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Both the hardening process and formation of microstructure of concrete are significantly influenced by the curing condition. The capillary absorption of concrete is closely related to the structure and distribution of the pores within the material. This paper presents an experimental study on the influence of four curing conditions, i.e., standard curing, natural curing, water curing, and sealed curing, on the capillary absorption of normal concrete. Compressive strength tests on the cylinder specimens that are core drilled from concrete slabs are carried out. The “pie” samples cut from three different locations along the height direction of cylinder specimens are then conducted to measure the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and porosity, which quantitatively characterize the internal state of concrete after 28 days initial curing. In order to realize the continuous observation of water absorption testing, an improved gravimetrical test setup for measuring the sorptivity (the rate of water absorption) of concrete is designed to investigate capillary absorption of the “pie” samples. The experimental results indicate that the curing condition has an important influence on compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, and porosity of concrete. The temperature and relative humidity are the key factors to ensure strength development during the curing procedure and to determine the internal pore structure and the compactness of concrete. For the same curing conditions, the cumulative water content, sorptivity, and porosity of concrete gradually decrease with the increase of distance from the surface, but the ultrasonic pulse velocity reverses.

Since the presentation of NTRU public-key cryptosystem by Hoffstein, Pipher and Silverman, its favorable properties, such as easily created keys, high speed, excellent performance and conjectured resistance to quantum computers, have made it to be of great use. This paper proposes an enhanced scheme based on the hard learning with error over ring (R-LWE) problem to improve the security of the modified NTRUEncrypt presented by Stehle and Steinfled. We used part of the padding ideas of Fujisaki and Okamoto to obtain this scheme. It is semantically secure in strong sense of indistinguishability against adaptive chosen-ciphertext attacks in the random oracle model assuming the quantum hardness of standard worst-case problem over ideal lattices. It is also possible to arbitrarily decrease the error probability, and even to eliminate it completely. We gave the detailed analysis using the known results from classic works. Furthermore, this scheme owns many advantages such as the uniformity of public key, usual assumptions and the freedom for coding messages.

Recently, the critical chain study has become a hot issue in the project management research field. The construction of the critical chain with multi-resource constraints is a new research subject. According to the system analysis theory and project portfolio theory, this paper discusses the creation of project portfolios based on the similarity principle and gives the definition of priority in multi-resource allocation based on quantitative analysis. A model with multi-resource constraints, which can be applied to the critical chain construction of the A-bid section in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, was proposed. Contrast analysis with the comprehensive treatment construction method and aggressive treatment construction method was carried out. This paper also makes suggestions for further research directions and subjects, which will be useful in improving the theories in relevant research fields.

There is close relationship between science & technology inputs and economic growth. Based on the data of science & technology input and economic growth, the paper makes the econometric models analysis on the economic growth and science & technology input of the three major coastal economic regions of China. The paper analyzes and compares the contribution rate of science & technology inputs to economic growth of the three major economic regions.

As an important renewable energy, wind power has been paid more and more attentions in China recent years, in order to weaken the influence of climate change. We should know exactly the benefits wind power can produce, before government formulates relevant policies to accelerate its deployment. In this paper, we calculate the quantity of fossil energy saving and pollutant abatement in its life cycle, comparing with the baseline technology, i.e. 600MW coal-fired thermal power. Considering the damage cost of the pollutants, we can assess the benefits of development of wind power. By our model, we know that wind power can save 0.3839 kgce and avoid 0.203 yuan environmental cost when it generates 1 kWh electric quantity, comparing with coal-fired thermal power.

A meso-scale truss network model was developed to predict chloride diffusion in concrete. The model regards concrete as a three-phase composite of mortar matrix, come aggregates, and the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between the mortar matrix and the aggregates. The diffusion coefficient of chloride in the mortar and the ITZ can be analytically determined with only the water-to-cement ratio and volume fraction of fine aggregates. Fick's second law of diffusion was used as the governing equation for chloride diffusion in a homogenous medium (e.g., mortar); it was discretized and applied to the truss network model. The solution procedure of the truss network model based on the diffusion law and the meso-scale composite structure of concrete is outlined. Additionally, the dependence of the diffusion coefficient of chloride in the mortar and the ITZ on exposure duration and temperature is taken into account to illustrate their effect on chloride diffusion coefficient. The numerical results show that the exposure duration and environmental temperature play important roles in the diffusion rate of chloride ions in concrete. It is also concluded that the meso-scale truss network model can be applied to chloride transport analysis of damaged (or cracked) concrete.