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Archive for the ‘mathematics’ category: Page 30

Feb 18, 2023

New multi-policy-based annealer for solving real-world combinatorial optimization problems

Posted by in categories: finance, mathematics, policy, robotics/AI

A fully-connected annealer extendable to a multi-chip system and featuring a multi-policy mechanism has been designed by Tokyo Tech researchers to solve a broad class of combinatorial optimization (CO) problems relevant to real-world scenarios quickly and efficiently. Named Amorphica, the annealer has the ability to fine-tune parameters according to a specific target CO problem and has potential applications in logistics, finance, machine learning, and so on.

The has grown accustomed to an efficient delivery of goods right at our doorsteps. But did you know that realizing such an efficiency requires solving a mathematical problem, namely what is the best possible route between all the destinations? Known as the “traveling salesman problem,” this belongs to a class of mathematical problems known as “combinatorial optimization” (CO) problems.

As the number of destinations increases, the number of possible routes grows exponentially, and a brute force method based on exhaustive search for the best route becomes impractical. Instead, an approach called “annealing computation” is adopted to find the best route quickly without an exhaustive search.

Feb 17, 2023

To Teach Computers Math, Researchers Merge AI Approaches

Posted by in categories: mathematics, robotics/AI

Large language models still struggle with basic reasoning tasks. Two new papers that apply machine learning to math provide a blueprint for how that could change.

Feb 17, 2023

Engineers finally peeked inside a deep neural network

Posted by in categories: climatology, mathematics, physics, robotics/AI, sustainability

Say you have a cutting-edge gadget that can crack any safe in the world—but you haven’t got a clue how it works. What do you do? You could take a much older safe-cracking tool—a trusty crowbar, perhaps. You could use that lever to pry open your gadget, peek at its innards, and try to reverse-engineer it. As it happens, that’s what scientists have just done with mathematics.

Researchers have examined a deep neural network—one type of artificial intelligence, a type that’s notoriously enigmatic on the inside—with a well-worn type of mathematical analysis that physicists and engineers have used for decades. The researchers published their results in the journal PNAS Nexus on January 23. Their results hint their AI is doing many of the same calculations that humans have long done themselves.

The paper’s authors typically use deep neural networks to predict extreme weather events or for other climate applications. While better local forecasts can help people schedule their park dates, predicting the wind and the clouds can also help renewable energy operators plan what to put into the grid in the coming hours.

Feb 16, 2023

Quantum Field Theory Pries Open Mathematical Puzzle

Posted by in categories: mathematics, quantum physics, space

The “rank” of a graph is the number of loops it has; for each rank of graphs, there exists a moduli space. The size of this space grows quickly — if you fix the lengths of the graph’s edges, there are three graphs of rank 2, 15 of rank 3,111 of rank 4, and 2,314,204,852 of rank 10. On the moduli space, these lengths can vary, introducing even more complexity.

The shape of the moduli space for graphs of a given rank is determined by relationships between the graphs. As you walk around the space, nearby graphs should be similar, and should morph smoothly into one another. But these relationships are complicated, leaving the moduli space with mathematically unsettling features, such as regions where three walls of the moduli space pass through one another.

Mathematicians can study the structure of a space or shape using objects called cohomology classes, which can help reveal how a space is put together. For instance, consider one of mathematicians’ favorite shapes, the doughnut. On the doughnut, cohomology classes are simply loops.

Feb 16, 2023

Model Shows How Intelligent-like Behavior Can Emerge From Non-living Agents

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, nanotechnology

It acted with rudimentary intelligence, learning, evolving and communicating with itself to grow more powerful.

A new model by a team of researchers led by Penn State and inspired by Crichton’s novel describes how biological or technical systems form complex structures equipped with signal-processing capabilities that allow the systems to respond to stimulus and perform functional tasks without external guidance.

“Basically, these little nanobots become self-organized and self-aware,” said Igor Aronson, Huck Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, and Mathematics at Penn State, explaining the plot of Crichton’s book. The novel inspired Aronson to study the emergence of collective motion among interacting, self-propelled agents. The research was recently published in Nature Communications.

Feb 16, 2023

The math behind engineering living things (TMEB #3)

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, mathematics, media & arts

https://www.youtube.com/live/oO3H1ZYZCz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caT3j

The math behind Evo-devo~

Continue reading “The math behind engineering living things (TMEB #3)” »

Feb 16, 2023

Grid of atoms is both a quantum computer and an optimization solver

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, mathematics, particle physics, quantum physics

Quantum computing has entered a bit of an awkward period. There have been clear demonstrations that we can successfully run quantum algorithms, but the qubit counts and error rates of existing hardware mean that we can’t solve any commercially useful problems at the moment. So, while many companies are interested in quantum computing and have developed software for existing hardware (and have paid for access to that hardware), the efforts have been focused on preparation. They want the expertise and capability needed to develop useful software once the computers are ready to run it.

For the moment, that leaves them waiting for hardware companies to produce sufficiently robust machines—machines that don’t currently have a clear delivery date. It could be years; it could be decades. Beyond learning how to develop quantum computing software, there’s nothing obvious to do with the hardware in the meantime.

But a company called QuEra may have found a way to do something that’s not as obvious. The technology it is developing could ultimately provide a route to quantum computing. But until then, it’s possible to solve a class of mathematical problems on the same hardware, and any improvements to that hardware will benefit both types of computation. And in a new paper, the company’s researchers have expanded the types of computations that can be run on their machine.

Feb 16, 2023

Antidepressants can induce mutation and enhance persistence toward multiple antibiotics

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, mathematics

Antibiotic resistance is a global threat to public health and associated with the overuse of antibiotics. Although non-antibiotic drugs occupy 95% of the drug market, their impact on the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance remains unclear. Here we demonstrate that antidepressants, one of the most frequently prescribed drugs, can induce antibiotic resistance and persistence. Such effects are associated with increased reactive oxygen species, enhanced stress signature responses, and stimulation of efflux pump expression. Mathematical modeling also supported a role for antidepressants in the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant mutants and persister cells. Considering the high consumption of antidepressants (16,850 kg annually in the United States alone), our findings highlight the need to re-evaluate the antibiotic-like side effects of antidepressants.

Feb 15, 2023

What Stephen Hawking would have discovered if he lived longer | NASA’s Michelle Thaller | Big Think

Posted by in categories: alien life, mathematics, particle physics, quantum physics

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Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientific and analytical minds of our time, says NASA’s Michelle Thaller. She posits that Hawking might be one of the parents of an entirely new school of physics because he was working on some incredible stuff—concerning quantum entaglement— right before he died. He was even humble enough to go back to his old work about black holes and rethink his hypotheses based on new information. Not many great minds would do that, she says, relaying just one of the reasons Stephen Hawking will be so deeply missed. You can follow Michelle Thaller on Twitter at @mlthaller.

Continue reading “What Stephen Hawking would have discovered if he lived longer | NASA’s Michelle Thaller | Big Think” »

Feb 14, 2023

How One of the Most Important Algorithms in Math Made Color TV Possible

Posted by in categories: information science, mathematics

A key algorithm that quietly empowers and simplifies our electronics is the Fourier transform, which turns the graph of a signal varying in time into a graph that describes it in terms of its frequencies.

Packaging signals that represent sounds or images in terms of their frequencies allows us to analyze and adjust sound and image files, Richard Stern, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, tells Popular Mechanics. This mathematical operation also makes it possible for us to store data efficiently.

The invention of color TV is a great example of this, Stern explains. In the 1950s, television was just black and white. Engineers at RCA developed color television, and used Fourier transforms to simplify the data transmission so that the industry could introduce color without tripling the demands on the channels by adding data for red, green, and blue light. Viewers with black-and-white TVs could continue to see the same images as they saw before, while viewers with color TVs could now see the images in color.

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