Benford's distribution in extrasolar world: Do the exoplanets follow Benford's distribution?

In many real life situations, it is observed that the first digits (i.e., $1,2,\ldots,9$) of a numerical data-set, which is expressed using decimal system, do not follow a random distribution. Instead, smaller numbers are favoured by nature in accordance with a logarithmic distribution law, which is referred to as Benford's law. The existence and applicability of this empirical law have been extensively studied by physicists, accountants, computer scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, etc., and it has been observed that a large number of data-sets related to diverse problems follow this distribution. However, applicability of Benford's law has been hardly tested for extrasolar objects. Motivated by this fact, this paper investigates the existence of Benford's distribution in the extrasolar world using Kepler data for exoplanets. The investigation has revealed the presence of Benford's distribution in various physical properties of these exoplanets. Further, Benford goodness parameters are computed to provide a quantitative measure of coincidence of real data with the ideal values obtained from Benford's distribution. The quantitative analysis and the plots have revealed that several physical parameters associated with the exoplanets (e.g., mass, volume, density, orbital semi-major axis, orbital period, and radial velocity) nicely follow Benford's distribution, whereas some physical parameters (e.g., total proper motion, stellar age and stellar distance) moderately follow the distribution, and some others (e.g., longitude, radius, and effective temperature) do not follow Benford's distribution. Further, some specific comments have been made on the possible generalizations of the obtained result, its potential applications in analyzing data-set of candidate exoplanets, and how interested readers can perform similar investigations on other interesting data-sets.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures and one potrai

Complete characterization of the directly implementable quantum gates used in the IBM quantum processors

Quantum process tomography of each directly implementable quantum gate used in the IBM quantum processors is performed to compute gate error in order to check viability of complex quantum operations in the superconductivity-based quantum computers introduced by IBM and to compare the quality of these gates with the corresponding gates implemented using other technologies. Quantum process tomography (QPT) of C-NOT gates have been performed for three configurations available in IBM QX4 processor. For all the other allowed gates QPT have been performed for every allowed position (i.e., by placing the gates in different qubit lines) for IBM QX4 architecture, and thus, gate fidelities are obtained for both single-qubit and 2-qubit gates. Gate fidelities are observed to be lower than the corresponding values obtained in the other technologies, like NMR. Further, gate fidelities for all the single-qubit gates are obtained for IBM QX2 architecture by placing the gates in the third qubit line ($q[2]$). It's observed that the IBM QX4 architecture yields better gate fidelity compared to IBM QX2 in all cases except the case of $\operatorname{Y}$ gate as far as the gate fidelity corresponding to the third qubit line is concerned. In general, the analysis performed here leads to a conclusion that a considerable technological improvement would be inevitable to achieve the desired scalability required for the realization of complex quantum operations.Comment: Quantum Process tomography has been done for all the gates used in IBM QX2 and IBM QX

Experimental realization of nondestructive discrimination of Bell states using a five-qubit quantum computer

A scheme for distributed quantum measurement that allows nondestructive or indirect Bell measurement was proposed by Gupta et al., (Int. J. Quant. Infor. \textbf{5} (2007) 627) and subsequently realized experimentally using an NMR-based three-qubit quantum computer by Samal et al., (J. Phys. B, \textbf{43} (2010) 095508). In the present work, a similar experiment is performed using the five-qubit super-conductivity-based quantum computer, which has been recently placed in cloud by IBM Corporation. The experiment confirmed that the Bell state can be constructed and measured in a nondestructive manner with a reasonably high fidelity. A comparison of the outcomes of this study and the results obtained earlier in the NMR-based experiment has also been performed. The study indicates that to make a scalable SQUID-based computer, errors by the gates (in the present technology) have to be reduced considerably.Comment: 7 figures,13 pages including 1 appendi

IMPULSE moment-by-moment test:An implicit measure of affective responses to audiovisual televised or digital advertisements

IMPULSE is a novel method for detecting affective responses to dynamic audiovisual content. It is an implicit reaction time test that is carried out while an audiovisual clip (e.g., a television commercial) plays in the background and measures feelings that are congruent or incongruent with the content of the clip. The results of three experiments illustrate the following four advantages of IMPULSE over self-reported and biometric methods: (1) being less susceptible to typical confounds associated with explicit measures, (2) being easier to measure deep-seated and often nonconscious emotions, (3) being better able to detect a broad range of emotions and feelings, and (4) being more efficient to implement as an online method.Published versio

Design and experimental realization of an optimal scheme for teleportion of an nn-qubit quantum state

An explicit scheme (quantum circuit) is designed for the teleportation of an $n$-qubit quantum state. It is established that the proposed scheme requires an optimal amount of quantum resources, whereas larger amount of quantum resources has been used in a large number of recently reported teleportation schemes for the quantum states which can be viewed as special cases of the general $n$-qubit state considered here. A trade off between our knowledge about the quantum state to be teleported and the amount of quantum resources required for the same is observed. A proof of principle experimental realization of the proposed scheme (for a 2-qubit state) is also performed using 5-qubit superconductivity-based IBM quantum computer. Experimental results show that the state has been teleported with high fidelity. Relevance of the proposed teleportation scheme has also been discussed in the context of controlled, bidirectional, and bidirectional-controlled state teleportation.Comment: 11 pages 4 figure

Optimization of Circuits for IBM's five-qubit Quantum Computers

IBM has made several quantum computers available to researchers around the world via cloud services. Two architectures with five qubits, one with 16, and one with 20 qubits are available to run experiments. The IBM architectures implement gates from the Clifford+T gate library. However, each architecture only implements a subset of the possible CNOT gates. In this paper, we show how Clifford+T circuits can efficiently be mapped into the two IBM quantum computers with 5 qubits. We further present an algorithm and a set of circuit identities that may be used to optimize the Clifford+T circuits in terms of gate count and number of levels. It is further shown that the optimized circuits can considerably reduce the gate count and number of levels and thus produce results with better fidelity

Implicit and Explicit Identification of Counterfeit Brand Logos based on Logotype Transposition

Purpose With trade amounting to more than US$400bn, counterfeiting is already affecting many successful brands. Often, consumers are deceived into buying fake products due to the visual similarity between fake and original brand logos. This paper aims to explore the varying forms of fraudulent imitation of original brand logotypes (operationalized at the level of logotype transposition), which can aid in the detection of a counterfeit brand. Design/methodology/approach Across two studies, this research tested how well consumers can differentiate counterfeit from original logos of well-known brands both explicitly and implicitly. Seven popular brand logos were altered to create different levels of visual dissimilarity and participants were required to discriminate the logos as fake or genuine. Findings Results demonstrate that although consumers can explicitly discriminate fake logos with a high degree of accuracy, the same is not true under conditions in which logos are presented very briefly (tapping participants’ implicit or automatic logo recognition capabilities), except when the first and last letters of the logotype are substituted. Originality/value A large body of research on counterfeit trade focuses on the individual or cross-cultural differences behind the prevalence of counterfeit trade. There is limited research exploring the ability of a consumer to correctly identify a fake logo, based on its varying similarity with the original logotype; this paper addresses this gap. Given that many of the purchase decisions are often made automatically, identifying key implicit differentiators that can help a consumer recognize a fake logo should be informative to both practitioners and academics

Identifying counterfeit brand logos:On the importance of the first and last letters of a logotype

Purpose Counterfeiting is a menace in the emerging markets and many successful brands are falling prey to it. Counterfeit brands not only deceive consumers but also fuel a demand for lower priced replicas, both of which can devalue the bona-fide brand. But can consumers accurately identify a counterfeit logo? This paper aims to explore this question and examines the accuracy and speed with which a consumer can identify a counterfeit (vs original) logo. Design/methodology/approach Seven popular brand logos were altered by transposing and substituting the first and last letters of the logotypes. Consumers then classified the logos as counterfeit (vs original) across two experiments. Findings Participants were faster and more accurate in identifying a counterfeit logo when the first letter (vs last letter) of a logotype was manipulated, thus revealing last letter manipulations of a brand’s logotype to be more deceptive. Research limitations/implications This paper comments only on the manipulation of logotypes but not of logo symbols. Similarly, findings may not be generalizable across languages which are read from right to left. Practical implications Counterfeit trade is already a multibillion dollar industry. Understanding the key perceptual differentiators between a counterfeit (vs original) logo can be insightful for both consumers and firms alike. Originality/value Research available on objective measures of similarities (vs dissimilarities) between counterfeit (vs original) brand logos is limited. This paper contributes by examining the ability of consumers to discriminate between counterfeit (vs original) logos at different levels of visual similarity.submittedVersio