Neighbors please be mindful of social distancing guidelines while you do your part to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. See the latest guidance from the CDC here.

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Proper pruning is essential for the healthy development of your valued trees and shrubs! Join the Scotch Plains Public Library staff via Zoom on Monday, May 18 at 7pm, when licensed landscape architect Richard Miller will cover essential pruning techniques and show you how to avoid common errors.

Patrons are welcome to submit pruning questions ahead of time in the registration form; questions will also be taken after the presentation as time allows.

Richard is the current president of the Garden Club of Metuchen.

Registration is required for this online program. Registered participants will receive a Zoom link via email a day or two in advance.

For more information, go to http://www.scotlib.org/events or email library@scotlib.org.

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Proper Pruning Techniques at the Scotch Plains Library (Online) - Patch.com

The Klamath County Libraries and the Oregon State University Extension arent going to let coronavirus get in the way of the 2020 gardening season! Were taking the popular Gardening Lecture Series online with a Zoom presentation on how to nurture houseplants on Thursday, May 21 at 10 a.m.

Lots of folks are using their shelter in place time to nurture an indoor plant. From traditional, reliable choices to new varieties with exotic leaf shapes and colors, youll learn how to choose and care for houseplants well suited to your home and dcor. Well cover fertilizer, grooming, light and heat requirements, and how to propagate to start new plants.

Guest lecturer Nicole Sanchez has worked in the horticulture industry for over 30 years. She runs the Klamath County Master Gardener Program at the OSU Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center, and has worked extensively with both home gardeners and commercial produce growers. (Ask her how you can pursue a Master Gardener education online.)

Please pre-register by emailing Supervising Librarian Charla Oppenlander at coppenlander@klamathlibrary.org and shell send you the videoconference link. You can join our meeting for free at zoom.us, or via the Zoom app on your favorite mobile device. (Need help getting set up? Email Charla.)

For more information about this and other online activities through the Klamath County Libraries, call us at 541-882-8894 Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., or visit klamathlibrary.org/calendar.

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Learn how to care for, propagate houseplants through online library presentation - Herald and News

BELMAR, NJ Belmar Public Librarys virtual doors are now open, offering round-the-clock access to a wealth of online resources.

The 24/7 Virtual Library is the go-to place for Belmar Public Library patrons to access digital online services like downloading e-books, audiobooks, 72-hour access to The New York Times, and much more as we add services in the coming days, said library assistant Luis Pulido.

All Belmar Library cardholders will have full access to these resources even though the library itself is closed to the public, he said.

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Dont have a library card? A free temporary library card is easily available through the Belmar Public Library website by clicking here. These temporary cards are available to Belmar residents, and students of Belmar Elementary School, St. Rose Grammar and St. Rose High School.

The card grants full access to all Belmar Public Library online resources. It also will be valid for online resources only 30 days after the library reopens. It will not be valid for physical checkout of books and media.

However, temporary cardholders will have the opportunity to convert to a free permanent library card at any time after the library reopens with a valid identification/proof of residency.

We invite all Belmar residents and students of any school in Belmar to register for a temporary library card and take advantage of the digital resources we have now, and the new ones we will be adding soon, Pulido said.

For example, grab an e-book or digital audiobook fromeLibraryNJ, a downloadable digital media collection provided by libraries in central New Jersey (formerly ListenNJ).

Looking to explore a new career or academic challenge? The Ebsco LearningExpress Library a service of the New Jersey State Library is organized into target learning centers to improve core skills, pass the GED, prepare for college, find a job, join the military, become a U.S. citizen and much more.

Or find your favorite magazines through Flipster, an easy-to-use digital newsstand where best-selling periodicals are accessible by computer, tablet or mobile phone.

Click hereto get connected with the Belmar Public Librarys 24-7 Virtual Library. For more information, email library@belmar.com

TAPinto Belmar/Lake Como offers its marketing partners targeted advertising, content marketing, email marketing and sponsorship opportunities to help them brand their products or services, and improve their bottom line. Our advertisers enable us to continue to provide you with local online news for free. To learn how you can promote your business to our readers, email cgoetz@tapinto.netto request more information about business marketing opportunities.

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Get Connected Online with the '24/7 Virtual' Belmar Public Library - TAPinto.net

By: SNJ Today Staff

CAMDEN, N.J. The New Jersey State Library has awarded the Camden County Library System the 2020 Best Practices in Early Childhood Literacy Award that recognizes excellence in early childhood programming in New Jersey libraries.

The county library was recognized for its successful Story Time in the Park program that engages families and removes service barriers by bringing library services into the communities served by the systems eight branches. These pop-up story times include stories, songs, stretches and activities, as well as a portable assortment of childrens books that can be checked out onsite.

Freeholder Melinda Kane, liaison to the library system, said that even though the story times cannot be in the park right now, the library is still offering activities for youth.

While we are disappointed that our story times cannot be held in the parks this spring because of the coronavirus pandemic, our library team is continuing to deliver critical childhood programming and services online, Kane said. The Freeholder Board and our team throughout the Library System are committed to delivering quality library services and programming to our residents. We are thankful for this honor and recognition from the New Jersey State Library, and for the families who made this program so successful by joining us in the parks week after week.

The Camden County Library System continues to provide a variety of services to residents. Library staff are now delivering live online programming, including the Little Readers Theater, which had over 10,000 views during the month of April. Online digital services such as Hoopla, Rosetta Stone, Ancestry.com, and Tutor.com have been accessed over 28,500 times in the past month.

Staff at individual branches have been calling regular library patrons to offer information about library services and answer questions. Staff have provided information on how to access digital services, how to make reading lists in the Librarys catalog, and how to access online programming.

Additionally, the Library System is continuing to provide all Camden County residents with a free instant online library card to access streaming movies, ebooks, audiobooks, online genealogy resources and other digital resources during the pandemic.

For more information, to view available online services and programming, and to sign up for a free library card, visit the Librarys website at http://www.camdencountylibrary.org.

SNJ Today is a Southern New Jersey news and information source that is dedicated to providing current stories related specifically to South Jersey.

Do you have community news or events? Email us at news@snjtoday.com

See the original post here:
Camden County Library System Recognized For Early Literacy Programming, Continues Operations - SNJTODAY

Courtesy photo, Estes Valley Library

Though the Librarys building may not be open yet, theres an exciting menu of services available. Were inspired by our great local restaurants, who have been creatively bringing delicious curbside cuisine to our community. Here are 10 items now on the Library Menu:

Curbside pick-up service began this week, and its been popular! You can place holds in the Library catalog. We pull your items, and well have em ready at your scheduled pick-up time, right by the Librarys front steps.

Cliffhanger Used Books joined many downtown retailers in re-opening their doors this past week. You can again shop on-site, with all precautions in place, while supporting the Library Friends & Foundation in the process.

Digital Collections were expanding in popularity even before the closure. Weve added lots of new digital books and movies, including more than ever for kids and teens. Whatever your interest, theres a download for that!

7-Day-a-week Reference Desk: Got questions? Contact us with whats on your mind, whether its about a Library service, or locating the right website for an application, or a local service. Call, email, or look for the new online chat button at estesvalleylibrary.org.

Outdoor Wi-Fi 24/7: Library wi-fi and the Towns Wapiti wi-fi networks cover a big downtown footprint, spanning the Library parking lot all the way to Bond Park. Check out the full service area map on our website.

Live Storytimes: yesterday, Fire Chief David Wolf was our special storytime guest. You can watch storytime live three times a week, or catch all the great recordingsincluding Chief Wolf. Songs, stories, and puppets will inspire your day! How about scheduling a shared viewing time with the grandkids?

Community Zoom Rooms: while our meeting spaces are closed, weve been helping and hosting community groups and clubs to stay active and connected through videoconferencing. Many of our book clubs have been Zooming happily. Contact us, and well help you Zoom too.

College Readiness: our resident college-planning expert, Kaye Orten, offers one-on-one phone appointments to help local teens exploring college options, along with financial aid and scholarship opportunities. High school juniors can watch the Librarys all-new webinar now available through our Facebook and YouTube links.

A Helping Hand with Advanced Directives: via phone and videoconference, our partners at the Larimer Advance Care Planning Team are here to help you draft your Advanced Directivesdocumenting how you want medical decisions about you made in case you someday cant make them yourself. Work with a caring expert, and youll have peace of mind.

The Summer Reading Program is coming soon! Summer is a great time to read for pleasure, and this years Program will offer reading incentives and fun challenges for all ages. More details are coming soon, with the program launching in late May.

Find details on all these great menu items at estesvalleylibrary.org, or give us a call at 970-586-8116.

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Now serving: Ten great items on the Library menu - Estes Park Trail-Gazette

May 12, 2020 2:14 PM By: Jason G. Antonio

The City of Moose Jaw will reduce its funding to third-party groups by $159,100 this year to save money during the pandemic, with the public library seeing the biggest reduction.

During its May 11 regular meeting, city council discussed ways to reduce the 2020 tax increase in its operating budget to zero per cent from 2.3 per cent, as a way to alleviate financial pressures that residents and businesses have faced during the coronavirus pandemic. Reducing funding given to third-party groups was one area city council discussed.

Council eventually reached a zero-per-cent tax increase for 2020 by eliminating or deferring $703,636 in spending after nearly two hours of discussion.

City administration has spoken with the municipality's third-party groups that it funds and has estimated that council could reduce funding to these groups by $159,100 due to building closures and staff layoffs, a report to council explained.

These numbers indicate how much funding each group receives and how much in reductions each faces:

Council voted unanimously to reduce third-party funding by $159,100 for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Sarah Simison, library board chair, attend the meeting by video link and told council that while the library building is closed, services continue at a steady pace. Library employees have focused on programming, digital collections, and general, technical, and administrative support during the past two months.

The general, technical and administrative support occurs via a virtual help desk that staff operate remotely. The help desk answers questions, offers support and training to use the digital collection, and administers library cards. Through this latter activity, people can continue to receive help and access library resources, ask archival questions and even receive a new library card.

The library has also offered live programs for storytime, a COVID-19 conversation group, book clubs, recordings of Saturday morning craft clubs, Dungeons and Dragons activities, and youth programming using a digital platform called Discord.

The digital library collection continues to be available, (while) there has been an increase in usage of Libby or Library2Go Kanopy, Tumble Books and Hoopla, Simison said. The library proudly offers these resources and connections to the community during this time.

While this service is robust, it is not at the same level as if the building was open, she continued. The library does not need more money for operations, while it does not expect to need all of the estimated funds for 2020. However, the proposed reductions are based on the library being physically closed for four months, while service levels could not be maintained if council made similar cuts in the future.

Moose Jaw Public Library does not hold reserves for operational expenses and attempts to be good stewards of the publics money, Simison said. It attempts to provide an essential role to bring people together during this time and attempts to provide efficient and effective services and programs.

Our community will certainly face challenges going forward and we believe our library can share a role in supporting the well-being and recovery ahead, she added.

Gwen Fisher, head librarian, also participating online, added that the funding reduction is manageable this year as long as the library reopens by Aug. 31. It might be possible to have curbside pickup of books, but thats difficult to predict.

The next regular council meeting is Monday, May 25.

Read more from the original source:
Library sees biggest funding cut among all third-party groups - moosejawtoday.com

Quantum technology will revolutionise many industrial sectors, and will already begin spawning new, nationally significant business and research opportunities over the next few years. Advancements in quantum technology and, in particular, the technological leap afforded by quantum computers aka the quantum leap will enable unprecedented computing power and the ability to solve problems that are impossible for todays supercomputers.

Building this quantum computer will provide Finland with an exceptional level of capabilities in both research and technology, and will safeguard Finlands position at the forefront of new technology. The goal is to create a unique ecosystem for the development and application of quantum technology in Finland, in collaboration with companies and universities. VTT hopes to partner with progressive Finnish companies from a variety of sectors during the various phases of implementation and application.

The development and construction of Finlands quantum computer will be carried out as an innovation partnership that VTT will be opening up for international tender. The project will run for several years and its total cost is estimated at about EUR 2025 million.

The project will progress in stages. The first phase will last for about a year and aims to get a minimum five-qubit quantum computer in working order. However, the ultimate goal is a considerably more powerful machine with a larger number of qubits.

In the future, well encounter challenges that cannot be met using current methods. Quantum computing will play an important role in solving these kinds of problems. For example, the quantum computers of the future will be able to accurately model viruses and pharmaceuticals, or design new materials in a way that is impossible with traditional methods, says Antti Vasara, CEO of VTT.

Through this project, VTT is seeking to be a world leader in quantum technology and its application.

The pandemic has shocked not only Finlands economy but also the entire world economy, and it will take us some time to recover from the consequences. To safeguard economic recovery and future competitiveness, its now even more important than ever to make investments in innovation and future technologies that will create demand for Finnish companies products and services, says Vasara.

VTT has lengthy experience and top expertise in both quantum technology research and related fields of science and technology, such as superconductive circuits and cryogenics, microelectronics and photonics. In Otaniemi, VTT and Aalto University jointly run Micronova, a world-class research infrastructure that enables experimental research and development in quantum technologies. This infrastructure will be further developed to meet the requirements of quantum technologies. Micronovas cleanrooms are already equipped to manufacture components and products based on quantum technologies.

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VTT to acquire Finland's first quantum computer seeking to bolster Finland's and Europe's competitiveness - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Businesses eager to embrace cutting-edge technology are exploring quantum computing, which depends on qubits to perform computations that would be much more difficult, or simply not feasible, on classical computers. The ultimate goals are quantum advantage, the inflection point when quantum computers begin to solve useful problems. While that is a long way off (if it can even be achieved), the potential is massive. Applications include everything from cryptography and optimization to machine learning and materials science.

As quantum computing startup IonQ has described it, quantum computing is a marathon, not a sprint. We had the pleasure of interviewing IonQ CEO Peter Chapman last month to discuss a variety of topics. Among other questions, we asked Chapman about quantum computings future impact on AI and ML.

The conversation quickly turned to Strong AI, or Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which does not yet exist. Strong AI is the idea that a machine could one day understand or learn any intellectual task that a human can.

AI in the Strong AI sense, that I have more of an opinion [about], just because I have more experience in that personally, Chapman told VentureBeat. And there was a really interesting paper that just recently came out talking about how to use a quantum computer to infer the meaning of words in NLP. And I do think that those kinds of things for Strong AI look quite promising. Its actually one of the reasons I joined IonQ. Its because I think that does have some sort of application.

In a follow-up email, Chapman expanded on his thoughts. For decades, it was believed that the brains computational capacity lay in the neuron as a minimal unit, he wrote. Early efforts by many tried to find a solution using artificial neurons linked together in artificial neural networks with very limited success. This approach was fueled by the thought that the brain is an electrical computer, similar to a classical computer.

However, since then, I believe we now know the brain is not an electrical computer, but an electrochemical one, he added. Sadly, todays computers do not have the processing power to be able to simulate the chemical interactions across discrete parts of the neuron, such as the dendrites, the axon, and the synapse. And even with Moores law, they wont next year or even after a million years.

Chapman then quoted Richard Feynman, who famously said Nature isnt classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, youd better make it quantum mechanical. And by golly, its a wonderful problem because it doesnt look so easy.

Similarly, its likely Strong AI isnt classical, its quantum mechanical as well, Chapman said.

One of IonQs competitors, D-Wave, argues that quantum computing and machine learning are extremely well matched. Chapman is still on the fence.

I havent spent enough time to really understand it, he admitted. There clearly [are] a lot of people who think that ML and quantum have an overlap. Certainly, if you think of 85% of all ML produces a decision tree, and the depth of that decision tree could easily be optimized with a quantum computer. Clearly, there [are] lots of people that think that generation of the decision tree could be optimized with a quantum computer. Honestly, I dont know if thats the case or not. I think its still a little early for machine learning, but there clearly [are] so many people that are working on it. Its hard to imagine it doesnt have [an] application.

Chapman continued in a later email: ML has intimate ties to optimization: Many learning problems are formulated as minimization of some loss function on a training set of examples. Generally, Universal Quantum Computers excel at these kinds of problems.

He listed three improvements in ML that quantum computing will likely allow:

Whether Strong AI or ML, IonQ isnt particularly interested in either. The company leaves that to its customers and future partners.

Theres so much to be to be done in a quantum, Chapman said. From education at one end all the way to the quantum computer itself. I think some of our competitors have taken on lots of the entire problem set. We at IonQ are just focused on producing the worlds best quantum computer for them. We think thats a large enough task for a little company like us to handle.

So, for the moment were kind of happy to let everyone else work on different problems, he added. We just dont have extra bandwidth or resources to put into working on machine learning algorithms. And luckily, there [are] lots of other companies that think that there [are] applications there. Well partner with them in the sense that well provide the hardware that their algorithms will run on. But were not in the ML business, per se.

See more here:

IonQ CEO Peter Chapman on how quantum computing will change the future of AI - VentureBeat

May 11, 2020 David Graves, an internationally-known chemical engineer, has been named to lead a new research enterprise that will explore plasma applications in nanotechnology for everything from semiconductor manufacturing to the next generation of super-fast quantum computers.

Graves, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1986, is an expert in plasma applications in semiconductor manufacturing. He will become the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratorys (PPPL) first associate laboratory director for Low-Temperature Plasma Surface Interactions, effective June 1. He will likely begin his new position from his home in Lafayette, California, in the East Bay region of San Francisco.

He will lead a collaborative research effort to not only understand and measure how plasma is used in the manufacture of computer chips, but also to explore how plasma could be used to help fabricate powerful quantum computing devices over the next decade.

This is the apex of our thrust into becoming a multipurpose lab, said Steve Cowley, PPPL director, who recruited Graves. Working with Princeton University, and with industry and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), we are going to make a big push to do research that will help us understand how you can manufacture at the scale of a nanometer. A nanometer, one-billionth of a meter, is about ten thousand times less than the width of a human hair.

The new initiative will draw on PPPLs expertise in low temperature plasmas, diagnostics, and modeling. At the same time, it will work closely with plasma semiconductor equipment industries and will collaborate with Princeton University experts in various departments, including chemical and biological engineering, electrical engineering, materials science, and physics. In particular, collaborations with PRISM (the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials) are planned, Cowley said. I want to see us more tightly bound to the University in some areas because that way we get cross-fertilization, he said.

Graves will also have an appointment as professor in the Princeton University Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, starting July 1. He is retiring from his position at Berkeley at the end of this semester. He is currently writing a book (Plasma Biology) on plasma applications in biology and medicine. He said he changed his retirement plans to take the position at PPPL and Princeton University. This seemed like a great opportunity, Graves said. Theres a lot we can do at a national laboratory where theres bigger scale, world-class colleagues, powerful computers and other world-class facilities.

Exciting new direction for the Lab

Graves is already working with Jon Menard, PPPL deputy director for research, on the strategic plan for the new research initiative over the next five years. Its a really exciting new direction for the Lab that will build upon our unique expertise in diagnosing and simulating low-temperature plasmas, Menard said. It also brings us much closer to the university and industry, which is great for everyone.

The staff will grow over the next five years and PPPL is recruiting for an expert in nano-fabrication and quantum devices. The first planned research would use converted PPPL laboratory space fitted with equipment provided by industry. Subsequent work would use laboratory space at PRISM on Princeton Universitys campus. In the longer term, researchers in the growing group would have brand new laboratory and office space as a central part the Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC), a new building planned at PPPL.

Physicists Yevgeny Raitses, principal investigator for the Princeton Collaborative Low Temperature Plasma Research Facility (PCRF) and head of the Laboratory for Plasma Nanosynthesis, and Igor Kavanovich, co-principal investigator of PCRF, are both internationally-known experts in low temperature plasmas who have forged recent partnerships between PPPL and various industry partners. The new initiative builds on their work, Cowley said.

A priority research area

Research aimed at developing quantum information science (QIS) is a priority for the DOE. Quantum computers could be very powerful in solving complex scientific problems, including simulating quantum behavior in material or chemical systems. QIS could also have applications in quantum communication, especially in encryption, and quantum sensing. It could potentially have an impact in areas such as national security. A key question is whether plasma-based fabrication tools commonly used today will play a role in fabricating quantum devices in the future, Menard said. There are huge implications in that area, Menard said. We want to be part of that.

Graves is an expert on applying molecular dynamics simulations to low temperature plasma-surface interactions. These simulations are used to understand how plasma-generated ions, atoms and molecules interact with various surfaces. He has extensive research experience in academia and industry in plasma-related semiconductor manufacturing. That expertise will be useful for understanding how to make very fine structures and circuits at the nanometer, sub-nanometer and even atom-by-atom level, Menard said. Davids going to bring a lot of modeling and fundamental understanding to that process. That, paired with our expertise and measurement capabilities, should make us unique in the U.S. in terms of what we can do in this area.

Graves was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and moved a lot as a child because his father was in the U.S. Air Force. He lived in Homestead, Florida; near Kansas City, Missouri; and in North Bay Ontario; and finished high school near Phoenix, Arizona.

Graves received bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona and went on to pursue a doctoral degree in the subject, graduating with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1986. He is a fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Vacuum Society. He is the author or co-author of more than 280 peer-reviewed publications. During his long career at Berkeley, he has supervised 30 Ph.D. students and 26 post-doctoral students, many of whom are now in leadership positions in industry and academia.

A leader since the 1990s

Graves has been a leader in the use of plasma in the semiconductor industry since the 1990s. In 1996, he co-chaired a National Research Council (NRC) workshop and co-edited the NRCs Database Needs for Modeling and Simulation of Plasma Processing. In 2008, he performed a similar role for a DOE workshop on low-temperature plasmas applications resulting in the report Low Temperature Plasma Science Challenges for the Next Decade.

Graves is an admitted Francophile who speaks (near) fluent French and has spent long stretches of time in France as a researcher. He was named Matre de Recherche (master of research) at the cole Polytechnic in Palaiseau, France, in 2006. He was an invited researcher at the University of Perpignan in 2010 and received a chaire dexcellence from the Nanoscience Foundation in Grenoble, France, to study plasma-graphene interactions.

He has received numerous honors during his career. He was appointed the first Lam Research Distinguished Chair in Semiconductor Processing at Berkeley for 2011-2016. More recently, he received the Will Allis Prize in Ionized Gas from the American Physical Society in 2014 and the 2017 Nishizawa Award, associated with the Dry Process Symposium in Japan. In 2019, he was appointed foreign expert at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. He served as the first senior editor of IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Science.

Graves has been married for 35 years to Sue Graves, who recently retired from the City of Lafayette, where she worked in the school bus program. The couple has three adult children. Graves enjoys bicycling and yoga and the couple loves to travel. They also enjoy hiking, visiting museums, listening to jazz music, and going to the theater.

About PPPL

PPPL, on Princeton Universitys Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas ultra-hot, charged gases and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Science, which is the largest single supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visitscience.energy.gov(link is external).

Source: Jeanne Jackson DeVoe, PPPL

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David Graves to Head New Research at PPPL for Plasma Applications in Industry and Quantum Information Science - HPCwire

We have all seen movies or read books about an apocalyptic world where humankind is fighting against a deadly pathogen, and researchers are in a race against time to find a cure for the same. But COVID-19 is not a fictional chapter, it is real, and scientists all over the world are frantically looking for patterns in data by employing powerful supercomputers with the hopes of finding a speedier breakthrough in vaccine discovery for the COVID-19.

A team of researchers from Penn State University has recently unearthed a solution that has the potential to expedite the process of discovering a novel coronavirus treatment that is by employing an innovative hybrid branch of research known as quantum machine learning. Quantum Machine Learning is the latest field that combines both machine learning and quantum physics. The team is led by Swaroop Ghosh, Joseph R., and Janice M. Monkowski Career Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering.

In cases where a computer science-driven approach is implemented to identify a cure, most methodologies leverage machine learning to focus on screening different compounds one at a time to see if they can find a bond with the virus main protease, or protein. And the quantum machine learning method could yield quicker results and is more economical than any current methods used for drug discovery.

According to Prof. Ghosh, discovering any new drug that can cure a disease is like finding a needle in a haystack. Further, it is an incredibly expensive, laborious, and time-consuming solution. Using the current conventional pipeline for discovering new drugs can take between five and ten years from the concept stage to being released to the market and could cost billions in the process.

He further adds, High-performance computing such as supercomputers and artificial intelligence canhelp accelerate this process by screeningbillions of chemical compounds quicklyto findrelevant drugcandidates.

This approach works when enough chemical compounds are available in the pipeline, but unfortunately, this is not true for COVID-19. This project will explorequantum machine learning to unlock new capabilities in drug discovery by generating complex compounds quickly, he explains.

The funding from the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, coordinated through the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences as part of their rapid-response seed funding for research across the University to address COVID-19, is supporting this work.

Ghosh and his electrical engineering doctoral students Mahabubul Alam and Abdullah Ash Saki and computer science and engineering postgraduate students Junde Li and Ling Qiu have earlier worked on developing a toolset for solving particular types of problems known as combinatorial optimization problems, using quantum computing. Drug discovery too comes under a similar category. And hence their experience in this sector has made it possible for the researchers to explore in the search for a COVID-19 treatment while using the same toolset that they had already developed.

Ghosh considers the usage of Artificial intelligence fordrug discovery to be a very new area. The biggest challenge is finding an unknown solution to the problem by using technologies thatare still evolving that is, quantum computing and quantum machine learning.Weare excited about the prospects of quantum computing in addressinga current critical issue and contributing our bit in resolving this grave challenge. he elaborates.

Based on a report by McKinsey & Partner, the field of quantum computing technology is expected to have a global market value of US$1 trillion by 2035. This exciting scope of quantum machine learning can further boost the economic value while helping the healthcare industry in defeating the COVID-19.

Read more:

Recent Research Answers the Future of Quantum Machine Learning on COVID-19 - Analytics Insight