CryptoMask : Privacy-preserving Face Recognition

Face recognition is a widely-used technique for identification or verification, where a verifier checks whether a face image matches anyone stored in a database. However, in scenarios where the database is held by a third party, such as a cloud server, both parties are concerned about data privacy. To address this concern, we propose CryptoMask, a privacy-preserving face recognition system that employs homomorphic encryption (HE) and secure multi-party computation (MPC). We design a new encoding strategy that leverages HE properties to reduce communication costs and enable efficient similarity checks between face images, without expensive homomorphic rotation. Additionally, CryptoMask leaks less information than existing state-of-the-art approaches. CryptoMask only reveals whether there is an image matching the query or not, whereas existing approaches additionally leak sensitive intermediate distance information. We conduct extensive experiments that demonstrate CryptoMask's superior performance in terms of computation and communication. For a database with 100 million 512-dimensional face vectors, CryptoMask offers ${\thicksim}5 \times$ and ${\thicksim}144 \times$ speed-ups in terms of computation and communication, respectively.Comment: 18 pages,3 figures, accepted by ICICS202

A new merged dataset of global ocean chlorophyll-a concentration for better trend detection

Chlorophyll-a concentration (Chla) is recognized as an essential climate variable and is one of the primary parameters of ocean-color satellite products. Ocean-color missions have accumulated continuous Chla data for over two decades since the launch of SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) in 1997. However, the on-orbit life of a single mission is about five to ten years. To build a dataset with a time span long enough to serve climate change related studies, it is necessary to merge the Chla data from multiple sensors. The European Space Agency has developed two sets of merged Chla products, namely GlobColour and OC-CCI (Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative), which have been widely used. Nonetheless, issues remain in the long-term trend analysis of these two datasets because the inter-mission differences in Chla have not been completely corrected. To obtain more accurate Chla trends in the global and various oceans, we produced a new dataset by merging Chla records from the SeaWiFS, MODIS (Medium-spectral Resolution Imaging Spectrometer), MERIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite), and OLCI (Ocean and Land Colour Instrument) with inter-mission differences corrected in this work. The fitness of the dataset on long-term Chla trend study was validated by using in situ Chla and comparing the trend estimates to the multi-annual variability of different satellite Chla records. The results suggest that our dataset can be used for long-term series analysis and trend detection. We also provide the global trend map in Chla over 23 years (1998–2020) and present a significant positive global trend with 0.67% ± 0.37%/yr

High drug-loaded microspheres enabled by controlled in-droplet precipitation promote functional recovery after spinal cord injury

High drug loading improves therapeutic efficacy and reduces side effects in drug delivery. Here, the authors use controlled diffusion of solvents to precipitate drug nanoparticles in polymer particles while the polymer is solidifying and demonstrate the particles for drug delivery in a spinal cord injury model. Drug delivery systems with high content of drug can minimize excipients administration, reduce side effects, improve therapeutic efficacy and/or promote patient compliance. However, engineering such systems is extremely challenging, as their loading capacity is inherently limited by the compatibility between drug molecules and carrier materials. To mitigate the drug-carrier compatibility limitation towards therapeutics encapsulation, we developed a sequential solidification strategy. In this strategy, the precisely controlled diffusion of solvents from droplets ensures the fast in-droplet precipitation of drug molecules prior to the solidification of polymer materials. After polymer solidification, a mass of drug nanoparticles is embedded in the polymer matrix, forming a nano-in-micro structured microsphere. All the obtained microspheres exhibit long-term storage stability, controlled release of drug molecules, and most importantly, high mass fraction of therapeutics (21.8-63.1 wt%). Benefiting from their high drug loading degree, the nano-in-micro structured acetalated dextran microspheres deliver a high dose of methylprednisolone (400 mu g) within the limited administration volume (10 mu L) by one single intrathecal injection. The amount of acetalated dextran used was 1/433 of that of low drug-loaded microspheres. Moreover, the controlled release of methylprednisolone from high drug-loaded microspheres contributes to improved therapeutic efficacy and reduced side effects than low drug-loaded microspheres and free drug in spinal cord injury therapy.Peer reviewe

Existence and multiplicity of solutions for critical Kirchhoff-Choquard equations involving the fractional pp-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group

In this paper, we study existence and multiplicity of solutions for the following Kirchhoff-Choquard type equation involving the fractional $p$-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group: $M(|u|_mu^{p})(mu(-Delta)^{s}_{p}u+V(xi)|u|^{p-2}u)= f(xi,u)+int_{mathbb{H}^N}frac{|u(eta)|^{Q_lambda^{ast}}}{|eta^{-1}xi|^lambda}deta|u|^{Q_lambda^{ast}-2}u$ in $mathbb{H}^N$, where $(-Delta)^{s}_{p}$ is the fractional $p$-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group $mathbb{H}^N$, $M$ is the Kirchhoff function, $V(xi)$ is the potential function, $0 0$, $f(xi,u)$ is the nonlinear function, $0 < lambda < Q$, $Q=2N+2$, and $Q_lambda^{ast}=frac{2Q-lambda}{Q-2}$ is the Sobolev critical exponent. Using the Krasnoselskii genus theorem, the existence of infinitely many solutions is obtained if $mu$ is sufficiently large. In addition, using the fractional version of the concentrated compactness principle, we prove that problem has $m$ pairs of solutions if $mu$ is sufficiently small. As far as we know, the results of our study are new even in the Euclidean case

On pp-Laplacian Kirchhoff-Schrödinger-Poisson type systems with critical growth on the Heisenberg group

In this article, we investigate the Kirchhoff-Schrödinger-Poisson type systems on the Heisenberg group of the following form: begin{cases} {-(a+bint_{Omega}|nabla_{H} u|^{p}dxi)Delta_{H, p}u-muphi |u|^{p-2}u} = lambda |u|^{q-2}u+|u|^{Q^{ast}-2}u & mbox{in} Omega, \ -Delta_{H}phi = |u|^{p} & mbox{in} Omega, \ u = phi = 0 & mbox{on} partialOmega, end{cases} where $a, b$ are positive real numbers, $Omegasubset mathbb{H}^N$ is a bounded region with smooth boundary, $1 < p < Q$, $Q = 2N + 2$ is the homogeneous dimension of the Heisenberg group $mathbb{H}^N$, $Q^{ast} = frac{pQ}{Q-p}$, $qin(2p, Q^{ast})$ and $Delta_{H, p}u = mbox{div}(|nabla_{H} u|^{p-2}nabla_{H} u)$ is the $p$-horizontal Laplacian. Under some appropriate conditions for the parameters $mu$ and $lambda$, we establish existence and multiplicity results for the system above. To some extent, we generalize the results of An and Liu (Israel J. Math., 2020) and Liu et al. (Adv. Nonlinear Anal., 2022)

Changes in the Ecological Environment of the Marginal Seas along the Eurasian Continent from 2003 to 2014

Based on time-series satellite-retrieved records of the marine ecological environment from Aqua/MODIS, we investigated changes in the sea surface temperature (SST), photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), Secchi Disc depth (SDD), and chlorophyll-a concentration (Chla) in 12 Eurasian marginal seas from 2003 to 2014. Results showed that the SST increased in all 12 marginal seas, with the enclosed marginal seas (i.e., Black Sea, Baltic Sea, Japan Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Persian Gulf) exhibiting relatively higher rates of increase. The PAR generally decreased, except in the European marginal seas, though not significantly. Similar to the changes in the SST, the SDD increased in all 12 marginal seas, with a maximum rate of 3.02%/year (or 0.25 m/year, p = 0.0003) found in the Persian Gulf. As expected, Chla generally decreased in the tropical marginal seas, but increased in the high-latitude marginal seas. The different relationships between SST and Chla changes indicate the complexity of global warming effects on marine phytoplankton in different marginal seas

Scalable Private Decision Tree Evaluation with Sublinear Communication

Private decision tree evaluation (PDTE) allows a decision tree holder to run a secure protocol with a feature provider. By running the protocol, the feature provider will learn a classification result. Nothing more is revealed to either party. In most existing PDTE protocols, the required communication grows exponentially with the tree's depth $d$, which is highly inefficient for large trees. This shortcoming motivated us to design a sublinear PDTE protocol with $O(d)$ communication complexity. The core of our construction is a shared oblivious selection (SOS) functionality, allowing two parties to perform a secret-shared oblivious read operation from an array. We provide two SOS protocols, both of which achieve sublinear communication and propose optimizations to further improve their efficiency. Our sublinear PDTE protocol is based on the proposed SOS functionality and we prove its security under a semi-honest adversary. We compare our protocol with the state-of-the-art, in terms of communication and computation, under various network settings. The performance evaluation shows that our protocol is practical and more scalable over large trees than existing solutions

The Study of Bending and Twisting Input Modalities in Deformable Interfaces

The deformable input provides users with the ability of physical operation equipment to interact with the system. In order to facilitate further development in flexible display interactive technology, we devised FlexSheet, an input device that can simulate the deformation environment. This paper presents two forms of deformation input, bending and twisting, with regard to three selection techniques. We conduct a controlled experiment to select discrete targets by combining two input forms and three selection strategies, taking into account the influence of visual feedback. Further, we use the deformation angle to reflect the degree of deformation and map it to the experimental variables. In accordance with the experimental results, we analyze the experimental performance under three evaluation indexes and prove the viability of our selection technology in bending and twisting input modes. Finally, we provide suggestions on the control level in bending and twisting input modes, respectively

Research on cloud manufacturing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises

With the adjustment of China’s economic structure, it is essential for manufacturing enterprises, especially SMEs, to improve their core competitiveness. Based on the service mode of Cloud manufacturing, this paper designs and develops a cloud manufacturing platform for SMEs. Firstly, according to the characteristics of cloud manufacturing, the overall framework of the platform is determined, and the corresponding function tree is refined. Then, the key technologies are studied, including the modeling and standardization of manufacturing services, the matching of task, the execution, the online monitoring of service, and the evaluation of post-service. The functions of service access, service matching, outsourcing task management, remote monitoring, and evaluation of tasks are realized. Finally, the platform is applied in the mold manufacturing industry, and an example analysis is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed platform