verifies the feasibility and practicability of the automatic design and visual monitoring of the monitoring scheme through the actual case-commercial complex raft foundation. The results show that the method provides a digital and information platform for mass concrete construction, highlighting the advantages of the proposed method and the traditional method.

Characterization of stability and support force of loess caves in northwest China

Numerous manually excavated loess caves are present within a cultural relic protection zone in the northwestern region of China. The collapse of these caves frequently leads to the cracking, tilting, and even collapse of ancient buildings above, posing a severe threat to the safety of cultural architectural relics. Investigating the stability and characteristics of deformation and failure in loess caves is essential for effectively reinforcing and protecting cultural relics. A two-dimensional model of a loess underground cavern was developed using OptumG2. The stability and modes of deformation and failure in the underground cavern were analyzed through the augmentation of soil gravity and the strength reduction method. This analysis determined the cavern's safety factor, force, deformation and damage mode, and the plastic zone's progression. Numerical simulations analyzed the force characteristics of the support structure under different stress release ratios. The findings revealed that, with the implementation of an anchor rod concrete lining support scheme, the most probable failure mode is a shear failure, initiating at the arch foot. The ground's stress release rate does not influence the safety factor of the cavern but rather the material, design, and strength of the support structure. However, the magnitude of the internal forces acting on the supporting structure by the soil in the cavern is related to the degree of ground stress release. When applied during significant stress release, support structures may experience reduced internal forces, albeit with more substantial stratum displacement; opting for an appropriate stress release when applying support structures is crucial for achieving optimal stratum displacement and lining internal forces.

Uni/multi variate polynomial embeddings for zkSNARKs

AbstractA zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic primitive that enables a prover to convince a verifier the validity of a mathematical statement (an NP statement) without revealing any secret inputs to the verifier. A special case, called zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARgument of Knowledge (zkSNARK) is particularly designed for arithmetic circuit proof systems which have important applications in blockchain privacy. The major computations in this type of zkSNARK proofs with post-quantum security are polynomial evaluations and Lagrange interpolations over finite fields. Given a sequence over a finite field, in the field of coding and sequences research, we understand that there are two representations of the sequence, one is a univariate polynomial and the other, a multivariate polynomial. This is exactly what is done in those zero-knowledge proof systems to transform the proof of a R1CS relation to evaluate uni/multi variate polynomials at some random points in the finite field. In this paper, we present a comparative analysis on how to convert a rank 1 constrained satisfiability (R1CS) system (more general than a circuit system) into a polynomial equality and provide analysis on the concrete complexities of provers, proof sizes and verifiers. We use two concrete zkSNARK schemes, i.e., Polaris, univariate polynomial encodings and Spartan, multivariate polynomial encodings, as examples to show our analysis. Secondly, we propose to select interpolating sets as subfields instead of affine spaces of a large field for Lagrange interpolation. This new method has improved the performance of R1CS encodings largely. We comment that post-quantum secure zkSNARKs yield post-quantum digital signatures with security only depending on symmetric-key schemes. Some open problems are proposed at the end of the paper.

The specifics of the Galois field GF(257) and its use for digital signal processing

An algorithm of digital logarithm calculation for the Galois field GF(257)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$GF(257)$$\\end{document} is proposed. It is shown that this field is coupled with one of the most important existing standards that uses a digital representation of the signal through 256 levels. It is shown that for this case it is advisable to use the specifics of quasi-Mersenne prime numbers, representable in the form p=2n+1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${p=2}^{n}+1$$\\end{document}, which includes the number 257. For fields GF(2n+1)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$GF({2}^{n}+1)$$\\end{document}, an alternating encoding can be used, in which non-zero elements of the field are displayed through binary characters corresponding to the numbers + 1 and − 1. In such an encoding, multiplying a field element by 2 is reduced to a quasi-cyclic permutation of binary symbols (the permuted symbol changes sign). Proposed approach makes it possible to significantly simplify the design of computing devices for calculation of digital logarithm and multiplication of numbers modulo 257. A concrete scheme of a device for digital logarithm calculation in this field is presented. It is also shown that this circuit can be equipped with a universal adder modulo an arbitrary number, which makes it possible to implement any operations in the field under consideration. It is shown that proposed digital algorithm can also be used to reduce 256-valued logic operations to algebraic form. It is shown that the proposed approach is of significant interest for the development of UAV on-board computers operating as part of a group.

Assessing carbon in timber buildings: how to factor in connections, fire protection and soundproofing

The embodied carbon of timber buildings is often miscalculated at early design stages. Primary materials in mass timber developments typically include glulam and cross-laminated timber, the volume of which is estimated and used to quantify upfront carbon emissions. However, to ensure like-for-like comparisons, the impact of metallic connections and, where needed, fire protection (boarding or treatment) and acoustic insulation should also be considered, even at early stages. This is particularly relevant when comparing timber against concrete schemes, which normally do not require additional allowances for connections, fire protection and soundproofing. This study suggests the upfront embodied carbon of a timber superstructure may increase by up to 60% in residential developments and 30% in commercial buildings when considering secondary components critical to the structure. Note that this is an initial study and that more real-world data should be collated to improve the accuracy of these findings, especially for residential buildings.

TASK SCHEDULING IN CLOUD COMPUTING: A PRIORITY-BASED HEURISTIC APPROACH

With the rapid development of cloud computing, more and more enterprises would like to upload and store their data in the public cloud. When the parts of the business of an enterprise are purchased by another enterprise, the corresponding data will be transferred to the acquiring enterprise. For the usual case, how to outsource the computation cost of data transfer to the cloud? How to ensure the remote purchased data integrity? Thus, it is important to study provable data possession with outsourced data transfer (DT-PDP). For the first time, we propose the novel concept: DT-PDP. By taking use of DT- PDP, the following three security requirements can be satisfied: (1) the other un-purchased data security of acquired enterprise can be ensured; (2) the purchased data integrity and privacy can be ensured; (3) the data transferability’s computation can be outsourced to the public cloud servers. For the security concept of DT-PDP, we give its motivation, system model and security model. Then, we design a concrete DT-PDP scheme based on the bilinear pairings. At last, we analyze the security, efficiency and flexibility of the concrete DT- PDP scheme. It shows that our scheme is provably secure and efficient.

Towards Hybrid-Optimization Video Coding

Video coding that pursues the highest compression efficiency is the art of computing for rate-distortion optimization. The optimization has been approached in different ways, exemplified by two typical frameworks: block-based hybrid video coding and end-to-end learned video coding. The block-based hybrid framework encompasses more and more coding modes that are available at the decoder side; an encoder tries to search for the optimal coding mode for each block to be coded. This is an online, discrete, search-based optimization strategy. The end-to-end learned framework embraces more and more sophisticated neural networks; the network parameters are learned from a collection of videos, typically using gradient descent-based methods. This is an offline, continuous, numerical optimization strategy. Having analyzed these two strategies, both conceptually and with concrete schemes, this paper suggests investigating hybrid -optimization video coding, that is to combine online and offline, discrete and continuous, search-based and numerical optimization. For instance, we propose a hybrid-optimization video coding scheme, where the decoder consists of trained neural networks and supports several coding modes, and the encoder adopts both numerical and search-based algorithms for the online optimization. Our scheme achieves promising compression efficiency on par with H.265/HM for the random-access configuration.

Differentially Private Functional Encryption

We address the question of realizing privacy preserving analysis of user data. The abstract scenario considered is that an analyst aims to evaluate a function f on some user data X. To achieve comprehensive privacy, it is necessary to protect the input X directly. However, it is known that f(X) may leak too much information about X as well. A common approach to mitigate such risks is to make the computation differential private. In practice, this is often accomplished by replacing f by a noisy variant f^*. We investigate the use of multi-input functional encryption (MIFE) for achieving input- and output-privacy in one cryptographic mechanism. In a MIFE scheme, a setup authority can generate restricted decryption keys which enable to learn specific functions of encrypted messages, without revealing any additional information. To achieve differential privacy in this process, we introduce as a new cryptographic primitive: noisy multi-input functional encryption (NMIFE). It extends the concept of MIFE such that the decryption key may also encode a noisy function where the noise value is secret. While the change from MIFE to NMIFE is rather straightforward, the challenge is to come up with precise and workable definitions of correctness and security definition that we propose and explain in this work. Here, the security definition is tailored to the use case of differential privacy. As it is a special case of the established notion of full-hiding security, we present a generic transformation that allows to turn any full-hiding MIFE scheme into a secure NMIFE scheme that has practically the same performance as the initial MIFE scheme. Moreover, we make use of the fact that the proposed security definition is less restrictive and present a new concrete NMIFE scheme for evaluating the inner product. It is dubbed DiffPIPE (short for DIFFerentially Private Inner Product Evaluation). DiffPIPE is not the result from the transformation and outperforms all from existing full-hiding MIFE schemes constructed NMIFE schemes. In experiments, we demonstrate its applicability for realizing privacy preserving counting queries on data sets.

Study on Seismic Mechanical Properties of Reinforced Concrete Energy Dissipation Wall and Seismic Response Analysis of Structure

Utilizing the nonlinear finite element analysis software, ABAQUS, an examination is undertaken to evaluate the ductility characteristics and seismic design methodologies pertinent to a representative reinforced concrete hollow high pier. The research encompasses several focal areas: elucidation of seismic design strategies related to ductility categories, exploration of plastic energy dissipation mechanisms, determination of ductility indices, and delineation of structural measures to enhance ductility. Employing the nonlinear FEA software, ABAQUS, it is recommended that the longitudinal reinforcement ratio for ductile piers fall within the range of 0.6% to 4%. Furthermore, for flexible bridge piers, the maximum spacing of confinement reinforcements should either exceed 100 mm, be sixfold the diameter of the longitudinal reinforcement, or equate to at least one-quarter of the pier column’s bending direction section width. Combined with the influence of high pier ductility seismic axial pressure ratio, reinforcement, concrete factors such as factor analysis results, put forward and checking a reinforced concrete hollow high pier ductility seismic optimization scheme, increase the strength of the plastic hinge area section, through the comparative analysis in different seismic strength of plastic hinge unit cloth, maximum ductility coefficient and pier top displacement to verify its influence on the ductile seismic.

A novel packing-coupled stress-strain model for confined concrete

To develop low carbon footprint concrete (LCFC) with less CO2 emissions, various minerals (limestone, metakaolin) and industrial waste by-product (fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), slag) were used to replace cement partially. By optimizing the packing structure, cost-effective, sustainable LCFC with superior strength, workability and durability performances could be achieved. Research studies on fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) confined LCFC showed that the peak stress, strain at the peak stress and post-peak branch of confined LCFC was far different from that of confined conventional concrete (with cement as the cementitious material only) with the same concrete strength and confinement scheme. To look at this problem more scientifically, this paper conducted experimental and analytical studies about the stress-strain curves of FRP-confined LCFC. A total of 45 concrete column specimens consisting of 15 unconfined concrete and 30 FRP-confined concrete were tested under uni-axial compression. The studied parameters were the thickness of FRP, water- and FA/SF-to-cementitious material ratios. Based on the test results, a novel packing-coupled stress-strain model for confined LCFC has been proposed and verified.

Self-Bilinear Map from One Way Encoding System and i𝒪

A bilinear map whose domain and target sets are identical is called a self-bilinear map. Original self-bilinear maps are defined over cyclic groups. Since the map itself reveals information about the underlying cyclic group, the Decisional Diffie–Hellman Problem (DDH) and the computational Diffie–Hellman (CDH) problem may be solved easily in some specific groups. This brings a lot of limitations to constructing secure self-bilinear schemes. As a compromise, a self-bilinear map with auxiliary information was proposed in CRYPTO’2014. In this paper, we construct this weak variant of a self-bilinear map from generic sets and indistinguishable obfuscation. These sets should own several properties. A new notion, One Way Encoding System (OWES), is proposed to summarize these properties. The new Encoding Division Problem (EDP) is defined to complete the security proof. The OWES can be built by making use of one level of graded encoding systems (GES). To construct a concrete self-bilinear map scheme, Garg, Gentry, and Halvei(GGH13) GES is adopted in our work. Even though the security of GGH13 was recently broken by Hu et al., their algorithm does not threaten our applications. At the end of this paper, some further considerations for the EDP for concrete construction are given to improve the confidence that EDP is indeed hard.

Identity-Based Matchmaking Encryption with Equality Test.

The identity-based encryption with equality test (IBEET) has become a hot research topic in cloud computing as it provides an equality test for ciphertexts generated under different identities while preserving the confidentiality. Subsequently, for the sake of the confidentiality and authenticity of the data, the identity-based signcryption with equality test (IBSC-ET) has been put forward. Nevertheless, the existing schemes do not consider the anonymity of the sender and the receiver, which leads to the potential leakage of sensitive personal information. How to ensure confidentiality, authenticity, and anonymity in the IBEET setting remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we put forward the concept of the identity-based matchmaking encryption with equality test (IBME-ET) to address this issue. We formalized the system model, the definition, and the security models of the IBME-ET and, then, put forward a concrete scheme. Furthermore, our scheme was confirmed to be secure and practical by proving its security and evaluating its performance.

Controllable forward secure identity-based encryption with equality test in privacy-preserving text similarity analysis

Text similarity measures have become increasingly pivotal in text-related research and applications, encompassing tasks such as information retrieval, text classification, document clustering. Unveiling the equality relationship between encrypted words is fundamental for ensuring privacy-preserving text similarity. Identity-based encryption with equality test (IBEET) emerges as a promising solution for computing similarity over encrypted data in cloud environment. However, prevalent IBEET schemes often lack control over the lifespan of trapdoors, potentially leading to misuse and unauthorized disclosure of users' privacy. In this paper, we introduce a novel primitive known as controllable forward secure identity-based encryption with equality test (CFS-IBEET), designed to support both permanent trapdoor and temporary trapdoor. We present a concrete CFS-IBEET scheme based on bilinear pairing and conduct a comprehensive security analysis against two types of adversaries in random oracle model. The comprehensive performance evaluation shows that our CFS-IBEET scheme offers significant advantages of high efficiency of encryption, decryption, trapdoor generation and test algorithms as well as the guarantee of controllable forward security, showcasing its applicability for collaborative filtering recommendation system in E-commerce age.

A Traceable Universal Designated Verifier Transitive Signature Scheme

A transitive signature scheme enables anyone to obtain the signature on edge (i,k) by combining the signatures on edges (i,j) and (j,k), but it suffers from signature theft and signature abuse. The existing work has solved these problems using a universal designated verifier transitive signature (UDVTS). However, the UDVTS scheme only enables the designated verifier to authenticate signatures, which provides a simple way for the signer to deny having signed some messages. The fact that the UDVTS is not publicly verifiable prevents the verifier from seeking help arbitrating the source of signatures. Based on this problem, this paper proposes a traceable universal designated verifier transitive signature (TUDVTS) and its security model. We introduce a tracer into the system who will trace the signature back to its true source after the verifier has submitted an application for arbitration. To show the feasibility of our primitive, we construct a concrete scheme from a bilinear group pair (G,GT) of prime order and prove that the scheme satisfies unforgeability, privacy, and traceability.

The more ambidexterity the better? The moderating effect of organizational learning between high-performance HR practices and organizational performance.

The objective of this study is to test the directly impact of high-performance HR practices on organizational performance, and the mediating effect of organizational ambidexterity empirically. Moreover, the moderating role of organizational learning in the relationship between ambidexterity and specialization in exploitation or exploration on firm performance has also been examined. Ultimately, we construct a moderated mediation model. Questionnaires were distributed to the target enterprises mainly through the contacts of the research group members, the local management consulting association and the training opportunities for leaders. Finally, a total of 347 CEO questionnaire data were collected from Chinese SMEs. The sample cover Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Henan, Sichuan and other eastern and central regions. SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that high-performance HR practices had a positive effect on organizational performance and that organizational ambidexterity played a partially mediating role between high-performance HR practices and organizational performance. Further, organizational learning moderated the effects of organizational ambidexterity and organizational specificity on firm performance. This study provided valuable practical insights. On one hand, this study provides a concrete operational scheme for SMEs in China to realize organizational ambidexterity by integrating a series of HR practices such as employees' ability, motivation and opportunity. On the other hand, through organizational ambidexterity, firms can not only obtain organizational long-term performance by enhancing their new product R & D capabilities, that is, exploratory innovation, but also utilize their existing resources to improve and expand their existing products and services, that is, to achieve short-term performance by exploitative innovation.

Transformation from e-voting to e-cheque.

Although e-voting scheme and e-cheque scheme are two different applications, they have similarities in the scheme definitions and security properties. This inspires us to establish a relationship between the two schemes by formalising a generic transformation from e-voting to e-cheque scheme. Firstly, we define the scheme definitions and security models for both e-voting scheme and e-cheque scheme. Subsequently, we demonstrate a generic transformation framework from e-voting to e-cheque with asymptotic complexity of [Formula: see text] and design a formal proof to show that a secure e-voting scheme can be transformed into a secure e-cheque scheme. As a proof of concept, we apply our newly proposed transformation technique to the e-voting scheme proposed by Li et al. and obtain a concrete e-cheque scheme.

VMD: A Visualizable Malware Detection Scheme Based on Multi-dimensional Dynamic Behavior Information

Enormous traditional malware detection methods have been proposed and they are efficient in detecting known malware, however, these methods usually either are ineffective or have high false positive rate in detecting unknown malware. To improve the performance in unknown malware detection, many novel methods are presented by introducing and employing software behavior visualization, Artificial Intelligence, and other popular technologies. Unfortunately, they are still facing the inadequate data utilization and benchmark dataset lack problems. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an effective malware detection method by utilizing multi-dimensional software dynamic behavior information. To construct the concrete scheme, we combine a mapping mechanism from key parameters of software operation to grayscale images with a malware prediction model. In addition, to our knowledge, we constructed the first publicly accessible software dynamic behavior dataset containing over 800 malicious and 600 non-malicious software behavior images. Finally, the experiment results show that our method can effectively detect unknow malware and outperforms the existing comparative baseline schemes in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall.

New Conservative Schemes for Zakharov Equation

New first-order and second-order energy preserving schemes are proposed for the Zakharov system. The methods are fully implicit and semi-explicit. It has been found that the first order method is also massconserving. Concrete schemes have been applied to simulate the soliton evolution of the Zakharov system. Numerical results show that the proposed methods capture the remarkable features of the Zakharov equation. We have obtained that the semi-explicit methods are more efficient than the fully implicit methods. Numerical results also demonstrate that the new energy-preserving schemes accurately simulate the soliton evolution of the Zakharov system.

Optimization method for the length of the outsourcing concrete working plane on the main arch rib of a rigid-frame arch bridge based on the NSGA-II algorithm

In addressing the challenges of determining the length of the outsourcing concrete working planes on the main arch rib of rigid-frame arch bridges—a process often reliant on extensive engineering experience, large-scale manual calculations and lack of multi-objective control. This paper employs the NSGA-II multi-objective optimization algorithm, where the objective functions are set to minimize the maximum compressive stress, tensile stress, and vertical deformation of the arch crown after the bridge was built. Optimization studies of the outsourcing concrete working plane length were conducted in different pouring schemes. Based on the case study of a main arch rib specimen with a span of 60 m, the optimal results for different construction schemes were derived. The uneven stress distribution coefficient of key sections was used as the evaluation index to filter the Pareto-optimized solutions from the NSGA-II optimization results. The experimental results indicated that: (1) Compared with the original pouring scheme, the optimized scheme respectively reduced the structure's maximum compressive stress, tensile stress, and vertical deformation of the arch crown by 4.19 MPa, 0.12 MPa, and 1.74 mm, showing a decline of 24.19%, 19.67%, and 2.82%. (2) Seven distinct outsourcing concrete pouring schemes were devised by altering the number of working planes, segments per working plane, and concrete pouring direction. All schemes achieved favorable optimization results through length optimization, demonstrating the broad applicability of the NSGA-II algorithm. (3) The stress distribution coefficients non-uniformity for the outsourcing concrete of the main arch rib are mostly located in the range of [0.7, 0.8], surpassing the original scheme's 0.69. Therefore, the NSGA-II algorithm not only ameliorates the primary arch rib's stress condition and diminishes the arch crown's vertical deformation, but also elevates the post-construction stress distribution state of the bridge's outsourcing concrete.

FFEC: Fast and forward-secure equivalence-based ciphertext comparability for multiple users in cloud environment

With the expansion of cloud computing, an increasing amount of sensitive data is being encrypted and stored in public clouds to alleviate storage and management burdens. Secure equivalence-based retrieval of ciphertexts for multiple users is crucial in a cloud environment where diverse user data resides for processing purposes. Public key encryption with equality test (PKEET) has been introduced as a cryptographic tool to verify if two ciphertexts under different public keys contain the same message. However, existing PKEET schemes often face misuse of trapdoors due to their unlimited lifespan, potentially leading to unauthorized disclosure of user privacy. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called fast and forward-secure equivalence-based comparability (FFEC) for multiple users by employing a forward-secure PKEET (FS-PKEET). This restricts the retrieval process only to ciphertexts generated prior to the most recent trapdoor update. We present a concrete FS-PKEET scheme based on bilinear pairing and demonstrate its security using Bilinear Diffie–Hellman (BDH) assumption in the random oracle model. Comprehensive performance evaluation shows that our work has much efficiency of decryption, trapdoor generation and test execution thanks to greatly reducing the cost of trapdoor generation and thus is practical for the application of secure ciphertext information retrieval in cloud environment.