Research on axial bearing capacity of rectangular concrete-filled steel tubular columns based on artificial neural networks

Design of rectangular concrete-filled steel tubular （CFT） columns has been a big concern owing to their complex constraint mechanism. Generally, most existing methods are based on simplified mechanical model with limited experimental data, which is not reliable under many conditions, e.g., columns using high strength materials. Artificial neural network （ANN） models have shown the effectiveness to solve complex problems in many areas of civil engineering in recent years. In this paper, ANN models were employed to predict the axial bearing capacity of rectangular CFT columns based on the experimental data. 305 experimental data from articles were collected, and 275 experimental samples were chosen to train the ANN models while 30 experimental samples were used for testing. Based on the comparison among different models, artificial neural network modell （ANN1） and artificial neural network model2 （ANN2） with a 20- neuron hidden layer were chosen as the fit prediction models. ANN1 has five inputs： the length （D） and width （B） of cross section, the thickness of steel （t）, the yield strength of steel （fy）, the cylinder strength of concrete （fc＇）- ANN2 has ten inputs： D, B, t, fy, f′, the length to width ratio （D/B）, the length to thickness ratio （D/t）, the width to thickness ratio （B/t）, restraint coefficient （ξ）, the steel ratio （α）. The axial beating capacity is the output data for both models.The outputs from ANN1 and ANN2 were verified and compared with those from EC4, ACI, GJB4142 and AISC360-10. The results show that the implemented models have good prediction and generalization capacity. Parametric study was conducted using ANN1 and ANN2 which indicates that effect law of basic parameters of columns on the axial bearing capacity of rectangular CFT columns differs from design codes.The results also provide convincing design reference to rectangular CFT columns.

Geometric attack resistant image watermarking based on MSER

Geometric distortions are simple and effective at- tacks rendering many watermarking methods useless. They make detection and extraction of the embedded watermark difficult or even impossible by destroying the synchroniza- tion between the watermark reader and the embedded water- mark. In this paper, we propose a blind content-based image watermarking scheme against geometric distortions. Firstly, the MSER detector is adopted to extract a set of maximally stable extremal regions which are affine covariant and robust to geometric distortions and common signal processing. Sec- ondly, every original MSER is fitted into an elliptical region that was proved to be affine invariant. In order to achieve rota- tion invariance, an image normalization process is performed to transform the elliptical regions into circular ones. Finally, watermarks are repeatedly embedded into every circular disk by modifying the wavelet transform coefficients. Experimen- tal results on standard benchmark demonstrate that the pro- posed scheme is robust to geometric distortions as well as common signal processing.

Nonpharmaceutical interventions contribute to the control of COVID-19 in China based on a pairwise model

Nonpharmaceutical interventions(NPIs),particularly contact tracing isolation and household quarantine,play a vital role in effectively bringing the Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19)under control in China.The pairwise model,has an inherent advantage in characterizing those two NPIs than the classical well-mixed models.Therefore,in this paper,we devised a pairwise epidemic model with NPIs to analyze COVID-19 outbreak in China by using confirmed cases during February 3rde22nd,2020.By explicitly incorporating contact tracing isolation and family clusters caused by household quarantine,our model provided a good fit to the trajectory of COVID-19 infections.We calculated the reproduction number R=1.345(95%CI:1.230-1.460)for Hubei province and R=1.217(95%CI:1.207-1.227)for China(except Hubei).We also estimated the peak time of infections,the epidemic duration and the final size,which are basically consistent with real observation.We indicated by simulation that the traced high-risk contacts from incubated to susceptible decrease under NPIs,regardless of infected cases.The sensitivity analysis showed that reducing the exposure of the susceptible and increasing the clustering coefficient bolster COVID-19 control.With the enforcement of household quarantine,the reproduction number R and the epidemic prevalence declined effectively.Furthermore,we obtained the resumption time of work and production in China(except Hubei)on 10th March and in Hubei at the end of April 2020,respectively,which is broadly in line with the actual time.Our results may provide some potential lessons from China on the control of COVID-19 for other parts of the world.

Photographic composite detection using circles

In this work, we propose several new methods for detecting photographic composites using circles. In particular, we focus on three kinds of scenes： （1） two coplanar circles with the same radius; （2） a single circle with its discriminable center; （3） a single circle with geometric constraints for camera calibration. For two circles＇ situation, we first estimate the focal length based on the equality of the sizes of two coplanar circles, and then estimate the normal vector of the world circle plane. Inconsistencies in the angles among the normal vectors （Each circle determines a normal vector） are used as evidence of tampering. On the other hand, for the single circle case, we warp the circle to make metric measurement. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, we present results for synthetic and visually plausible composite images.

A new encryption scheme for surveillance videos

In this paper, we propose a novel framework to encrypt surveillance videos. Although a few encryption schemes have been proposed in the literature, they are not sufficiently efficient due to the lack of full consideration of the characteristics of surveillance videos, i.e., intensive global redundancy. By taking advantage of such redundancy, we design a novel method for encrypting such videos. We first train a background dictionary based on several frame observations. Then every single frame is parsed into the background and foreground components. Separation is the key to improve the efficiency of the proposed technique, since encryption is only carried out in the foreground, while the background is skillfully recorded by corresponding background recovery coefficients. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to the state of the art, the proposed method is robust to known cryptanalytic attacks, and enhances the overall security due to the foreground and background separation. Additionally, our encryption method is faster than competing methods, which do not conduct foreground extraction.