aspuru-list October 2011

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24 participants
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[Aspuru-Guzik group list] [IACS-events] Seminar Friday, Sept. 16: Bijan Davari (IBM) on The Future of Computing Systems and Technology

by IACS Info

Please join us for the next IACS Seminar. Speaker: Bijan Davari Location: Maxwell Dworkin G125, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge Time: Informal lunch with speaker, 12:30pm. Talk, 1:00pm. Title: The Future of Computing Systems and Technology Abstract: The future of technology will be shaped by the evolution of semiconductors, computing systems, software, and applications. The flow of disruptive innovations will continue to fuel the exponential growth of computational density, and communication speed. This exponential growth creates new applications and new industries, as it leads to new computing architectures which can handle and analyze vast amounts of real-time unstructured data, generated by both people and machines. I’ll explore the indispensable role of the integrated stack, including switching elements, chips, interconnect, system architecture and software, in creating "workload optimized systems." Bio: Bijan Davari received his M.S and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1984. He then joined the IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he worked on various aspects of high-performance CMOS technologies for IBM mainframe and UNIX systems. Davari was appointed IBM Fellow in 1996, and has been the Vice President of Next Generation Computing Systems and Technology since 2003. In this capacity, Davari leads the efforts for the definition and implementation of IBM’s next generation systems, employing massively multi-threaded (MMT) architectures and special-function engines in workload-optimized systems. This activity integrates IBM’s technical disciplines in hardware and software (including silicon, packaging, cooling, system architecture, design tools, compilers, middleware, etc.) with client requirements in the new and emerging business applications in various fields. Davari received the J. J. Ebers award in 2005 and the Andrew S. Grove Award in 2010. He has authored and co-authored more than 70 publications on various aspects of semiconductor devices and technology. He is an IEEE Fellow. For information about future events AT IACS, see http://iacs.seas.harvard.edu/events _______________________________________________ Iacs-events mailing list Iacs-events(a)seas.harvard.edu https://lists.seas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/iacs-events

12 years, 4 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] Harvard Sustainability Science Fellowship for doctoral, post-doc and mid-career fellows - due Jan 15

by Roberto Olivares-Amaya

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dickson, Nancy <nancy_dickson(a)harvard.edu> Date: Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 11:35 AM Subject: [sustsci_fellows] Harvard Sustainability Science Fellowship for doctoral, post-doc and mid-career fellows - due Jan 15 To: "The sustsci_fellows list is a private discussion list for the Sustainability Science Program fellows." < sustsci_fellows(a)lists.ksg.harvard.edu> Bill and I would really appreciate it if you would forward this announcement to your colleagues and circulate it on relevant electronic lists. Thanks. Nancy**** ** ** *Sustainability Science **Fellowships **at Harvard University* *Doctoral, Post-doctoral, and Mid-career Fellowships***** Due date for applications: January 15, 2012**** The Sustainability Science Program<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci>at Harvard University invites applications for resident fellowships in sustainability science for the academic year beginning in September 2012. The fellowship competition is open to advanced doctoral and post-doctoral students, and to mid-career professionals engaged in research or practice to facilitate the design, implementation, and evaluation of effective interventions that promote sustainable development. Some of the most serious constraints to sustainable development lie in the interconnections among sectors: energy’s growing need for water; the impacts of water use on human health; the competition for land among food, energy and conservation initiatives; and the cumulative impact of all sectoral initiatives on climate and other key environmental services. A central challenge moving forward is to develop an integrated understanding of how sectoral initiatives for sustainability can compete with and complement one another in particular regional contexts. The 2012-13 fellowship competition will therefore focus on regional initiatives pursing an integrated perspective on sustainable development in India, China and Brazil. It will also include a cross-cutting research initiative to integrate work focused on the theme of Innovation for Sustainable Development. Preference in this year’s competition will be given to applicants whose proposals complement one or more of these four initiatives. The Initiatives<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci/grants-fellowships/…>(see below), are led by Professors William Clark<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/william-clark>, Michael Kremer <http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/>, Henry Lee<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/henry-lee>, Paul Moorcroft<http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/moorcroft/moorcroft-oeb.html>, and Rohini Pande<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rohini-pande>. The Program is also open, however, to strong proposals in any area of sustainability science. In addition to general funds available to support this fellowship offering, special funding for the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowships in Sustainability Science<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci/grants-fellowships#3> is available to support citizens of Italy, Brazil, China, India or developing countries who are therefore especially encouraged to apply. For more information on the fellowships application process see http://www.cid.harvard.edu/sustsci/fellowship. Applications are due January 15, 2012 and decisions will be announced by March 2012.**** ** ** *India: Building public-private partnerships to promote sustainable development in India* *Faculty leader*: Rohini Pande<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rohini-pande>, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy**** Sustainable development, by its nature, requires government and private actors to work together. Externalities from rapid growth, such as the depletion of subsidized resources, widespread air and water pollution or unsustainable energy use, arise from a joint failure of government and industry to create an economy where the most profitable action is also best socially. The India Initiative will address sustainability problems in India of both national and global import. The motivation for this research program is to work with governments to channel the enterprising potential of the private sector to correct such externalities. The research will address questions in sustainable environmental regulation and provide evidence on how public-private partnerships can contribute to solving existing challenges. We focus on three research areas. First, existing environmental regulations are weakly enforced by possibly under-resourced regulators, leading to poor environmental quality. Second, traditional regulations, even if strengthened, are not the right tools to address many of India’s pollution problems. Third, from the perspective of sustainability of resource use, India’s inefficient and rapidly growing energy consumption threatens to undermine its own development by contributing to global climate change. The research team will partner with government and private institutions in order to conduct field trials of innovative environmental policies to provide rigorous evidence on the impact of these policies for sustainable development. Doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career candidates are encouraged to apply.**** * * *China: Energy in China: Environmental implications and management for sustainable development* *Faculty leader*: Henry Lee<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/henry-lee>, Jassim M. Jaidah Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program**** The China Initiative will address the environmental implications of electrification and other energy policies in China and explore how China can manage these implications. Fellows will work to identify and promote policies that will contribute to thoughtful use of China's natural resources (e.g., water, land) and/or the adoption of cleaner and less carbon-intensive industrial and energy technologies. Research areas include, but are not limited to: analyzing the impact of energy and industrial policies on water scarcity; assessing barriers to the development or deployment of cleaner energy technologies; and studying the impact of industrialization on health and fragile ecosystems. Post-doctoral and mid-career candidates, especially those who speak Chinese, are particularly encouraged to apply.**** ** ** *Brazil: Sustainable Development of the Amazon and its surrounding regions: The interplay of climate, hydrology, and land use* *Faculty leader:** *Paul Moorcroft<http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/moorcroft/moorcroft-oeb.html>, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology**** Ongoing agricultural expansion and other land use changes in Amazonia and the surrounding regions are expected to continue over the next several decades as global demand for food and biofuel increases and regional economies expand. The conversion of natural forest and cerrado ecosystems to pastureland and agricultural crops creates warmer and drier atmospheric conditions than the native vegetation. In addition, human induced climate change arising from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is also expected to push the Amazon region towards a warmer and drier state. In a number of recent climate modeling studies, the Amazon has been shown to exhibit two contrasting states for the water cycle and ecosystems of the region: a moist forested state, and an alternate drier and warmer state with sparser vegetation. This has raised the question of whether deforestation and conversion to agricultural land cause the atmosphere-vegetation-hydrologic system of the Amazon to switch from its current moist state to the warmer and drier one? And if so, will this new state have sufficient precipitation to sustain the native forest and productivity of adjacent agricultural areas? In this study we propose to answer these questions by developing a coupled vegetation-atmosphere model to investigate the stability of the Amazonian hydrologic system (“rivers in the sky” as well as flows on the ground) to scenarios of land use and climate change . We expect to come closer to capturing the true response and thresholds of the Amazonian system than previous studies because our model has a more realistic representation of the dynamic response of the native vegetation, and the study will incorporate a range of land change scenarios. By doing so we will be able to answer the question: How much deforestation is too much? Post-doc candidates who have experience with integrated land-water-climate models and/or experience analyzing patterns and trends of land use and land use change are particularly encouraged to apply.**** ** ** *Innovation for Sustainability: Enhancing the Production of Essential Global Public Goods* *Faculty leaders*: **** William Clark<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/william-clark>, Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development**** Michael Kremer, <http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/>Gates Professor of Developing Countries and Professor of Economics** This Initiative seeks to transform our understanding of the processes governing innovation in the production of global public goods (GPGs) needed for a transition toward sustainability. In particular, we aim to discover how innovation systems can be designed that will simultaneously stimulate needed inventions and promote widespread and equitable access to the fruits of those inventions. The last two decades have served up a surprising number of ad-hoc operational experiments in improving the production of sustainability GPGs on topics as different as anti-retroviral medicines for HIV/AIDS, the development of gene banks, and the deployment of famine early warning systems. Those experiments, however, are generally poorly described, little known beyond their respective sectors and therefore not contributing as much as they might to understanding or promoting the production of GPGs essential for sustainability. This project is an effort to move to the next level of integrated and synthetic understanding. We propose a 3 track approach: 1*) Reconceptualizing innovation of global public goods for sustainability: *We will construct, apply, evaluate and revise an integrated framework for understanding the innovation process involved in the production of sustainability GPGs. *2) Comparing sectoral experiences*: We will analyze a global cross-section of ad hoc experiments in new ways of providing sustainability GPGs using a template. 3) *Conducting in-depth empirical studies*: We will carry out a set of detailed empirical studies to test specific hypotheses about successful production of sustainability GPGs that arise from our sectoral comparisons. This research will employ our conceptual framework to pose similar questions across sectors and countries about how the system of GPG provision has responded to the full range of “push” and “pull” mechanisms that we will have identified through our sectoral comparisons. Doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career candidates are encouraged to apply.**** ** ** --- You are currently subscribed to sustsci_fellows as: robolivares(a)gmail.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://lists.ksg.harvard.edu/u?id=105092.99c27da1c564e104bb83caba6dd9f2c9&n… or send a blank email to leave-65074-105092.99c27da1c564e104bb83caba6dd9f2c9(a)lists.ksg.harvard.edu

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] [qip] UPDATED: QIP seminar, Mon 10/31, 4:00, 6C-442, Pawel Wocjan

by Byron Coffin Drury

MIT Quantum Information Processing seminar Monday 10/31 at 4:00 in 6C-442 ------------------------------------------------- Pawel Wocjan (University of Central Florida) Quantum Algorithm for Computing the Period Lattice of an Infrastructure Abstract: We present an efficient quantum algorithm for computing the period lattice of infrastructures of fixed dimension. The algorithm applies to infrastructures that satisfy certain conditions. The latter are always fulfilled for infrastructures obtained from global fields, i.e., algebraic number fields and function fields with finite constant fields. The first of our main contributions is a rigorous and complete proof that the running time of the algorithm is polynomial in the logarithm of the determinant of the period lattice and exponential in the dimension n. The second main contribution is the determination of an explicit lower bound on the success probability of our algorithm which improves on the bounds given in the works of Hallgren and Schmidt and Vollmer. The exponential scaling seems inevitable because the best currently known methods for carrying out fundamental arithmetic operations in infrastructures obtained from algebraic number fields take exponential time. In contrast, the problem of computing the period lattice of infrastructures arising from function fields can be solved without the exponential dependence on the dimension n since this problem reduces efficiently to the abelian hidden subgroup problem. This is also true for other important computational problems in algebraic geometry. The running time of the best classical algorithms for infrastructures arising from global fields increases subexponentially with the determinant of the period lattice. The talk is based on two articles: one with Felix Fontein and one with Pradeep Sarvepalli. _______________________________________________ qip mailing list qip(a)mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/qip

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] [qip] today and tomorrow

by Edward Farhi

Hi Quanta Today Pawel Wocjan is speaking at 4:00 in 6C-442. His topic is "Quantum Algorithms for One-Dimensional Infrastructures". We will have our usual group meeting tomorrow at 11:00. Pawel will come and tell us about other stuff on his mind. Beni is also on the agenda. Best, Eddie ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Edward Farhi Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics Director Center for Theoretical Physics Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6-300 Cambridge MA 02139 617 253 4871 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: _______________________________________________ qip mailing list qip(a)mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/qip

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] [Aspuru-meetings-list] Group meeting by David tomorrow

by Joel Yuen

When: Monday, October 31, from 2 to 3 PM Where: Cabot Division Room at Mallinckrodt. What: David is up for group meeting: Density Functional theory (DFT) and its time-dependent extension (TDDFT) have become widely used methods in computational electronic structure theory. DFT and TDDFT are based on rigorous theorems, which reformulate many-electron quantum mechanics using the simple one-electron density as the basic variable of interest rather than the complicated many-electron wavefunction. In this talk I'll discuss how the theorems of TDDFT can be applied to a class of qubit Hamiltonians that are universal for quantum computation. In a similar spirit to DFT and TDDFT for electronic Hamiltonians, the theorems of TDDFT applied to universal Hamiltonians allow us to think of single-qubit expectation values as the basic variables in quantum computation and information theory, rather than the wavefunction. >From a practical standpoint this also opens the possibility of approximating observables of interest in quantum computations directly in terms of single-qubit quantities (i.e. as density functionals). Additionally, we'll see that TDDFT provides an exact prescription for simulating universal Hamiltonians with other universal Hamiltonians that have different, and possibly easier-to-realize two-qubit interactions. I'll also give a brief introduction to time-dependent density matrix functional theory (TD-DMFT) as an alternative to TDDFT and it's possible applications in quantum information theory. -- Joel Yuen-Zhou PhD candidate in Chemical Physics Harvard University CCB, 12 Oxford St. Mailbox 107, Cambridge, MA, USA. _______________________________________________ Aspuru-meetings-list mailing list Aspuru-meetings-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu https://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/aspuru-meetings-list

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] Fwd: [CCB_Staff] Safety Committee Meeting Notes: October 2011

by Anna B. Shin

Dear Group, Please note the sections highlighted below. More laptop thefts and a fire drill (see appropriate map and dress warmly!). Anna B. Shin Laboratory Administrator | Aspuru-Guzik Research Group Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology | Harvard University 12 Oxford Street | Cambridge, MA 02138 617.496.9964 office | 617.694.9879 cell | 617.496.9411 fax http://aspuru.chem.harvard.edu/ <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=e7480c62f0&view=att&th=12eee19970…> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mathieu Lalonde <LALONDE(a)fas.harvard.edu> Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 1:58 PM Subject: [CCB_Staff] Safety Committee Meeting Notes: October 2011 To: #List-CCB-Faculty <faculty(a)chemistry.harvard.edu>, #List-CCB-Staff < staff(a)chemistry.harvard.edu>, postdocs(a)chemistry.harvard.edu, gradstudents(a)chemistry.harvard.edu, othergradstudents(a)chemistry.harvard.edu Dear members of the CCB community, Pasted below are the notes from October's Safety Committee Meeting. Best regards Mathieu Lalonde CCB Science Safety Officer *Safety Committee Meeting Notes: October 2011* * * *Accidents in CCB* A small fire ignited while a graduate student was working up a hydrogenation catalyzed by palladium-on-carbon. Upon completion of the hydrogenation, the researcher performed 3 vacuum/purge cycles with anhydrous nitrogen gas prior in order to eliminate any remaining hydrogen gas and reduce the risk of ignition during filtration. The palladium-on-carbon was filtered through a sintered glass funnel covered with Celite® 545. The filter cake was subsequently washed with wet methanol and covered with sand. The contents of the funnel were dumped into a waste container and covered with more sand. A fire was ignited when the researcher attempted to transfer a minute amount of residual palladium-on-carbon from the funnel to the waste container. The fire was quickly extinguished with a dry chemical fire extinguisher. No one was injured during the incident and there was no damage to the facility.**** The researcher performing the reaction was well aware of the precautions required to safely handle palladium-on-carbon. The safety office recommends making a wet slurry, by adding water to the palladium-on-carbon Celite® 545 mixture, prior to transferring the spent palladium-on-carbon to a waste container.**** ** ** ** ** *Safety Orientation Checklist* Findings from the RMAS audit of safety programs on the Harvard campus, including CCB’s, as well as a recent CSB report<http://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB>regarding fatal accidents in the laboratory make it abundantly clear that safety orientations and trainings must be adequately documented. Most research groups in CCB already perform safety orientations for new members. The Safety Office recommends using the attached Safety Orientation Checklist to keep a record of safety walkthroughs and ensure that every group member has basic knowledge of the facility’s safety features as well as required safety training<http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/training/TARA_Cambridge_Lab_Researcher.pdf>. ** ** ** ** *Hazardous Waste Management* Researchers in CCB are becoming increasingly complacent with basic hazardous waste management. The Safety Office would like to remind researchers that caps must be tightly screwed and eco-funnels snapped shut when waste is not being added to a container. Funnels are not adequate caps. Open containers expose researchers to solvent vapors and are a fire hazard. ** ** The Safety Office would like to remind researchers how to properly complete hazardous waste tags: • Chemical formulas are not acceptable on hazardous waste tags. The contents of the waste must be spelled out and accompanied with an approximate percentage of total waste. •At least one hazard box must be checked. •The date should only be written on the label on the day the waste is being moved to the main accumulation area for pick up and disposal by Triumvirate. Otherwise, there should be no date on the label. •The information (room number, PI, phone number) at the bottom of the label must be filled out. ** ** ** ** *Laptop Thefts* Two laptop thefts in CCB have recently been reported. We ask that all researchers be vigilant with regards to locking laptops and keeping valuable possessions out of sight. Researchers should not hesitate to address strangers and ask if they need assistance. The Harvard University Police should be contacted if an individual is suspected of theft. * * * * *Fire Drills* The Safety Office would like to announce that a fire drill will be taking place in the CCB complex on Monday October 31st between the hours of 11:30 am and 1:00 pm. Do not plan any experiments that need constant monitoring during this time. The halls and labs will be monitored during the fire drill and we ask that everyone participate by evacuating the building and congregating in the appropriate meeting sites (see red stars on map below). _______________________________________________ ccb_staff mailing list ccb_staff(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu https://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccb_staff

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] Fwd: [Cs-faculty] Joint CS/Applied Math Colloquium on MONDAY, Oct. 31 - Eric Brown

by Alan Aspuru-Guzik

COOL SEMINAR on IBM Watson on Monday. For all those CDI-II and Natural Language Chemistry afficionados. Alán Aspuru-Guzik | Associate Professor Harvard University | Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology 12 Oxford Street, Room M113 | Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)-384-8188 | http://aspuru.chem.harvard.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Hanspeter Pfister <pfister(a)seas.harvard.edu> Date: Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 9:56 AM Subject: Fwd: [Cs-faculty] Joint CS/Applied Math Colloquium on MONDAY, Oct. 31 - Eric Brown To: Alan Aspuru-Guzik <aspuru(a)chemistry.harvard.edu>, Lincoln Greenhill < lgreenhill(a)cfa.harvard.edu> FYI Sent from my iPad Begin forwarded message: *From:* Gioia Sweetland <gioia(a)seas.harvard.edu> *Date:* October 26, 2011 1:44:13 PM EDT *To:* cs-all <cs-all(a)seas.harvard.edu>, colloquium < colloquium(a)seas.harvard.edu>, wam_seminars <wam_seminars(a)seas.harvard.edu> *Cc:* Gioia Sweetland <gioia(a)seas.harvard.edu> *Subject:* *[Cs-faculty] Joint CS/Applied Math Colloquium on MONDAY, Oct. 31 - Eric Brown* Eric Brown of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center will give a talk entitled “Beyond Jeopardy!: The Implications of IBM Watson” at a special joint Computer Science/Applied Math Colloquium.**** *MONDAY*, October 31, 2011**** *11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.* Maxwell Dworkin G125**** Refreshments at 11:00 a.m. outside MD G125**** ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** *Beyond Jeopardy!: The Implications of IBM Watson* Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, was built by a team of IBM researchers who set out to accomplish a grand challenge––build a computing system that rivals a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence. The quiz show Jeopardy! provided the ultimate challenge because the game’s clues involve analyzing subtle meaning, irony, riddles and other complexities in which humans excel and computers traditionally do not. Watson passed its first test on Jeopardy!, beating the show's two greatest champions in a televised exhibition match, but the real test will be in applying the underlying data management and analytics technology in business and across industries. Learn about the present and future implications of Deep QA and the other technologies behind Watson from Dr. Eric Brown, Watson Algorithms, IBM Research. *Eric Brown* earned his B.S. degree at the University of Vermont (1989) and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Massachusetts (1992, 1996), all in Computer Science. At UMass Eric was advised by Bruce Croft and was a member of the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval. Eric joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research lab in 1995 as a Research Staff Member, and has been a manager since 2004. While at IBM Eric has conducted research in information retrieval, document categorization, text analysis, question answering, bio-informatics, and applications of automatic speech recognition. Since 2007 Eric has been a technical lead on the DeepQA project at IBM and the application of automatic, open domain question answering to build the Watson Question Answering system. The goal of Watson is to achieve human-level question answering performance. This goal was realized in February of 2011 when Watson beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a televised Jeopardy! exhibition match. Eric's role on the project has spanned architecture development, special question processing, and hardware planning and acquisition, and he is currently focused on commercialization. Eric has published numerous conference and journal papers, and holds several patents in the areas of text analysis and question answering. Eric currently resides in New Fairfield, CT with his wife and three children.**** _______________________________________________ Cs-faculty mailing list Cs-faculty(a)seas.harvard.edu https://lists.seas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/cs-faculty

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] Fwd: New Training and Research Opportunities at Perimeter Institute

by Aspuru

Alan Aspuru-Guzik Associate Professor Harvard University http://aspuru.chem.harvard.edu Sent from my mobile. Please pardon any typos. Begin forwarded message: > From: Neil Turok <contact(a)perimeterinstitute.ca> > Date: October 28, 2011 5:18:59 AM EDT > To: Alan Aspuru-Guzik <alan(a)aspuru.com> > Subject: New Training and Research Opportunities at Perimeter Institute > > Dear Colleague, > > I am writing to ask for your help in drawing the attention of outstanding young scientists to a new program of postdoctoral fellowships. > > The Templeton Frontiers Program at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics will support postdoctoral fellows in the following areas: > > Quantum Foundations and Information > Foundational Questions in Cosmology > The Emergence of Spacetime > > Details are available here; the closing date for applications is November 15, 2011. > > Please share this news with your colleagues and particularly with young researchers who may be interested in this exciting new program. > > Thank you in advance for your help, > > Neil Turok > Director > Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics > 31 Caroline St. N. > Waterloo, ON, N2L 1C2 Canada > > > > > > > > To remove yourself from this email list click here

12 years, 5 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] Massively Parallel Computer Built From Single Layer of Molecules

by Man Hong

Interesting idea! Sent to you by Man Hong via Google Reader: Massively Parallel Computer Built From Single Layer of Molecules via Technology Review Feed - arXiv blog on 10/27/11 Japanese scientists have built a cellular automaton from individual molecules that carries out huge numbers of calculations in parallel Modern computer chips handle data at the mind-blowing rate of some 10^13 bits per second. Neurons, by comparison, fire at a rate of around 100 times per second or so. And yet the brain outperforms the best computers in numerous tasks. One reason for this is way computations take place. In computers, calculations occur in strict pipelines, one at a time. In the brain, however, many calculations take place at once. Each neuron communicates with up to 1000 other neurons at any one time. And since the brain consists of billions neurons, the potential for parallel calculating is clearly huge. Computer scientists are well aware of this difference and have tried in many ways to mimic the brain's massively parallel capabilities. But success has been hard to come by. Today, Anirban Bandyopadhyay at National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, unveil a promising new approach. At the heart of their experiment is a ring-like molecule called 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone, or DDQ. This has an unusual property: it can exist in four different conducting states, depending on the location of trapped electrons around the ring. What's more, it's possible to switch the molecule from one to state to another by zapping it with voltages of various different strengths using the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope. It's even possible to bias the possible states that can form by placing the molecule in an electric field Place two DDQ molecules next to each other and it's possible to make them connect. In fact, a single DDQ molecule can connect with between 2 and 6 neighbours, depending on its conducting state and theirs. When one molecule changes its state, the change in configuration ripples from one molecule to the next, forming and reforming circuits as it travels. Given all this, it's not hard to imagine how a layer of DDQ molecules can act like a cellular automaton, with each molecule as a cell in the automaton. Roughly speaking, the rules for flipping cells from one state to another are set by the bias on the molecules and the starting state is programmed by the scanning tunnelling microscope. And that's exactly what these guys have done. They've laid down 300 DDQ molecules on a gold substrate, setting them up as a cellular automaton. More impressive still, they've then initialised the system so that it "calculates" the way heat diffuses in a conducting medium and the way cancer spreads through tissue. And since the entire layer is involved in the calculation, this a massively parallel computation using a single layer of organic molecules. Bandyopadhyay and co say the key feature of this type of calculation is the fact that one DDQ molecule can link to many others, rather like neurons in the brain. "Generalization of this principle would...open up a new vista of emergent computing using an assembly of molecules," they say. Clearly an intriguing prospect. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1110.5844: Massively Parallel Computing An An Organic Molecular Layer Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Technology Review Feed - arXiv blog using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

12 years, 6 months

[Aspuru-Guzik group list] [qip] Topological Quantum Computing Discussion

by Beni Yoshida

Dear Quanta, The topological quantum computing reading group will be meeting a week later (Friday the 28th) at 4pm. This time, I will briefly review some basic issues on topological order, such as -What is the definition of topological order? -Why the Toric code is topologically ordered? -What is topological entanglement entropy? (with some examples). See you there, Beni _______________________________________________ qip mailing list qip(a)mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/qip

12 years, 6 months

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aspuru-list October 2011