Recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is an environmentally friendly building material. This paper investigates the mechanical behavior of recycled aggregate concrete filled steel tube (RACFST) columns exposed to fire. Two groups of 12 columns were designed and tested, under axial compression, before and after fire, to evaluate the degradation of bearing capacity due to fire exposure. Six specimens were subjected to axial compression tests at room temperature and the other six specimens were subjected to axial compression tests after a fire exposure. The main parameters of the specimens include the wall thickness of the steel tube (steel content) and the type of concrete materials. Several parameters as obtained from the experimental results were compared and analyzed, including the load-bearing capacity, deformation capacity, and failure characteristics of the specimens. Meanwhile, rate of loss of bearing capacity of specimens exposed to fire were calculated based on the standards EC4 and CECS28:90. The results show that concrete material has a large influence on the rate of loss of bearing capacity in the case of a relatively lower steel ratio. While steel content has little effect on the rate of loss of bearing capacity of concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) columns after fire, it has a relatively large influence on the loss rate of bearing capacity of the RACFST columns. The loss of bearing capacity of the specimens from the experiment is more serious than that from the calculation. As the calculated values are less conservative, particular attention should be given to the application of recycled aggregate concrete in actual structures.

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BackgroundGemcitabine has been widely used as a chemotherapeutic drug. However, drug resistance, short half-life and side effects seriously decrease its chemotherapeutic efficacy.PurposeThe object of preparing RGDV-gemcitabine was to prolong the half-life, to overcome drug resistance and to eliminate bone marrow toxicity of gemcitabine.MethodsArg-Gly-Asp-Val was coupled with gemcitabine, forming 4-(Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-amino)-1-[3,3-difluoro-4-hydroxy-5-(hydroxylmethyl)oxo-lan-2-yl]pyrimidin-2-one (RGDV-gemcitabine) involving 9-step reactions. The advantages of RGDV-gemcitabine to gemcitabine were demonstrated by a series of assays, such as in vitro half-life assay, in vitro drug resistance assay, in vivo anti-tumor assay, in vivo kidney toxicity assay, in vivo liver toxicity assay and in vivo marrow toxicity assay. The nano-features of RGDV-gemcitabine were visualized by TEM, SEM and AFM images. The tumor-targeting action and release of RGDV-gemcitabine were evidenced by FT-MS spectra.ResultsHalf-life and anti-tumor activity of RGDV-gemcitabine were 17-fold longer and 10-fold higher than that of gemcitabine, respectively. RGDV-gemcitabine, but not gemcitabine, showed no kidney toxicity, no liver toxicity, no marrow toxicity and no drug resistance. The advantages attributed to the nanofeatures of RGDV-gemcitabine were targeting tumor tissue and releasing gemcitabine in tumor tissue.ConclusionRGDV-gemcitabine successively overcame the defects of gemcitabine and provided a practical strategy of nano-medicine.

Multi-key full homomorphic encryption (MKFHE) can perform arbitrary operations on encrypted data under different public keys (users), and the final ciphertext can be jointly decrypted by all involved users. Therefore, MKFHE has natural advantages and application value in security multi-party computation (MPC). The MKFHE scheme based on Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan (BGV) inherits the advantages of BGV FHE scheme in aspects of encrypting a ring element, the ciphertext/plaintext ratio, and supporting the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT)-based ciphertexts packing technique. However some weaknesses also exist such as large ciphertexts and keys, and complicated process of generating evaluation keys. In this paper, we present an efficient BGV-type MKFHE scheme. First, we construct a nested ciphertext extension for BGV and separable ciphertext extension for Gentry-Sahai-Waters (GSW), which can reduce the size of the extended ciphertexts about a half. Second, we apply the hybrid homomorphic multiplication between RBGV ciphertext and RGSW ciphertext to the generation process of evaluation keys, which can significantly reduce the amount of input/output ciphertexts and improve the efficiency. Finally, we construct a directed decryption protocol which allows the evaluated ciphertext to be decrypted by any target user, thereby enhancing the ability of data owner to control their own plaintext, and abolish the limitation in current MKFHE schemes that the evaluated ciphertext can only be decrypted by users involved in homomorphic evaluation. INDEX TERMS Multi-key full homomorphic encryption, ciphertext extension, evaluation key, hybrid homomorphic multiplication, directed decryption.