Parallel Simulation of Quantum Search

Simulation of quantum computers using classical computers is a computationally hard problem, requiring a huge amount of operations and storage. Parallelization can alleviate this problem, allowing the simulation of more qubits at the same time or the same number of qubits to be simulated in less time. A promising approach is represented by executing these simulators in Grid systems that can provide access to high performance resources. In this paper we present a parallel implementation of the QC-lib quantum computer simulator deployed as a Grid service. Using a specific scheme for partitioning the terms describing quantum states and efficient parallelization of the general singe qubit operator and of the controlled operators, very good speed-ups were obtained for the simulation of the quantum search problem

Forest management communities’ participation in bioenergy production initiatives: a case study for Galicia (Spain)

Bioenergy is the form of clean energy with the greatest potential for growth in Spain, especially in those regions with a large forest area and a high potential for the utilization of forest resources for energy purposes. This is the case in Galicia (a region located in northwestern Spain), where the communal management of forest resources is widespread. Within this type of management, there is a pioneering case study in which biomass energy use activities have been initiated through an international project. The possible success of this project is of great importance since it could represent an alternative to the main energy activity in the common management of forests: the production of wind energy. In recent years, and with a special increase in 2022, Galician public opinion has expressed its opposition to the implementation of new wind farms in its forests. The aim of this article is to analyze whether or not it is profitable for forest management communities to participate in bioenergy initiatives, which is a novel analysis of the Galician geographical area. For this purpose, the main economic and financial variables of the Galician forest management communities participating in the bioenergy project, SilvaPlus Project, have been analyzed, before and during their participation in the project. In addition, a financial comparison is also made with a group of Galician forest management communities without the energy use of their resources. The evolution of the relevant variables, analyzed between 2011 and 2020, shows a generally positive trend in the values of the forest communities participating in the bioenergy generation project, resulting in a positive experience, both environmentally and financially, for the forest community.Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2018/341Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B2018/095Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C2018/48Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431E2018/07Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. RTI2018-099225-B-10

E-Health System for Medical Telesurveillance of Chronic Patients

The current common goal in medical information technology today is the design and implementation of telemedicine solutions, which provide to patients services that enhance their quality of life. Advances in wireless sensor network technology, the overall miniaturization of their associated hardware low-power integrated circuits and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, and intelligent physiological sensor modules with applications in the medical industry. These modules are capable of measuring, processing, communicating one or more physiological parameters, and can be integrated into a wireless personal area network. This paper is dedicated to the most complex Romanian telemedical pilot project, TELEMON, which has as goals design and implementation of an electronic-informaticstelecommunications system, that allows the automatic and complex telemonitoring, everywhere and every time, in (almost) real time, of the vital signs of persons with chronic illnesses, of elderly people, of those having high medical risk and of those living in isolated regions. The final objective of this pilot project is to enable personalized medical teleservices delivery, and to act as a basis for a public service for telemedical procedures in Romania and abroad

Quantum Steganography Based on the B92 Quantum Protocol

This paper presents a communication algorithm in which a grayscale image, shared between two parties, can be used to transmit a secret message, by applying the idea introduced in the B92 quantum protocol. The least significant qubits of the pixels’ representation in certain regions of the image are used. With the help of a server, the algorithm generates a random message, which can further act as a secret key for cryptographic algorithms in order to secure the data that two parties might want to exchange later on. The chosen representation of the image is NEQR (novel enhanced quantum representation) and the platform used for testing the described idea is IBM Quantum Experience, along with the open-source Python framework called Qiskit. This solution allows users to design, implement quantum circuits (containing various quantum gates), and simulate them using real devices and local simulators. An implementation using this platform for a sample image and the corresponding results are also presented in this paper

Integration of a Quantum Voting Scheme into Grayscale Images Using the Novel Enhanced Quantum Representation and Qiskit Framework

This paper illustrates the way a proposed quantum voting scheme can be designed in combination with a steganography technique called Least Significant Bit (LSB), by modifying a small number of pixels in multiple grayscale images. It combines the voting scheme with the novel enhanced quantum representation (NEQR) of an image, where the LSBs of these pixels represent the vote for each entity that takes part in the voting process. A server is also used, not only to count but also to guarantee the integrity of the votes (which is done inherently, by its design and quantum properties). The superdense coding circuit is part of the design, allowing each voter to use one qubit in order to transmit two classical bits (the vote value). The selected platform for testing this scheme is IBM Quantum Experience, together with the open-source framework called Qiskit (written in Python). This framework allows users to create various quantum circuits, using a wide selection of quantum gates, and then to simulate them, either on a simulator or on a real quantum device. The quantum circuits and the measurement results are also presented in this paper

Speeding Up Semantic Instance Segmentation by Using Motion Information

Environment perception and understanding represent critical aspects in most computer vision systems and/or applications. State-of-the-art techniques to solve this vision task (e.g., semantic instance segmentation) require either dedicated hardware resources to run or a longer execution time. Generally, the main efforts were to improve the accuracy of these methods rather than make them faster. This paper presents a novel solution to speed up the semantic instance segmentation task. The solution combines two state-of-the-art methods from semantic instance segmentation and optical flow fields. To reduce the inference time, the proposed framework (i) runs the inference on every 5th frame, and (ii) for the remaining four frames, it uses the motion map computed by optical flow to warp the instance segmentation output. Using this strategy, the execution time is strongly reduced while preserving the accuracy at state-of-the-art levels. We evaluate our solution on two datasets using available benchmarks. Then, we conclude on the results obtained, highlighting the accuracy of the solution and the real-time operation capability

Stateful Library Analysis and Migration System (SLAM)

Interoperability between research management systems, especially digital libraries or repositories, has been a central theme in the community for the past years, with the discussion focused on means of enriching, linking, and disseminating outputs. This paper considers a frequently overlooked aspect, namely the migration of records across systems, by introducing the Stateful Library Analysis and Migration system (SLAM) and presenting practical experiences with migrating records from DSpace and Digital Commons repositories to Figshare