Perspectives of quantum computing for chemical engineering

Quantum computing has been attracting public attention recently. This interest is driven by the advancements in hardware, software, and algorithms required for its successful usage and the promise that it entails the potential acceleration of computational tasks compared to classical computing. This perspective article presents a short review on quantum computing, how this computational approach solves problems, and three fields that quantum computing can potentially impact the most while relevant to chemical engineering: computational chemistry, optimization, and machine learning. Here, we present a series of chemical engineering applications, the developments, potential improvements with respect to classical computing, and challenges that quantum computing faces for each of these fields. This article intends to provide a clear picture of the challenges and potential advantages that quantum technology may yield for chemical engineering, together with an invitation for our colleagues to join us in the adoption and development of quantum computing.     

Synthesis of Boron Carbide by Reactive‐Pulsed Electric Current Sintering in the Presence of Tungsten Boride

The method of pulsed electric current sintering (PECS) has been used to obtain dense boron carbide (B₄C) and B₄C‐based composite materials containing tungsten boride (W₂B₅). To elucidate the role of the sintering additives and the mechanism of reactive densification, three types of materials have been obtained by PECS at 1850°C and 1900°C: “pure” B₄C, B₄C doped with 10 wt% W₂B₅, and B₄C doped with 10 wt% tungsten carbide (WC). X‐ray diffraction and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been used to determine crystallite size, phase changes, and the peculiarities of the chemical bonds of the densified materials. Structural and mechanical properties of the materials have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, ultrasound velocity measurements, and hardness tests. The electrochemical impedance spectra have been used to investigate the electrical properties of the PECS‐ed materials.     

Follow-up study: on the working time budget of a university teacher. 45 years self-observation

Results from self-observation of the working time distribution of a university teacher for a period of 45 years (starting from the very beginning of his carrier till two years after retirement) are reported classified in (i) teaching; (ii) scientific; (iii) administrative, organizational, technical; (iv) social/other activities. For the whole period, the teaching take 19 %, scientific work—22 % and various kinds of administrative, organizational and technical activities—52 % of the overall working time. The latter varies within the limits of 6.1–14.5 h per calendar day (mean values for an year) and in average is 10 h per calendar day for the entire 45-years-period. The changes of the working time distribution and the working day duration during the years are shown. The time consumed in fulfillment of obligations as head of research institution and of university units is revealed. The data are accompanied with information for the growth of the scientific production of the observed person. It is appeared that the latter as well as the growth of the citations of his papers can be depicted by the well known exponential law describing the accelerated development of the science.     

Reasoning about QoS Contracts in the Probabilistic Duration Calculus

The notion of contract was introduced to component-based software development in order to facilitate the semantically correct composition of components. We extend the form of this notion which is based on designs to capture probabilistic requirements on execution time. We show how reasoning about such requirements can be done in an infinite-interval-based system of probabilistic duration calculus.     

Institutionalization and internationalization of research on the applications of the geographical information systems in health planning

Recently, geographical information systems have been very intensively applied in social life and in public health in particular. A retrospective problem-oriented search on their use in health planning was performed in Web of Science of Web of Knowledge, three versions of MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, and ProQuest Medical in 1990–2010. The annual dynamics of a set of scientometric parameters characterizing several aspects of the abstracted publications, authors’ scientific institutions, journals, authors, citations, and languages was comparatively analyzed. It was established that world publication output on such a relatively narrow topic was reflected to a different extent in these data-bases. MEDLINE (PubMed) presented with 484 papers published in 243 journals followed by MEDLINE (WoK) with 360 papers in 215 journals. The abstracted publications were mainly in English, but 14 other languages were present in significant numbers. Publications by authors from 44 countries were abstracted in WoS but from 29 countries in MEDLINE (Ebsco). The most productive authors and institutions as well as the ‘core’ journals were identified. The International Journal of Health Geography occupied the leading position. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) was one of the most productive research institutions in WoS and in Scopus. Scientific institutions and journals belonged to problem-oriented and to mono-, two- and three-disciplinary thematic profiles as well. Some essential peculiarities of the dynamics of research institutionalization and internationalization in this interdisciplinary field were illustrated. The constellation of specific semantically-loaded indicators could be applied for the purposes of problem-oriented analyses as it could timely identify the essential patterns of scientific advances in rapidly expanding interdisciplinary topics.     

Neural network surface acoustic wave RF signal processor for digital modulation recognition

An architecture of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) processor based on an artificial neural network is proposed for an automatic recognition of different types of digital passband modulation. Three feed-forward networks are trained to recognize filtered and unfiltered binary phase shift keying (BPSK) and quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signals, as well as unfiltered BPSK, QPSK, and 16 quadrature amplitude (16QAM) signals. Performance of the processor in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is simulated. The influence of second-order effects in SAW devices, phase, and amplitude errors on the performance of the processor also is studied.     

On efficient simulation of non-Newtonian flow in saturated porous media with a multigrid adaptive refinement solver

Flow of non-Newtonian fluid in saturated porous media can be described by the continuity equation and the generalized Darcy law. Here we discuss the efficient solution of the resulting second order nonlinear elliptic equation. The equation is discretized by the finite volume method on a cell-centered grid. Local adaptive refinement of the grid is introduced in order to reduce the number of unknowns. We develop a special implementation, that allows us to perform unstructured local refinement in conjunction with the finite volume discretization. Two residual based error indicators are exploited in the adaptive refinement criterion. Second order accurate discretization of the fluxes on the interfaces between refined and non-refined subdomains, as well as on the boundaries with Dirichlet boundary condition, are presented here as an essential part of an accurate and efficient algorithm. A nonlinear full approximation storage multigrid algorithm is developed especially for the above described composite (coarse plus locally refined) grid approach. In particular, second order approximation of the fluxes around interfaces is a result of a quadratic approximation of slave nodes in the multigrid-adaptive refinement (MG-AR) algorithm. Results from numerical solution of various academic and practice-induced problems are presented and the performance of the solver is discussed.     

On ranking fuzzy numbers using valuations

The importance as well as the difficulty of the problem of ranking fuzzy numbers is pointed out. Here we consider approaches to the ranking of fuzzy numbers based upon the idea of associating with a fuzzy number a scalar value, its valuation, and using this valuation to compare and order fuzzy numbers. Specifically we focus on expected value type valuations which are based upon the transformation of a fuzzy subset into an associated probability distribution. We develop a number of families of parameterized valuation functions. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.