Quantum Computing Feat Is Modern Twist on 150-Year-Old Thought Experiment

 Most interesting, quite technical, thought here .... still pondering

Quantum Computing Feat Is Modern Twist on 150-Year-Old Thought Experiment

UNSW Sydney Newsroom (Australia)

November 30, 2022

Engineers at Australia's University of New South Wales, Sydney (UNSW Sydney) used a updated version of the 150-year-old Maxwell's demon concept to reset a quantum bit to its "0" state. UNSW Sydney's Andrea Morello said the demon in this case is a fast digital voltmeter observing the temperature of an electron drawn randomly from a warm pool, which is colder than the pool and "corresponds to a high certainty of it being in the '0' computational state." The researchers used a real-time decision-making processor within the voltmeter to decide whether to retain the electron for further computations. Morello said the experiment improved the accuracy of quantum computer resetting 20-fold, reducing preparation errors from 20% to 1%.  ... ' 

IBM, Oracle Team for WHO Virus Data Hub: MiPasa

Now have looked at lots of sites claiming to provide accurate data in this space,  and it is clear you can drive wrong results from much that is out there.  So this effort addresses a need.

World Health Organization Teams With IBM, Oracle on Blockchain-Based Coronavirus Data Hub
In Coindesk

Big names including IBM, Oracle and the World Health Organization (WHO) are among the collaborators on an open-data hub that will use blockchain technology to check the veracity of data relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

The solution, dubbed MiPasa, is launching as a “COVID-19 information highway,” said Jonathan Levi, CEO of Hacera, the company that built the platform. 

MiPasa, built on Hyperledger Fabric, is expected to evolve as a range of data analytics tools are added, followed by testing data and other information to assist with the precise detection of COVID-19 infection hotspots.

“We feel that there isn't enough information out there to make informed decisions,” said Levi. “How can we help all the people that would like to get access to data, analyze it and provide insights?”  ... " 

Fixing 3D Print

Instructive example, other applications?

3D Print Jobs Are More Accurate With Machine Learning

USC engineers have developed AI that can make any 3D printer more precise
3D printing is already being used to produce electric bikes, chocolate bars, and even human skin. Now, a new AI algorithm that learns each printer’s imprecisions can tweak print jobs to ensure greater accuracy.

The engineers who developed the algorithm find it increases a 3D printer’s accuracy by up to 50 percent. That can make a big difference for high-precision industrial jobs, says Qiang Huang, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California, who helped create it.

Industrial 3D printers and additive manufacturing devices often use expensive materials, so the cost of throwing out prints that aren’t quite right can add up. For instance, it can cost hundreds of dollars in materials to 3D print a single airplane part. And some printers require seven to 10 drafts per job in order to fabricate an object that is accurate in every dimension and curve.

Huang’s group’s program, PrintFixer, requires a given printer to only produce five to 10 draft objects during initial setup. Once those objects are 3D laser scanned and compared to the computer-aided design (CAD) files that generated them, the algorithm develops a neural net model of the printer’s inaccuracies. ... "

Superforecasting Short Course from The Edge

Quite interesting, free, have followed the concept for some time, but have yet to apply it.  Videos embedded at the link.   Good to see this followup.  Is enough said about embedded risk analysis?  Following.

A Short Course in Superforecasting—Philip Tetlock: An EDGE Master Class
(ED. NOTE: In 2015, Edge presented "A Short Course in Superforecasting" with political and social scientist Philip Tetlock. Superforecasting is back in the news this week thanks to the UK news coverage of comments by Boris Johnson's chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who urged journalists to "read Philip Tetlock's Superforecasters [sic], instead of political pundits who don't know what they're talking about.")

PHILIP E. TETLOCK, political and social scientist, is the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in Wharton, psychology and political science. He is co-leader of the Good Judgment Project, a multi-year forecasting study, author of Expert Political Judgment, co-author of Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics (with Aaron Belkin), and co-author of Superforecasting: The Art & Science of Prediction (with Dan Gardner). Further reading on Edge: "How to Win at Forecasting: A Conversation with Philip Tetlock" (December 6, 2012). Philip Tetlock's Edge Bio Page.

CLASS I — Forecasting Tournaments: What We Discover When We Start Scoring Accuracy
It is as though high status pundits have learned a valuable survival skill, and that survival skill is they've mastered the art of appearing to go out on a limb without actually going out on a limb. They say dramatic things but there are vague verbiage quantifiers connected to the dramatic things. It sounds as though they're saying something very compelling and riveting. There's a scenario that's been conjured up in your mind of something either very good or very bad. It's vivid, easily imaginable.

It turns out, on close inspection they're not really saying that's going to happen. They're not specifying the conditions, or a time frame, or likelihood, so there's no way of assessing accuracy. You could say these pundits are just doing what a rational pundit would do because they know that they live in a somewhat stochastic world. They know that it's a world that frequently is going to throw off surprises at them, so to maintain their credibility with their community of co-believers they need to be vague. It's an essential survival skill. There is some considerable truth to that, and forecasting tournaments are a very different way of proceeding. Forecasting tournaments require people to attach explicit probabilities to well-defined outcomes in well-defined time frames so you can keep score.   ... "