Approximate Approximation on a Quantum Annealer

Many problems of industrial interest are NP-complete, and quickly exhaust resources of computational devices with increasing input sizes. Quantum annealers (QA) are physical devices that aim at this class of problems by exploiting quantum mechanical properties of nature. However, they compete with efficient heuristics and probabilistic or randomised algorithms on classical machines that allow for finding approximate solutions to large NP-complete problems. While first implementations of QA have become commercially available, their practical benefits are far from fully explored. To the best of our knowledge, approximation techniques have not yet received substantial attention. In this paper, we explore how problems' approximate versions of varying degree can be systematically constructed for quantum annealer programs, and how this influences result quality or the handling of larger problem instances on given set of qubits. We illustrate various approximation techniques on both, simulations and real QA hardware, on different seminal problems, and interpret the results to contribute towards a better understanding of the real-world power and limitations of current-state and future quantum computing.Comment: Proceedings of the 17th ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers (CF 2020

SensX: About Sensing and Assessment of Complex Human Motion

The great success of wearables and smartphone apps for provision of extensive physical workout instructions boosts a whole industry dealing with consumer oriented sensors and sports equipment. But with these opportunities there are also new challenges emerging. The unregulated distribution of instructions about ambitious exercises enables unexperienced users to undertake demanding workouts without professional supervision which may lead to suboptimal training success or even serious injuries. We believe, that automated supervision and realtime feedback during a workout may help to solve these issues. Therefore we introduce four fundamental steps for complex human motion assessment and present SensX, a sensor-based architecture for monitoring, recording, and analyzing complex and multi-dimensional motion chains. We provide the results of our preliminary study encompassing 8 different body weight exercises, 20 participants, and more than 9,220 recorded exercise repetitions. Furthermore, insights into SensXs classification capabilities and the impact of specific sensor configurations onto the analysis process are given.Comment: Published within the Proceedings of 14th IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), May 16th-18th, 2017, Calabria Italy 6 pages, 5 figure

Исследования микроструктуры, состава и свойств конструкционного чугуна, применяемого для изготовления корпусных отливок автомобилестроения

В статье описаны результаты исследований микроструктуры, химического состава и свойств чугуна промышленных плавок. Результаты данных исследований позволяют выявить фактический химический состав базового чугуна для разработки дальнейших технологических процессов модифицирования чугуна недефицитными эффективными модификаторами

Анализ локализации корней интервального полинома в заданном секторе

Анализируется отображение параметрического многогранника полинома в сектор Г[m] корневой плоскости, определяемый числом m интервальных коэффициентов. Находятся (2m-2) вершин многогранника, отображение которых в сектор Г[m] гарантирует локализацию в нем всех корней интервального полинома. Формулируются критерии локализации корней в заданном секторе Г при различных соотношениях его угла с углом сектора Г[m]

Memory Bounded Open-Loop Planning in Large POMDPs using Thompson Sampling

State-of-the-art approaches to partially observable planning like POMCP are based on stochastic tree search. While these approaches are computationally efficient, they may still construct search trees of considerable size, which could limit the performance due to restricted memory resources. In this paper, we propose Partially Observable Stacked Thompson Sampling (POSTS), a memory bounded approach to open-loop planning in large POMDPs, which optimizes a fixed size stack of Thompson Sampling bandits. We empirically evaluate POSTS in four large benchmark problems and compare its performance with different tree-based approaches. We show that POSTS achieves competitive performance compared to tree-based open-loop planning and offers a performance-memory tradeoff, making it suitable for partially observable planning with highly restricted computational and memory resources.Comment: Presented at AAAI 201

Sensitivity analysis applied to the multi-objective optimization of a MCFC hybrid plant

In this paper, the multi-objective optimization of a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) based hybrid plant fueled with landfill gas is performed. System operation is significantly affected by off-design conditions. These are due to variations methane concentration occurring as the landfill depletes, performance degradations of the components, particularly the fuel cell, and ambient conditions. For these reasons, the objective functions are defined considering the plant lifetime. Some of the parameters affecting the results, as the voltage degradation, the cost of fuel cell, the methane concentration and the unit cost of landfill gas can be only estimated or forecasted and their actual values are uncertain. Therefore, the optimization is performed considering a sensitivity analysis in order to estimate the effects of possible variations on the Pareto front. The following free design variables are considered: pressure and temperature operation of the MCFC, turbine inlet temperature, fuel mass flow rate. In addition, the optimal configuration of the heat exchanger network is selected for each set of the design variabl

A consumer-based brand equity approach to detect perceived incongruity and its impact upon consumer perceptions

An analysis of the retail market environment reveals two striking trends - remarkable growth of private brands, exerting increased pressure on national brands, and the increased market share of discounters and mass merchandisers stirring market competition with other retail types. These trends press the question - how do different product brand images interact with the variant images of different retailers? In order to thoroughly address, a comprehensive multiple mediator model was devised and empirically tested, tapping into three literature streams: the psychological, sociological and business literature on incongruity; studies on Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE; Keller 1993); and works on Retailer Brand Equity (RBE: Ailawadi and Keller 2004). In addition, various approaches discussing the quality concept in marketing were employed. Lastly, this research credited the emerging relevance of the retailer as brand concept (Burt and Sparks 2002). In order to account for the impact of private versus national brand, the combined effect of store image and brand cues on perceptions of quality and behavioral intentions, an incongruity construct was incorporated into the model. The components of the empirical model were Retailer Brand Image (RBI), Product Brand Image (PBI), (in)congruity, perceived value (PV), CBBE (Overall Brand Equity; OBE) and purchase intent (PI). Overall, the study was able to validate the proposed model, particularly in its focal incongruity condition (national brand - low image retailer). The findings across all conditions suggest that (in)congruity perceptions exert a decisive effect upon CBBE (OBE), mediated by PV. In addition, it could be shown that CBBE (OBE) has a strong impact on purchase intent independent from the product brand / retailer brand constellation. RBI shoa strong effect upon incongruity in the key incongruity condition, whereas in other situations the effect was not as strong. In summary, while private brands are well-received in both high and low image retailer settings, there is a definite perceived disconnect in consumer\u27s perception of national brands offered at lower image retailers. It is a reoccurring phenomenon that lower image retailers seek to include high image national brands in their assortment, but this may be a risky endeavor for the national brand