Quantum, Molecular and Unconventional Computing

A special issue of Mathematics (ISSN 2227-7390). This special issue belongs to the section "Mathematics and Computer Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 7093

Special Issue Editors

Department of Informatics, Ionian University, 7 Tsirigoti Square, 49100 Corfu, Greece
Interests: quantum computation and quantum automata; quantum programming languages; probabilistic automata and automata on infinite objects; dynamic scheduling algorithms for parallel and distributed heterogeneous systems; temporal logics for automated synthesis and verification of reactive systems; Internet Programming, Query languages for the web (XML, XPath)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 157-73 Athens, Greece
Interests: parallel processing; high-performance computing; computer architecture; parallel programming

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Undeniably, the classical era of computing has been extremely successful. There are, however, certain indications that this era might be coming to an end. Newer, different, even exotic, computing paradigms have been proposed that, if successfully realized in sufficient scale, will usher computation into a new era that will hopefully bring substantial performance benefits. Information and computation are physical processes, and as such they can draw inspiration from nature.

This special issue is dedicated to computing paradigms that may become prevalent in the future, such as quantum, molecular and whatever may be categorized as unconventional computing. It aims to provide a platform for rapid dissemination of original research contributions in the above areas of research, and also welcomes comprehensive review articles emphasizing the state-of-the-art. An indicative, but not exhaustive list of topics of interest is given below:

  • quantum computing;
  • quantum programming languages;
  • quantum machine learning;
  • quantum internet / network;
  • bio-inspired computing;
  • molecular and DNA computing;
  • chemical computing;
  • molecular machines incorporating information processing;
  • membrane computing;
  • neural networks;
  • evolutionary computing;
  • natural computing;
  • computing based on dynamical & stochastic systems;
  • unconventional computing;
  • computation beyond the Turing model;
  • swarm intelligence;
  • logic and unconventional computing;
  • physical limits to mechanical computation;
  • physics of computation;

Dr. Theodore Andronikos
Dr. Georgios I. Goumas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Mathematics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • quantum computing
  • quantum programming languages
  • quantum machine learning
  • quantum internet / network
  • bio-inspired computing
  • molecular and DNA computing
  • chemical computing
  • molecular machines incorporating information processing
  • membrane computing
  • neural networks
  • evolutionary computing
  • natural computing
  • computing based on dynamical & stochastic systems
  • unconventional computing
  • computation beyond the Turing model
  • swarm intelligence
  • logic and unconventional computing
  • physical limits to mechanical computation
  • physics of computation

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 4185 KiB  
Article
Quantum Steganography Based on the B92 Quantum Protocol
by Alexandru-Gabriel Tudorache, Vasile Manta and Simona Caraiman
Mathematics 2022, 10(16), 2870; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10162870 - 11 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1202
Abstract
This paper presents a communication algorithm in which a grayscale image, shared between two parties, can be used to transmit a secret message, by applying the idea introduced in the B92 quantum protocol. The least significant qubits of the pixels’ representation in certain [...] Read more.
This paper presents a communication algorithm in which a grayscale image, shared between two parties, can be used to transmit a secret message, by applying the idea introduced in the B92 quantum protocol. The least significant qubits of the pixels’ representation in certain regions of the image are used. With the help of a server, the algorithm generates a random message, which can further act as a secret key for cryptographic algorithms in order to secure the data that two parties might want to exchange later on. The chosen representation of the image is NEQR (novel enhanced quantum representation) and the platform used for testing the described idea is IBM Quantum Experience, along with the open-source Python framework called Qiskit. This solution allows users to design, implement quantum circuits (containing various quantum gates), and simulate them using real devices and local simulators. An implementation using this platform for a sample image and the corresponding results are also presented in this paper. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Quantum, Molecular and Unconventional Computing)
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16 pages, 461 KiB  
Article
Pruning Stochastic Game Trees Using Neural Networks for Reduced Action Space Approximation
by Tasos Papagiannis, Georgios Alexandridis and Andreas Stafylopatis
Mathematics 2022, 10(9), 1509; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10091509 - 01 May 2022
Viewed by 1554
Abstract
Monte Carlo Tree Search has proved to be very efficient in the broad domain of Game AI, though it suffers from high dimensionality in cases of large branching factors. Several pruning techniques have been proposed to tackle this problem, most of which require [...] Read more.
Monte Carlo Tree Search has proved to be very efficient in the broad domain of Game AI, though it suffers from high dimensionality in cases of large branching factors. Several pruning techniques have been proposed to tackle this problem, most of which require explicit domain knowledge. In this study, an approach using neural networks to determine the number of actions to be pruned, depending on the iterations run and the total number of possible actions, is proposed. Multi-armed bandit simulations with the UCB1 formula are employed to generate suitable datasets for the networks’ training and a specifically designed process is followed to select the best combination of the number of iterations and actions for pruning. Two pruning Monte Carlo Tree Search variants are investigated, based on different actions’ expected rewards’ distributions, and they are evaluated in the collectible card game Hearthstone. The proposed technique improves the performance of the Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm in different setups of computational limitations regarding the available number of tree search iterations and is significantly boosted when combined with supervised learning trained-state value predicting models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Quantum, Molecular and Unconventional Computing)
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24 pages, 525 KiB  
Article
Experimental Analysis of Quantum Annealers and Hybrid Solvers Using Benchmark Optimization Problems
by Evangelos Stogiannos, Christos Papalitsas and Theodore Andronikos
Mathematics 2022, 10(8), 1294; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10081294 - 13 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1684
Abstract
This paper studies the Hamiltonian cycle problem (HCP) and the traveling salesman problem (TSP) on D-Wave quantum systems. Motivated by the fact that most libraries present their benchmark instances in terms of adjacency matrices, we develop a novel matrix formulation for the HCP [...] Read more.
This paper studies the Hamiltonian cycle problem (HCP) and the traveling salesman problem (TSP) on D-Wave quantum systems. Motivated by the fact that most libraries present their benchmark instances in terms of adjacency matrices, we develop a novel matrix formulation for the HCP and TSP Hamiltonians, which enables the seamless and automatic integration of benchmark instances in quantum platforms. We also present a thorough mathematical analysis of the precise number of constraints required to express the HCP and TSP Hamiltonians. This analysis explains quantitatively why, almost always, running incomplete graph instances requires more qubits than complete instances. It turns out that QUBO models for incomplete graphs require more quadratic constraints than complete graphs, a fact that has been corroborated by a series of experiments. Moreover, we introduce a technique for the min-max normalization for the coefficients of the TSP Hamiltonian to address the problem of invalid solutions produced by the quantum annealer, a trend often observed. Our extensive experimental tests have demonstrated that the D-Wave Advantage_system4.1 is more efficient than the Advantage_system1.1, both in terms of qubit utilization and the quality of solutions. Finally, we experimentally establish that the D-Wave hybrid solvers always provide valid solutions, without violating the given constraints, even for arbitrarily big problems up to 120 nodes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Quantum, Molecular and Unconventional Computing)
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21 pages, 438 KiB  
Article
Quantum and Classical Log-Bounded Automata for the Online Disjointness Problem
by Kamil Khadiev and Aliya Khadieva
Mathematics 2022, 10(1), 143; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10010143 - 04 Jan 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1287
Abstract
We consider online algorithms with respect to the competitive ratio. In this paper, we explore one-way automata as a model for online algorithms. We focus on quantum and classical online algorithms. For a specially constructed online minimization problem, we provide a quantum log-bounded [...] Read more.
We consider online algorithms with respect to the competitive ratio. In this paper, we explore one-way automata as a model for online algorithms. We focus on quantum and classical online algorithms. For a specially constructed online minimization problem, we provide a quantum log-bounded automaton that is more effective (has less competitive ratio) than classical automata, even with advice, in the case of the logarithmic size of memory. We construct an online version of the well-known Disjointness problem as a problem. It was investigated by many researchers from a communication complexity and query complexity point of view. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Quantum, Molecular and Unconventional Computing)
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