Thresholds : natural phenomena, urban form, equilibrium

My research topic is finding methodologies to address thresholds between natural processes and the urban network to achieve equilibrium between the two at Battery Park community. Phase 1, In this phase, this investigation will seek to look at the definitions of thresholds, and then generate a system to categorize the operations of thresholds in order to understand and access more possibilities for thresholds within landscape. Phase 2 will build on phase 1 by looking at the existing features and subtle processes of the site in order to understand its potentials and problems. Phase 3 will build on phase 2 by figuring out design approaches in order to understand the operation

An XGBoost Algorithm for Predicting Purchasing Behaviour on E-Commerce Platforms

To improve and enhance the predictive ability of consumer purchasing behaviours on e-commerce platforms, a new method of predicting purchasing behaviour on e-commerce platforms is created in this paper. This study introduced the basic principles of the XGBoost algorithm, analysed the historical data of an e-commerce platform, pre-processed the original data and constructed an e-commerce platform consumer purchase prediction model based on the XGBoost algorithm. By using the traditional random forest algorithm for comparative analysis, the K-fold cross-validation method was further used, combined with model performance indicators such as accuracy rate, precision rate, recall rate and F1-score to evaluate the classification accuracy of the model. The characteristics of the importance of the results were found through visual analysis. The results indicated that using the XGBoost algorithm to predict the purchasing behaviours of e-commerce platform consumers can improve the performance of the method and obtain a better prediction effect. This study provides a reference for improving the accuracy of e-commerce platform consumers\u27 purchasing behaviours prediction, and has important practical significance for the efficient operation of e-commerce platforms

Folding-Free ZNE: A Comprehensive Quantum Zero-Noise Extrapolation Approach for Mitigating Depolarizing and Decoherence Noise

Quantum computers in the NISQ era are prone to noise. A range of quantum error mitigation techniques has been proposed to address this issue. Zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE) stands out as a promising one. ZNE involves increasing the noise levels in a circuit and then using extrapolation to infer the zero noise case from the noisy results obtained. This paper presents a novel ZNE approach that does not require circuit folding or noise scaling to mitigate depolarizing and/or decoherence noise. To mitigate depolarizing noise, we propose leveraging the extreme/infinite noisy case, which allows us to avoid circuit folding. Specifically, the circuit output with extreme noise becomes the maximally mixed state. We show that using circuit-reliability metrics, simple linear extrapolation can effectively mitigate depolarizing noise. With decoherence noise, different states decay into the all-zero state at a rate that depends on the number of excited states and time. Therefore, we propose a state- and latency-aware exponential extrapolation that does not involve folding or scaling. When dealing with a quantum system affected by both decoherence and depolarizing noise, we propose to use our two mitigation techniques in sequence: first applying decoherence error mitigation, followed by depolarizing error mitigation. A common limitation of ZNE schemes is that if the circuit of interest suffers from high noise, scaling-up noise levels could not provide useful data for extrapolation. We propose using circuit-cut techniques to break a large quantum circuit into smaller sub-circuits to overcome this limitation. This way, the noise levels of the sub-circuits are lower than the original circuit, and ZNE can become more effective in mitigating their noises

Enhancing Virtual Distillation with Circuit Cutting for Quantum Error Mitigation

Virtual distillation is a technique that aims to mitigate errors in noisy quantum computers. It works by preparing multiple copies of a noisy quantum state, bridging them through a circuit, and conducting measurements. As the number of copies increases, this process allows for the estimation of the expectation value with respect to a state that approaches the ideal pure state rapidly. However, virtual distillation faces a challenge in realistic scenarios: preparing multiple copies of a quantum state and bridging them through a circuit in a noisy quantum computer will significantly increase the circuit size and introduce excessive noise, which will degrade the performance of virtual distillation. To overcome this challenge, we propose an error mitigation strategy that uses circuit-cutting technology to cut the entire circuit into fragments. With this approach, the fragments responsible for generating the noisy quantum state can be executed on a noisy quantum device, while the remaining fragments are efficiently simulated on a noiseless classical simulator. By running each fragment circuit separately on quantum and classical devices and recombining their results, we can reduce the noise accumulation and enhance the effectiveness of the virtual distillation technique. Our strategy has good scalability in terms of both runtime and computational resources. We demonstrate our strategy's effectiveness through noisy simulation and experiments on a real quantum device.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Reexamining the poverty cycle in middle and late adulthood: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study 2002–2014

This study re-examined the poverty cycle among American middle-aged (45~64) and older (≥65) adults using contemporary data and has expanded the understanding of sociodemographic differences in the poverty cycle. Longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (2002–2014) were used. Life tables examined age-specific and cumulative percentages of poverty. Mixed-effect logistic regression models examined the moderation role of sociodemographic characteristics in the relationship between age and poverty. The poverty proportion increased rapidly starting at age 75. The growth rate of poverty risk in late adulthood was found to be greater among women and those who did not receive public pensions. Gender divides in poverty risk in late adulthood could be attributed to the cumulative disadvantages of women’s social roles. The beneficial role of Social Security in late adulthood was supported. Policy advocacy efforts should address the needs of those who are financially vulnerable. Policy options such as financial education and retirement planning were recommended.This accepted article is published as Peiyi Lu, Mack Shelley, and Yi-Long Liu, “Reexamining the Poverty Cycle in Middle and Late Adulthood: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study 2002-2014,” International Journal of Social Welfare (2020) https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.12454. Posted with permission