Keyed in to quantum computing lab testing at Keysight World – VentureBeat

Its oft said, but bears repeating: The money in the 49er Gold Rush was made by the suppliers much more than the miners. Enduring companies were built by selling picks, shovels and blue jeans.

The story plays out again today. Behind each breakthrough in quantum computing qubit-counts is a large collection of laboratory test equipment. Signal generators, arbitrary waveform generators, digitizers, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers and network analyzers are vital as quantum players coax ions, photons and superconducting qubits into calculating problems.

Thoughts along this line piqued our interest as we took part in the quantum computing portions of Keysight Technologies online Keysight World Innovate conference, held recently. Keysight, and competitors such as Anritsu and Tektronix, are busy coming up with tooling to scale the quantum cliffs.

Theres a lot of excitement about this technology and governments all around the world are investing in the research and development required to scale this up, Shohini Ghose, Ph.D., a quantum physicist at Wilfrid Laurier University, said in a keynote at Keysight World.

Its a very exciting time, [but] its not quite clear where this technology will go, she said.

Ghoses emphasis on large-scale investment is borne out by the numbers. Estimates of government and private efforts to spur quantum science and technology, according to Quantum Resources and Careers (QURECA), point to current worldwide investments reaching almost $30 billion, with the overall global quantum technology market projected to reach $42.4 billion by 2027.

Quantum R&D labs likely make up a small portion of the overall test and measurement market, which is expected to increase modestly from $27.7 billion in 2021 to $33.3 billion in 2026. But the market for testing tools used in quantum R&D labs will grow if the promise of quantum computing is to be successfully tapped.

A central part of Keysights test bed for development of quantum computers, sensors and network equipment is its Quantum Control System (QCS), which was introduced in June. QCS components support direct digital conversion of signals and include low-noise distributed clocking. A Keysight manager explained how that works and why it matters in testing.

QCS leverages FPGA timing and synchronizations for multichannel and multichassis operations, said Giampaolo Tardioli, vice president for Keysights Communications Solutions Group, speaking at the event.

Such traits are important as the quantum community looks to scale up its qubit counts. Important as well is software support, added Tardioli, who pointed to Keysights work to support QCS with Python APIs.

Keysights credentials for the quantum quest could not feature more vaunted lineage, as the company grew out of the original Hewlett-Packard test equipment that sprung from the Palo Alto, California, garage of Messrs. Hewlett and Packard in the 1930s. The garage is regularly cited as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.

Keysight has pursued quantum lab tech both organically (almost 100 scientists and engineers were involved in the creation of QCS) and through acquisition. Its quantum road map includes acquisition of modular measurement startup Signadyne in 2016, qubit control software maker Labber in 2020 and error diagnostics specialist Quantum Benchmark in 2021.

Although they still lag behind classical computers by most measures, quantum computers have made steady and perhaps increasing progress in recent years.

But many challenges lie ahead before quantum computers can be integrated into business operations, according to Patrick Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst, Moor Insights and Strategy, who spoke at Keysight World.

The biggest hurdle to jump over is error correction, Moorhead said, noting that a classic computer can do trillions of calculations before it gets an error, but such errors in quantum systems today tend to occur after about 100 to 200 calculations.

Much of Keysights quantum test focus these days is on understanding the impact of errors and how current techniques can remove or elude them. Its an important part of understanding just where the industry is on the road to quantum adoption.

For his part, Moorhead said his analyst firm is expecting a major breakthrough in error correction sometime this year. Even then, there is more prospective work ahead.

If error correction research is progressing at the rate we believe, it could take three to five years until it is usable in systems, he said.

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Keyed in to quantum computing lab testing at Keysight World - VentureBeat

Cancer to Be Treated as Easily as Common Cold When Humans Crack Quantum Computing – Business Wire

DUBAI, United Arab of Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Breakthroughs in quantum computing will enable humans to cure diseases like cancer, Alzheimers, and Parkinsons as easily as we treat the common cold.

That was one of the major insights to emerge from the Dubai Future Forum, with renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku telling the worlds largest gathering of futurists that humanity should brace itself for major transformations in healthcare.

The forum concluded with a call for governments to institutionalize foresight and engrain it within decision making.

Taking place in Dubai, UAE at the Museum of the Future, Amy Webb, CEO of Future Today Institute, criticized nations for being too pre-occupied with the present and too focused on creating white papers, reports and policy recommendations instead of action.

Nowism is a virus. Corporations and governments are infected, she said.

One panel session heard how humans could be ready to test life on the Moon in just 15 years and be ready for life on Mars in another decade. Sharing his predictions for the future, Dr. Kaku also said there is a very good chance humans will pick up a signal from another intelligent life form this century.

Dr. Jamie Metzl, Founder and Chair, OneShared.World, urged people to eat more lab-grown meat to combat global warming and food insecurity.

If we are treating them like a means to an end of our nutrition, wouldnt it be better instead of growing the animal, to grow the meat? he said.

Among the 70 speakers participating in sessions were several UAE ministers. HE Mohammad Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees and Managing Director of the Dubai Future Foundation, said ministers around the world should think of themselves as designers of the future. Our stakeholders are 7.98 billion people around the world, he noted.

Dubais approach to foresight was lauded by delegates, including HE Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, who said: What makes our city and nation successful is not natural resources, but a unique ability to embrace all ideas and individuals.

More than 30 sessions covered topics including immortality, AI sentience, climate change, terraforming, genome sequencing, legislation, and the energy transition.

*Source: AETOSWire

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Cancer to Be Treated as Easily as Common Cold When Humans Crack Quantum Computing - Business Wire

Podcast with John Prisco, President and CEO of Safe Quantum – Quantum Computing Report

John Prisco, President and CEO of Safe Quantum, a quantum security consulting firm is interviewed by Yuval Boger. John and Yuval talk about the maturity of PQC, QKD, quantum networks, and their timing overlap, national and international testbeds for quantum security, successful case studies and more.

Yuval Boger: Hello John, and thanks for joining me today.

John Prisco: Hello, how are you?

Yuval: Im doing well. Who are you and what do you do?

John: Well, Im John Prisco, and I am the president of Safe Quantum and I consult in the areas of quantum key distribution and quantum internet.

Yuval: There have been a lot of buzzwords floating around: post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, and the quantum internet. Could you make some sense for me in these?

John: Yes, I think were in a very early stage in a number of areas that would be based on quantum. Obviously, quantum computers are just at the beginning of development, and they dont have very many qubits yet, but eventually, they will. And when they do, then well have something to worry about with having our encryption schemes broken that we depend on today. However, the work thats being done at NIST to develop post-quantum cryptographic algorithms will become quantum resistant. The hope is that these mathematically based algorithms will prevent quantum computers or at least slow them down in terms of being able to decrypt secret information.

On the other side of the equation is quantum key distribution, which doesnt depend on arithmetic or mathematical rigor. It is relying on quantum mechanics and physics principles. Its a very interesting technique, it uses keys that are made of individual photons of light, and because of the various quantum mechanical properties, youre not really able to even observe these keys without changing their state. Once the state has changed, the key no longer works, it no longer unlocks the secret information and therefore provides the protection that one would want when transmitting very secure and sensitive information.

Yuval: If Im an enterprise and I hear about post-quantum cryptography as an interim step, and then quantum key distribution is something that could be a little bit better and maybe about the quantum internet is the best thing, is it feasible for me to jump right to the best thing?

John: Well, unfortunately, its not at the moment, and thats because theres a lot of work to be done, actually, in all three areas. Jumping ahead to the quantum internet is probably a misnomer. We should probably first talk about a quantum network, which is not as far-reaching as the internet. And there are a number of test beds around the world that are today working in this area. And at this point, these systems are relying on creating quantum repeaters and using quantum memory. But at this point of development, the repeaters are repeating one photon of information. So when you consider gigabit per second type transmission rates, theres a long way to go before we could have a complete quantum internet.

But there are many advances going forward throughout the world on quantum networking. And one in particular that I follow closely because its right here in the United States, is a company called Qunnect. And what I find interesting about them is that theyre attempting to build quantum network, the basis for quantum internet, using room temperature apparatus. Which is terrific because when you try to commercialize something, its very difficult to commercialize a product that has a dilution refrigerator, which is a room full of refrigeration equipment to get superconducting properties out of quantum setup in milli-Kelvins of temperatures. When you have high vacuums, and very low temperatures, you have a long way to commercialization, so I like following companies that are trying to do things at room temperature because I think we get there sooner with that kind of approach.

Yuval: If we start from post-quantum cryptography, I understand that NIST has announced for finalists or candidates for standards, but some of them have already been cracked. How is that process going, and what do you anticipate will happen with it?

John: Well, its a long-term process. It started six years ago, and I think it started with something like 88 algorithms that were presented. NIST has been diligently working on looking at the veracity of each one of these algorithms, and theyd come up with four finalists. In addition to the four, there were others in the finalist category, and one of them was hacked a couple of months ago, I think in March. And then, more recently, another had been broken. But thats all part of the process working. It is open to the public so that people will try to, in some way, bypass the protections that the algorithm offers.

And when you look at an arithmetic approach, which is all of post-quantum cryptography, you have to understand that these algorithms will have a shelf life, just like the RSA algorithms are coming to the end of their useful shelf life. Well, post quantum cryptography may have a 30-plus year shelf life, but eventually, it will be cracked by something. So its very important to understand that that approach is a quantum-resistant approach. Im probably more in line with the QKD basing its protections on laws of physics, but I think you need both of them. I think its important to have a defense in-depth strategy, and I think its important to have two totally different approaches so that if one fails, its not likely the other will have the same failure mechanism and therefore, youd have more survivability.

But I do think post-quantum cryptography is going to require crypto agility just for the reasons we mentioned, you may be heading down the road with a finalist candidate algorithm, and then something happens where a mathematician comes up with an algorithm that defeats that approach. Well, you have to be able to turn on a dime and adopt one of the other algorithms that are in their golf bag, so to speak.

Yuval: I think quantum key distribution uses a side channel to transfer decryption or encryption keys to both parties outside the main channel. And I believe that a previous company that you were involved with did QKD as a service. If I understand QKD, what does as a service mean in that context?

John: Well, it means that you are providing a transmission pathway for a customer to secure data in motion. And that could be between two of the customer premises locations. It could be from a customer to the cloud. And when you say as a service, it means that you secure the fiber rights of way between points A and point B. You install the hardware, which is producing the keys and sharing the keys. And its a complete service, if there is maintenance required, you provide that as well.

And one of the most important things about this approach is that you can separate the encryption key from the data. Today we make it awfully easy for people to harvest information and the key thats used to encrypt that information. And even though they may not be able to break that key today, they can simply and inexpensively store the data and the key. And then in the future, when they have the means to break that key, like with a more powerful quantum computer then we currently have, now suddenly all that secure, sensitive information is subject to being read in plain text.

There are an awful lot of things to consider. The time it takes to convert from a classical encryption approach to a quantum encryption approach is measured in decades. The last time there was a conversion like this, it took over 20 years for companies to completely convert to the RSA algorithms. Its probably going to take more like 20 to 30 years this time around because we have so much more data that were storing and transmitting. What was happening in the seventies is much, much smaller than whats happening in the 2020s. This is not going to be an overnight plug-and-play kind of project, its going to take a long time. And you have to constantly be watching to see, are nefarious actors able to crack the new algorithms, and will our sensitive information soon be read by enemies?

Yuval: So its not a three-stage rocket where first you have PQC and then you move to the second stage with key distribution and then maybe to a quantum network, these are overlapping stages, if I understand correctly?

John: They are, and I think you know, have QKD today, which is probably the best approach to preventing harvesting attacks, because its available today, and it will give you the quantum mechanical security that boasts. PQC is probably two years away from being standardized for the first few algorithms. And then of course that conversion to PQC, which is an enormous task, will probably take at least 20 years.

But the quantum internet is going to require a fair amount of development. Today what we do is we entangle photons and then we try to swap that entanglement in a quantum repeater or quantum memory. And as I mentioned before, each photon is transmitted individually, and it has one bit of information, a one or a zero, could be polarization, could be phase whatever, but one and a zero. Now youre talking about having billions and billions of photons in order to complete a simple telecommunications transaction. And the hardware and infrastructure has to be put in place for this. But fortunately, we do have test beds springing up all around the world, and breakthroughs are being made on a fairly monthly basis. So well get there, but it will probably be on the order of 20 to 25 years before any substantial networks for substantial distances with substantial data rates will be prevalent.

Yuval: Youve probably consulted with a lot of companies and looked at many others, are there any examples that you could give of someone that you felt was doing a good job in preparing for this next type of risk?

John: Yes, in fact, Ive had the pleasure of working with a number of companies, JPMorgan Chase, for one. And what I really think they did right is that they hired quantum experts, their quantum business is run by a fellow named Marco Pistoia, came out of IBM and hes a friend of mine, and I always tell him that hes a quantum rockstar, and he is. We did a project when I was consulting for Toshiba that was based on securing a blockchain application. I think if you generalize this to companies and what they might do, I think its important to have people who understand what quantum is, what quantum science information technology is all about.

And then you have to start doing some proof of concept tests. Ive done a number of QKD proof of concepts. One of my first ones was, again, working with Toshiba and we did a Verizon 5G network security. This is all public, there have been press releases on both the companies Ive just mentioned. But thats really what you have to do, you have to get started, you have to make an investment. And theres an equal investment to understanding the PQC algorithms. And the first thing you have to do is take an inventory of your data, what data? Whats the shelf life of the data? Whats the sensitivity of the data? And you have to work from the most sensitive and longest shelf life to the least sensitive and the shortest shelf life. But just knowing that is going to take a long time in a large corporation. So getting started now is important.

The federal government is a totally different situation because the information is always very sensitive. And when you look at some of the executive orders that came out last month about when government agencies should be converted to quantum encryption, they were talking about 2032 to 2035. Now, what worries me about that is the harvesting attacks, thats going to be 10 to 13 years of people sniffing cables. Even the submariner cables crossing the ocean have been tapped. Its very difficult to know when youre tapping an optical fiber because you just simply bend it, and the light leaks out of the core and then you detect that light. The thing is that with conventional classical telecommunications, when you detect that light, you also get all the information thats being sent over that fiber. So you can imagine an optical fiber carrying tremendous amounts of data and all of it being recorded inexpensively and kept somewhere. And then eventually, when you can break that encryption, now all of these very sensitive bits of data are revealed.

I dont think we have as much time as people think that, Well, we can do this over 20 years, 25 years. Sure, it may take that long, but I think you have to take measures before that, especially if your information is a long shelf life and is extremely sensitive. And QKD actually is the only thing that can really protect you at the moment.

Yuval: You mentioned governments and security is obviously not just a corporate issue but also a national issue. Which countries, in your opinion, are ahead in quantum security? And which countries are perhaps behind?

John: Well, I think that the United States has caught up with China. We do some things better than they do. They do other things better than we do. But in terms of quantum computing, I think the US leads. I actually think that some of the QKD implementations in China lead the US. But theres a lot going on in Europe as well. Theres British Telecom thats now doing a metro scale network using Toshiba QKD and thats a very large project and very interesting in terms of seeing a large telecommunications company make that bet. The Netherlands is, and the group at Delft is doing a wonderful job on quantum networking, and theyre just a lot of things going on like Barcelona, Germany, theyre all doing a lot in the field of quantum networking,.

But this is going to be a public-private partnership in the United States, just like the moon launch was in the sixties. And thats the way to really win this race. And people, a few years ago, started to have that Sputnik moment where they said, Wow, look at Chinas just invested 10 billion in quantum. We better do something about that. And I think we have, and I think in fact that the NSF has been funding universities and a lot of basic research as well as the venture community funding startup companies. I think that combination is a winning combination. It won once before during the sixties and the Space Race, and I think itll win again.

Yuval: As we get close to the end of our conversation today, you mentioned a couple of test beds in Europe, I think in the US, I think theres a big one in Chicago. Are there others that people could get involved with or should pay attention to?

John: Well, theres Chicago Quantum Exchange, thats the one that you are referencing. And of course, that has Department of Energy laboratories working along with very fine universities and terrific researchers. Recently, NIST announced that theyre going to build a DCQ Network, a quantum network that will initially deploy quantum networking on the NIST campus, but then will bring to bear several other agencies like NASA, NSA, CIA. That will be an interesting one to watch. And there is all sorts of rumors about a network coming into Boston and another one coming into New York, and probably another on the West Coast. But none of that has really been publicly announced yet, so well see which ones of those occur. But I think its really important that we have these partnerships, test beds, that have universities involved and that have venture capital involved and government involved. Government is looking for the private sector to come with ideas. Many of these companies have been working on networking for a couple of years, three years, and they can bring to bear a lot of experience.

Yuval: Excellent, John, how can people get in touch with you to learn more about your work?

John: Well, you can go to my website, which is SafeQuantum.com, and all my information is there. I am leading the use cases TAC (technical advisory committee) at QEDC. And if youre a company that wants to join QEDC, I would recommend it. Theres a tremendous amount of knowledge within the group and its a very good place to learn. You can also look at me in Forbes Technology Council. I try to publish one paper a month there. Thats how you can find me. And LinkedIn.

Yuval: Thats perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

John: Well, thank you.

Yuval Boger is a quantum computing executive. Known as the Superposition Guy as well as the original Qubit Guy, he most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer for Classiq. He can be reached on LinkedIn or at this email.

October 12, 2022

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Podcast with John Prisco, President and CEO of Safe Quantum - Quantum Computing Report

CERN joins with leaders from research and industry to propose an Open Quantum Institute – CERN

CERN has joined a coalition of science and industry partners proposing the creation of an Open Quantum Institute. This institute will work to ensure that emerging quantum technologies are put to use to tackle key societal challenges. The proposal is being made through GESDA, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator Foundation, in collaboration with leading research institutes and technology companies. Other founding supporters of the Open Quantum Institute include the University of Geneva, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and Lausanne (EPFL), Microsoft and IBM.

The proposal was launched at the 2022 GESDA Summit. During her address at the event, CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti highlighted the potential of quantum computing and other associated quantum technologies to help achieve key UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Asit did for the creationofCERN, Geneva can play a key rolein bringing science and diplomacy to recognise theimportance of working together,in order to develop real-world applications for transformative technologies, says Gianotti, who is also a member of the GESDA Foundations board. The Open Quantum Institute will benefit from CERN's experience of uniting people from across the globe to push the frontiers of science and technology for the benefit of all. We will work to ensure that quantum technologies have a positive impact for all of society."

CERN has long recognised the potential of quantum technologies. In 2020, the Organization launched the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (QTI), which is exploring the potential of these breakthrough new technologies for particle physics and beyond, in collaboration with its Member States and other key stakeholders. Today, the initiative runs 20 R&D projects, many of which are carried out in collaboration with leading technology companies through the CERN openlab framework.

By the nature of its research and the technologies it develops, CERN is well positioned to make significant contributions to the quantum revolution, says Alberto Di Meglio, head of CERN QTI and CERN openlab. Building on the Laboratorys collaborative culture and proven track record of developing breakthrough technologies, CERN QTI provides a platform for innovation.

This platform builds on national quantum initiatives in CERNs Member States and beyond, fostering pioneering new applications of quantum technologies both for science and society, explains Di Meglio. Experience and knowhow from the CERN QTI will feed into the Open Quantum Institute, helping to fulfil its mission of maximising the societal impact of these technologies.

As the next step in the process, the GESDA Foundation will launch a survey to help shape the priorities of the Open Quantum Institute, which will begin its incubation phase in 2023. Members of the institute will work to engage further with UN organisations, quantum scientists and industry leaders over the coming months.

Find out more on the GESDA website. Full details on the Open Quantum Institute can be found in the announcement published by the GESDA Foundation today.

On 1-4 November, CERN will host a special conference on the use of quantum technologies to support particle physics. Find out more about this here.

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CERN joins with leaders from research and industry to propose an Open Quantum Institute - CERN

ETFs to Help Investors Capture Innovative Growth Ideas of Tomorrow – ETF Trends

As we look at some of the future technologies that are shaping the world today, investors can turn to exchange traded fund strategies to capture these growing opportunities.

In the recent webcast, Invest in Tomorrows Disruptive Technology Today, Sylvia Jablonski, CEO and CIO of Defiance ETFs, noted that the global quantum computing market could be worth $949 million by 2025, compared to a global market value of $89 million back in 2016, projecting a growth rate of more than 10 times by 2025.

Jablonski argued that growth will only accelerate in the quantum computing space as the technology matures. For example, the quantum computing growth of quantum computing systems produced by organizations in qubits was only two back in 1998 but has jumped to 128 as of 2019.

Looking ahead, Jablonski estimated a 43% compound growth rate of the quantum computing industry from 2020 through 2030.

Many will continue to adopt the quantum computing algorithm due to its polynomial runtime, which decreases the time needed to solve complex problems. For example, a problem that requires 3,300 years to solve under a classical algorithm with exponential runtime would take only take 11 minutes under a quantum algorithm with polynomial runtime.

Quantum computing is already being applied. The banking and finance sub-segment is expected to have the fastest growth in the global market mainly because of the growing adoption of quantum computing.

To access this growing opportunity, investors can take a look at the Defiance Quantum ETF (QTUM), which offers investors liquid, transparent, and low-cost access to companies developing and applying quantum computing and other transformative computing technologies by tracking the BlueStar Quantum Computing and Machine Learning Index.

Along with quantum computing, Paul Dellaquila, president of Defiance ETFs, highlighted the growth potential of next-generation communication services through 5G networking.

Dellaquila noted that the global 5G services market size was estimated at $64.54 billion in 2021 and is expected to hit around $1.87 trillion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 44.63% during the forecast period of 2022 to 2030.

Looking ahead, Dellaquila anticipated 5G subscriptions to reach 4.4 billion globally by the end of 2027, or the majority of total global mobile subscriptions. More than 615 million 5G devices have already been shipped in 2021. Additionally, there will be an estimated 1.8 billion 5G connections by 2025, led by Asia and the United States.

Dellaquila also pointed out that 5G applications cover a vast swathe of global segments, including enterprises, consumer, and government sectors.

Investors can turn to something like the Defiance Next Gen Connectivity ETF (FIVG) for liquid, transparent, and low-cost access to companies engaged in the research and development or commercialization of systems and materials used in 5G communications.

In addition, Jablonski highlighted the first inverse blockchain ETF, Defiance Daily Short Digitizing the Economy ETF (IBIT), to serve sophisticated investors by offering a convenient and cost-effective way to short up to 80% of the blockchain ecosystem. IBIT aims to reflect the inverse performance of BLOK, the Amplify Transformational Data ETF, daily. IBIT may help reduce the drawdown of these underlying assets or simply benefit by going long with an ETF that captures the fall of the theme.

Financial advisors interested in learning more about disruptive technologies can watch the webcast here on demand.

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ETFs to Help Investors Capture Innovative Growth Ideas of Tomorrow - ETF Trends

For the Record, Oct. 14, 2022 | UDaily – UDaily

For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent presentations, publications and honors include the following:

Erik T. Thostenson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering delivered an invited presentation at the Gordon Research Conference onMultifunctional Materials and Structures. Gordon Research Conferences are a group of international conferences that cover frontier research in the sciences and their related technologies. The thematic topic of the 2022 conference was "Imparting Intelligence in and Through Self-Learning Materials and Structures."His presentation, "Scalable Manufacturing of Multifunctionalin situSensors," highlighted the recent research of his group on the processing of novel carbon nanotube-based sensors and their applications ranging from structural health monitoring of critical infrastructure to wearable garments for physical rehabilitation. Thostenson, who is a joint faculty member of UD'sCenter for Composite Materials, leads the Multifunctional Composites Laboratory. He has made pioneering research contributions in the processing, characterization and modeling of carbon nanotube-based composite materials. His scholarly research has been cited nearly23,000 timesin the scientific literature.

On Oct. 6, 2022, Sarah Trembanis, Associate in Arts Program professor of history, along with AAP graduate and current UD junior Haley Ryanpresented a talk at the Bethany Beach Fire Hall, entitled "Cat Hill Cemetery: An Investigation in Historic Sussex County." Their talk was based on research undertaken through a 2022 Community Engagement Initiative summer fellows grant and in partnership with the South Bethany Historical Society. Ryan ismajoring in history and minoring in both women and gender studies and domestic violence prevention and services.The project was the subject of a recent article in the Coastal Point newspaper.

Monet Lewis-Timmons, a doctoral candidate in the Department of English, successfully nominated the noted Delaware writer, teacher, suffragist, civil rights and peace activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson, for inclusion in the Delaware Women's Hall of Fame. At the induction event on Oct. 12, 2022, Lewis-Timmons provided the audience with a sketch of Dunbar-Nelson's life and accomplishments. Alice Dunbar-Nelson's papers are housed in the UD Library's Special Collections Department.

Jennifer Horney, professor and director of the Epidemiology Program within the College of Health Sciences, has published The COVID-19 Response: The Vital Role of the Public Health Professional. Published by Elsevier and geared toward graduate students in public health and those working in public health-adjacent fields, the book, available on Amazon, emphasizes the critical roles that the public health workforce played on the frontlines of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to bring visibility to the field. Public health is at a real pivot point, and we need to raise awareness of the breadth and depth of the roles of public health agencies and the workforce, Horney said. During the pandemic, a lot of people got wrapped up in the complexity or inconsistency of messaging from the CDC, but they didnt realize their friends and neighbors working in public health were responsible for standing up COVID test sites and vaccination campaigns in NASCAR stadiums or analyzing millions of COVID test results. The COVID-19 Response also delves into the disinvestment in public health following the 2008 financial crisis and pushes for a path forward that will be essential to meeting the future challenges and threats public health will undoubtedly face. Horney, who serves as core faculty for UDs Disaster Research Center, is also the editor for COVID-19, Frontline Responders and Mental Health: A Playbook for Delivering Resilient Public Health Systems Post-Pandemic, which covers the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 response. The book will be published by Emerald on Jan. 23, 2023.

Juliet Dee, associate professor of communication, is the coauthor of the chapter Religious Freedom versus Public Health: Discordant Legal Narratives in the Pandemic, 41-65, in Discordant Pandemic Narratives in the United States, edited by Shing-Ling S. Chen and Nicole Allaire and published by Lexington Books. She is also the author of an article on Fighting Back: Is Defamation Law a Double-Edged Sword for #MeToo Victims? in First Amendment Studies 55:2, 148-174 (2021).

Sarah Pragg, assistant policy scientist in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration's Institute of Public Administration, was presented with the 202223 University of Delaware Rising Star Award by the Delaware ACE Womens Network (DAWN). The Rising Star award is granted annually to one nominee from each institute of higher education in Delawarewho demonstrates the promise of future leadership.DAWN is the Delaware chapter of the AmericanCouncil on Education (ACE).The organization is committed to the advancement of women in higher education through developing, mentoring and promoting women leaders. Pragg acts as a principal investigator leading research projects that benefit Delaware's state and local governments; she supervises and mentors students providing them with real-world experiences; and she is a highly sought-after presenter and trainer.On Oct. 13, 2022, she was honored at the DAWN virtual celebration in celebration of her accomplishments.

Cameron Ibrahim, a doctoral student in theDepartment of Computer & Information Scienceswho is supervised by Ilya Safro, associate professor, received the Best Student Paper Award at the2022 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing conference. Ibrahims paper "Constructing Optimal Contraction Trees for Tensor Network Quantum Circuit Simulation" was presented at the Quantum and Non-Deterministic Computing Session on Sept. 19, 2022. This conference, organized in cooperation with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), is the largest of its kind in New England and features cutting edge work on AI, machine learning, graph analytics and quantum computing. Ibrahim's research is focused on algorithm design for speeding up quantum computing simulations and was funded by an Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award from the National Science Foundation, an area of research related to efforts taking place in UD's Quantum Science and Engineering graduate program. The complete list of coauthors includes UDs Ibrahim and Safro, Danylo Lykov and Yuri Alexeev from Argonne National Laboratory and Zichang He from UC Santa Barbara.

To submit information for inclusion in For the Record, write to ocm@udel.edu and include For the Record in the subject line.

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For the Record, Oct. 14, 2022 | UDaily - UDaily

Nobel-winning Quantum Weirdness Undergirds an Emerging High-tech Industry, Promising Better Ways of Encrypting Communications and Imaging Your Body -…

Unhackable communications devices, high-precision GPS and high-resolution medical imaging all have something in common. These technologies some under development and some already on the market all rely on the non-intuitive quantum phenomenon of entanglement.

Two quantum particles, like pairs of atoms or photons, can become entangled. That means a property of one particle is linked to a property of the other, and a change to one particle instantly affects the other particle, regardless of how far apart they are. This correlation is a key resource in quantum information technologies.

For the most part, quantum entanglement is still a subject of physics research, but its also a component of commercially available technologies, and it plays a starring role in the emerging quantum information processing industry.

The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics recognized the profound legacy of Alain Aspect of France, John F. Clauser of the U.S. and Austrian Anton Zeilingers experimental work with quantum entanglement, which has personally touched me since the start of my graduate school career as a physicist. Anton Zeilinger was a mentor of my Ph.D. mentor, Paul Kwiat, which heavily influenced my dissertation on experimentally understanding decoherence in photonic entanglement.

Decoherence occurs when the environment interacts with a quantum object in this case a photon to knock it out of the quantum state of superposition. In superposition, a quantum object is isolated from the environment and exists in a strange blend of two opposite states at the same time, like a coin toss landing as both heads and tails. Superposition is necessary for two or more quantum objects to become entangled.

Quantum entanglement is a critical element of quantum information processing, and photonic entanglement of the type pioneered by the Nobel laureates is crucial for transmitting quantum information. Quantum entanglement can be used to build large-scale quantum communications networks.

On a path toward long-distance quantum networks, Jian-Wei Pan, one of Zeilingers former students, and colleagues demonstrated entanglement distribution to two locations separated by 764 miles (1,203 km) on Earth via satellite transmission. However, direct transmission rates of quantum information are limited due to loss, meaning too many photons get absorbed by matter in transit so not enough reach the destination.

Entanglement is critical for solving this roadblock, through the nascent technology of quantum repeaters. An important milestone for early quantum repeaters, called entanglement swapping, was demonstrated by Zeilinger and colleagues in 1998. Entanglement swapping links one each of two pairs of entangled photons, thereby entangling the two initially independent photons, which can be far apart from each other.

Perhaps the most well known quantum communications application is Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which allows someone to securely distribute encryption keys. If those keys are stored properly, they will be secure, even from future powerful, code-breaking quantum computers.

While the first proposal for QKD did not explicitly require entanglement, an entanglement-based version was subsequently proposed. Shortly after this proposal came the first demonstration of the technique, through the air over a short distance on a table-top. The first demonstrations of entangement-based QKD were published by research groups led by Zeilinger, Kwiat and Nicolas Gisin were published in the same issue of Physical Review Letters in May 2000.

These entanglement-based distributed keys can be used to dramatically improve the security of communications. A first important demonstration along these lines was from the Zeilinger group, which conducted a bank wire transfer in Vienna, Austria, in 2004. In this case, the two halves of the QKD system were located at the headquarters of a large bank and the Vienna City Hall. The optical fibers that carried the photons were installed in the Vienna sewer system and spanned nine-tenths of a mile (1.45 km).

Today, there are a handful of companies that have commercialized quantum key distribution technology, including my groups collaborator Qubitekk, which focuses on an entanglement-based approach to QKD. With a more recent commercial Qubitekk system, my colleagues and I demonstrated secure smart grid communications in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Quantum communications, computing and sensing technologies are of great interest to the military and intelligence communities. Quantum entanglement also promises to boost medical imaging through optical sensing and high-resolution radio frequency detection, which could also improve GPS positioning. Theres even a company gearing up to offer entanglement-as-a-service by providing customers with network access to entangled qubits for secure communications.

There are many other quantum applications that have been proposed and have yet to be invented that will be enabled by future entangled quantum networks. Quantum computers will perhaps have the most direct impact on society by enabling direct simulation of problems that do not scale well on conventional digital computers. In general, quantum computers produce complex entangled networks when they are operating. These computers could have huge impacts on society, ranging from reducing energy consumption to developing personally tailored medicine.

Finally, entangled quantum sensor networks promise the capability to measure theorized phenomena, such as dark matter, that cannot be seen with todays conventional technology. The strangeness of quantum mechanics, elucidated through decades of fundamental experimental and theoretical work, has given rise to a new burgeoning global quantum industry.

Nicholas Peters, Joint Faculty, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nobel-winning Quantum Weirdness Undergirds an Emerging High-tech Industry, Promising Better Ways of Encrypting Communications and Imaging Your Body -...

‘So to Speak’ podcast: What does the First Amendment protect on social media? – Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

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'So to Speak' podcast: What does the First Amendment protect on social media? - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

Jury shoots down First Amendment claims of former Sullivan County teacher Tennessee Lookout – Tennessee Lookout

A federal jury has rejected the free-speech claims of a Sullivan County teacher suspended after parents complained about his expletive-laced social media posts on topics ranging from masking during the COVID pandemic to former President Donald Trump.

In what was the first test case of a U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision granting First Amendment speech protection to the prayers of Washington state high school football coach Joe Kennedy, a jury in U.S. District Court in Greenville, Tenn., last week ruled against former Sullivan County teacher Jeremy McLaughlin.

McLaughlin was suspended for three days without pay in September 2020 after parents complained about social media posts he made while off-duty. Citing the Kennedy decision, McLaughlin insisted then-Sullivan County Schools chief David Cox violated his free-speech rights.

Cox countered that although McLaughlins profanity-filled posts supporting masking and opposing Trump were unprofessional and factored into his suspension decision, the commentary was not the sole basis for it.

Instead, Cox pointed to another social media post in which McLaughlin appeared to encourage people outside the Sullivan County school system to vote against in-person learning in what was supposed to be a survey of teachers within the school system.

In the run-up to last weeks trial, a judgeruled McLaughlins social media posts on hot-bed political controversies were protected speech. What was not protected was McLaughlins social media urgings to his followers to participate in a poll about school re-openings meant only for teachers.

Such dishonest behavior was tantamount to cheating, and, therefore, remained punishable as conduct unbecoming of a professional teacher, attorney Chris McCarty wrote on behalf of Cox in a pre-trial statement of facts.

After a two-day trial last week, jurors sided with Cox.

Has Director Cox proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he would have taken the same action to suspend Jeremy McLaughlin for three days even in the absence of all (his) protected speech? the verdict form read. Yes.

Although McLaughlin lost his case, he was successful in testing the bounds of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted free-speech protection to Kennedy, who was fired for praying on the 50-yard line after football games.

In the run-up to last weeks trial, U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker ruled McLaughlins social media posts on hot-bed political controversies were protected speech under the Kennedy decision. That ruling put the burden on Cox to prove he suspended McLaughlin for reasons other than those controversial posts.

At trial, McCarty argued Cox did, in fact, have another reason for his suspension decision McLaughlins suggestion on social media that outsiders could cast votes in an August 2020 online survey designed to only poll Sullivan County teachers on whether the school system should return to in-person learning.

McLaughlin, court records show, posted a link to the survey on his Facebook page and wrote, If you were a teacher and had the anonymous link, you should fill it out.

Suspension followed parents upset

The brouhaha over McLaughlins social media posts began after a contentious Sullivan County Board of Education meeting in August 2020 at which more than a dozen parents and students urged the board to reopen schools, which had been shut down in the early months of the pandemic.

After McLaughlin spoke up at the meeting in favor of continued on-line instruction, parent Mandi Mittelsteadt took to Facebook to complain about McLaughlin and posted copies of McLaughlins social media posts she deemed objectionable. She wrote a letter of complaint to Cox and urged other parents to do the same. A handful did. Cox suspended McLaughlin soon after.

The posts Mittelsteadt cited as objectionable centered on masking and Trump, although she also included a complaint about the survey post.

Please stop clapping for nurses and giving them a (expletive) raise. Sincerely, teachers, McLaughlin posted on May 7, 2020.

If youre in public and youre not wearing a mask, please know that you are part of the problem, McLaughlin wrote in a June 25, 2020, post. You dont know if you have it. You dont know if youre spreading it. You are keeping everyone from moving out of this crisis because you are a spoiled, selfish child.

That post included a meme depicting the fictional character Ron Burgundy in the Anchorman movies and a Burgundy catchphrase: Go (expletive) yourself, San Diego.

A July 2020, McLaughlin post stated, Not wearing a mask doesnt make you look strong. It makes you look like a selfish piece of (expletive). Saying you have a medical condition and you cant wear a mask makes you look like a lying selfish piece of (expletive).

That post also included a meme a screenshot from a viral YouTube video unrelated to masking that shows a student seated at a computer station and pointing his finger and a second student smiling toward the camera.

Saw a guy at Food City walking around in an iridescent blue fishnet face mask, McLaughlin wrote in another July 2020 post at issue in the case. Brother, you dont look clever. You look like youre wearing your side chicks panties on your face.

McLaughlin also posted in July 2020 a news story with a photograph of former President Donald Trump and the headline, Trump floats delaying the November election. He does not have that authority. McLaughlin wrote on that post, Absolutely (expletive) not.

In an August 2020 post, McLaughlin featured a copy of a tweet from a man who wrote, My son is wearing a (Make America Great Again) cap and a Vote Trump 2020 button. Hes been spat on, punched and verbally abused. I hate to think what will happen when he leaves the house.

McLaughlin wrote in response to the copy of the tweet, Father of the year.

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Jury shoots down First Amendment claims of former Sullivan County teacher Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout

Author of The Onion Supreme Court brief explains why parody is worth defending – NPR

The Onion head writer Mike Gillis submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. He says he hopes it will convince the court to take up an Ohio man's First Amendment case while educating the broader public. Mike Gillis hide caption

The Onion head writer Mike Gillis submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. He says he hopes it will convince the court to take up an Ohio man's First Amendment case while educating the broader public.

The long-running First Amendment case of an Ohio man is suddenly getting a lot of attention, thanks to the satirical news site The Onion.

And that's not because it's been spoofed. It's because the publication has gotten involved directly, submitting a brief to the Supreme Court in defense of parody itself.

The 23-page amicus brief was filed on Monday in support of Anthony Novak, who is asking the Supreme Court to take up his civil rights lawsuit against the police officers who arrested and prosecuted him for creating a parody Facebook page of their department (more on that here).

"Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government? This was a surprise to America's Finest News Source and an uncomfortable learning experience for its editorial team," the brief opens.

It goes on to defend the purpose and power of parody in society before explaining that successful satire comes from being realistic enough that it initially tricks readers into believing one thing, only to make them "laugh at their own gullibility when they realize that they've fallen victim to one of the oldest tricks in the history of rhetoric."

None of this would work if it were preceded by a disclaimer, the brief argues, noting that most courts have historically shared this view except for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which, in this instance, sided with the police officers. The Onion's brief urges the Supreme Court to take up the case and rule in Novak's favor. It also wants "the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied," by the way.

"The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onion's writers' paychecks," it reads.

The document quickly started making the rounds on social media and in straight news headlines, both for its unusual form of intervention this is its first such legal filing and trademark humorous approach to a serious topic.

In classic The Onion fashion, it is snarky one subheading reads "It Should Be Obvious That Parodists Cannot Be Prosecuted For Telling A Joke With A Straight Face" and self-referential it says the story sounds like a headline right out of The Onion, "albeit one that's considerably less amusing because its subjects are real."

It also appeals directly to its audience, sprinkling in numerous Latin phrases (at one point, a whole paragraph full see page 15) because it "knows that the federal judiciary is staffed entirely by total Latin dorks."

Some of the brief's more academically minded fans have said it should be taught in law schools, according to its author (who jokes this might be the first time his own father, a workers' compensation attorney, has used an exclamation mark to praise any of his writing). But it also seems to have struck a chord beyond the legal world.

Mike Gillis, head writer for The Onion and author of the brief, told NPR in a phone interview that he hopes the filing won't just help convince the Supreme Court to take on the case, but also show the public why parody matters so much.

"To just get this many people thinking about parody, and the fact that it adds a lot to their lives and that it's something worth defending, was very, very satisfying for me," he says.

Gillis, who has been at The Onion for about a decade, says the opportunity to get involved in this case arose over the summer when a mutual friend put Novak's legal team in touch with the publication.

He hadn't personally been closely following the case, but once The Onion's lawyers started looking into it and the editorial staff started discussing it they realized it was right up their alley.

As Gillis explains, amicus briefs are often drafted by the lawyers involved in the case, then given to the interested parties for additional details. In this case, it was the reverse: He wrote most of the arguments and jokes, then The Onion's lawyers bulked it up with legal precedent and historical context in what he called "an extremely collaborative process."

"I think because the draft itself was trying to make an argument for why parody is a really powerful form ... we thought it made more sense for us to kind of make the brief itself an example of why this thing is worth defending, and why parody is really interesting and grabs people's attention," he adds.

Immediately after the first call with Novak's legal team, Gillis sat down and wrote 1,500 words in one go which he says was because of how excited he was about the "fun, entertaining, attention-grabbing" argument that he knew he could make.

His years of living and breathing satire and parody from writing for The Onion to teaching classes at Second City and speaking with college humor publications also didn't hurt, since he was already well-acquainted with the theory and importance of the form.

Gillis also consulted at times with The Onion's legal team and editor-in-chief since he found it a bit weird to be writing so publicly about the process and value of his site's own work, which he described as "kind of an example of why a disclaimer for parody is not a good idea."

One requirement of the brief is that Gillis must demonstrate that The Onion is an interested party (for starters, it was invoked in one of the early court rulings on the subject). He says there are two main reasons: Limitations on parody could hurt the company's business model, and could have a chilling effect on it and others.

There's a lot at stake, he says. There were several points Gillis wanted to make in the brief, but he knew above all else that he wanted it to be funny.

"It's like, everybody likes laughing," he says. "And sometimes I think these legal officials maybe get a little bit into their own heads about precedent and stuff, and lose track of just the function of why comedy is great and specifically why parody is great."

Members of The Onion's editorial team attend a team meeting in their Chicago office in 2020. Gillis says it employs about a dozen staff writers, plus contributors. Mike Gillis hide caption

Members of The Onion's editorial team attend a team meeting in their Chicago office in 2020. Gillis says it employs about a dozen staff writers, plus contributors.

There are certain misconceptions Gillis wanted to clear up for the Supreme Court including why it's so important for parody to be realistic and why labeling it as such upfront wouldn't only be unnecessary, but unhelpful.

But he also sees the brief as an opportunity to defend the role of parody at large. So, NPR asked, why does it matter?

The short answer is that it's an "extremely powerful rhetorical form that can't really be mimicked by a serious, dry statement of criticism." The longer answer goes back thousands of years, to the etymological root of the word, and has to do with how even slightly tweaking a form can open readers' eyes to how "this thing that had this extremely elevated sense of itself is actually not infallible and can be criticized easily."

Gillis points to some examples of that in The Onion's archives: In 2012, the publication proclaimed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "the sexiest man alive," and China's state-run agency republished that as fact, accompanied with a slideshow. Closer to home, a GOP congressman believed (and warned constituents about) a spoof story about Planned Parenthood opening up an $8 billion "Abortionplex."

Satirists aren't actively trying to trick readers, Gillis says. But when authoritarians fall for parody, "it really punctures their own sense of self-importance because they're showing that they're not a reasonable person."

These are particularly high-profile examples, because The Onion is such a prominent publication (in the brief it deadpans that it "has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history," which employs 350,000 journalists and also "operates the majority of the world's transoceanic shipping lanes ... and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.").

But, as the brief points out, "the quality and taste of the parody is irrelevant" to the degree of legal protection it deserves.

"First Amendment rights should cover everyone and not just people who are able to afford large legal teams or who have an established track record of being parodists," Gillis tells NPR. "I just think it's a blanket law that everybody should be able to rally behind. And that is kind of an obvious win for all people."

The more literacy ordinary people have about the workings of satire and parody, the better off the conversation around it will be, he says. People have gotten mad at satirists for thousands of years, Gillis adds, but the current technological and political environment means that spoofs can be interpreted and critiqued in a more personal (and often partisan) way.

If there's one thing he wants people to know about parody, it's that "there's nothing going wrong if, for a little bit, you're taken in by a comedian," whether that's in the pages of a satirical news site or in the audience of a stand-up show.

"Having a bit more space afforded to satirists to do what they have been doing for thousands of years would be great," he says. "I think the more people that can consider that it's OK that they're being fooled briefly for parody to work, and to not take offense at that and to realize that that's just part of the form, I think that would be wonderful."

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Author of The Onion Supreme Court brief explains why parody is worth defending - NPR