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As the field of quantum computing rapidly advances, there is a growing demand for skilled professionals adept in quantum computing and programming. Recognizing this need, in this paper, we share our experiences teaching an introductory-level quantum computing course to students at Cleveland State University (CSU). The course integrates dedicated hands-on programming labs, allowing students to verify their experimental results with corresponding examples from the textbook. These labs cover a diverse range of topics, including fundamental elements such as quantum gates and circuits, quantum key distribution protocols, and quantum algorithms. As educators, our goal is to share teaching insights and resources with fellow instructors in the field. This article elucidates the rationale behind the design of each experiment, providing a deeper understanding of quantum computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) play a prominent role in early cancer detection. Emerging label-free techniques can be promising to CTC detection due to advantages in preserving cell integrity and minimal sample consumption. Deterministic Lateral Displacement (DLD) is a size-based label-free technique employing laminar flow for continuous sorting of suspended cells. However, separation based solely on size is challenging as the size distributions of CTCs tend to overlap with blood cells. Moreover, the rarity of CTCs in blood requires high throughput processing of samples for clinical utility. In this work, a dielectrophoretic DLD technique is presented to segregate CTCs from blood. This technique utilizes the cell size and dielectric properties as well as particle movement caused by polarization effect to accomplish continuous separation at high flow rates. A numerical model is developed and validated to investigate the effects of various parameters related to the fluid flow, micro-post array, and electric field. It is demonstrated that the dielectrophoretic DLD with specific post arrangement can continuously separate A549 lung CTCs from WBCs by applying a field frequency close to the crossover frequency of CTCs. The analysis further indicates that such a device can perform well despite uncertainties of CTC crossover frequencies. Additionally, efficient separation with minimum clogging can be achieved by setting the electric field perpendicular to fluid flow. The presented platform offers distinct advantages and can be potentially combined with techniques such as antibody-based immune-binding methods for rapid detection of CTCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil nutrients are the key factors in soil fertility, which have important roles in plant growth. Determining soil nutrient contents, including macro and micronutrients, is of crucial importance in agricultural productions. Conventional laboratory techniques for determining soil nutrients are expensive and time-consuming. This research was aimed to develop linear regression (LR) models for remote sensing of total nitrogen (TN) (mg/kg), available phosphorous (AP) (mg/kg), available potassium (AK) (mg/kg), and micronutrients such as iron (Fe) (mg/kg), manganese (Mn) (mg/kg), zinc (Zn) (mg/kg), and copper (Cu) (mg/kg) extracted by DTPA in rain-fed agricultural lands in the northwest of Iran. First, 101 soil samples were collected from 0–30 cm of these lands and analyzed for selected nutrient contents. Then a linear regression along with principal component analysis was conducted to correlate soil nutrient contents with reflectance data of different Landsat OLI bands. Finally, the spatial distributions of soil nutrients were drawn. The results showed that there were linear relationships between soil nutrient contents and standardized PC1 (ZPC1). The highest significant determination coefficient with an R2 value of 0.46 and the least relative error (%) value of 11.97% were observed between TN and ZPC1. The accuracy of the other LR's developed among other soil nutrient contents and remotely sensed data was relatively lower than that obtained for TN. According to the results obtained from this study, although remote sensing techniques may quickly assess soil nutrients, new techniques, technologies, and models may be needed to have a more accurate prediction of soil nutrients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gully erosion and its complex and variable characteristics have led to challenging and many problems for creation of erosion maps with the most commonly used methods of satellite imagery analysis. The fuzzy algorithm-based object-based image analysis (OBIA) method is one of the most effective methods for classifying satellite imagery, which aims to integrate the spectral satellite imagery and provides the necessary facilities for the use of environmental and spatial information as well as a geometric feature of land surface phenomena. The purpose of this study was to apply and evaluate the implementation of different classification algorithms and fuzzy functions membership detecting and mapping of gully erosion. For this purpose, satellite images of Sentinel-2 were employed and accordingly the soil erosion map of Lighvan watershed was developed within the semi-automated approach by applying fuzzy-OBIA features and techniques. The obtained results from the accuracy assessment of the methods indicated that the accuracy of gully maps obtained by fuzzy-OBIA features including: length/width, asymmetry, density, and shape index algorithms with the respective kappa coefficient of 0.78, 0.91, 0.85, and 0.89 is higher than other algorithms. Also, the results obtained from the study of the degree of membership of fuzzy functions indicate the high role of this factor in the accuracy of the results, so that the highest classification accuracy (kappa coefficient greater than 0.91) was related to the length/width algorithm, in which the fuzzy functions B, D, H and L with the highest degree of membership (0.685, 1, 0.972 and 1, respectively) were employed. Results of current research are great of important for decision makers and authorities by means of providing detailed information regarding the soil erosion in the study area as well as GIS sciences society for applying and introducing the most efficient methods and techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies aimed at linking hydraulic conductivity at saturation (Kw,s) to air permeability (Ka(θw)) of soil at given water content (θw) since it can be measured more rapidly and nondestructively than Kw,s especially regarding some new in situ technologies for Ka(θw) measurement. Following this, the current research aimed to develop a semi-theoretical relation between Kw,s and Ka(θw) using measured data in 27 soil samples. The Ka(θw) was measured at 12 different θw contents between 1.5 to 1,500 kPa suctions. Applying these measured data, we proposed a semi-theoretical function to predict Kw,s using Ka(θw) as input variable. The results showed that the proposed function was able to predict Kw,s using Ka(θw) at any individual θw content with really high accuracy consisting of R2 = 0.986 and evaluating error (ER) of the 2% between measured and predicted Kw,s. However, the outcomes revealed that Ka(θw) measurement at lower θw contents resulted in greater accuracy for proposed model. The pertinent section of the article applied multivariate linear regression (MLR) to develop pedo-transfer functions (PTFs) to estimate the parameters of the proposed model. The results revealed that the developed PTFs had relatively greater accuracy and reliability showing average determination coefficient (R2) of 0.807 and 0.729 for training and test datasets, respectively. However, more detailed investigation with wide range of soil parameters are needed for more general PTFs development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviews the history of seismometry in Iran and specifically the evolution of Iranian Seismological Center's (IRSC) seismic network and investigates the artifacts and systematic errors of this center's earthquake catalog. Our analysis indicates instability of magnitude estimation in the IRSC catalog to the extent that in the western and eastern parts of Iran, events with the same USGS reported mb magnitude could result in MN values 0.3 units apart. This catalog is contaminated with quarry and mine blasts, in which about 19% of the reported events are most likely not tectonic earthquakes. In addition, heterogeneity of magnitude of completeness as a function of space and time is observed. While Mc has gradually improved since 2006, its reduction in different parts of the country varies between 0 to 0.5 units of magnitude. In addition to artifacts, more than 54% of the reported events were located using a simplified velocity model and need to be relocated using more accurate velocity models. Moreover, in the hypocenter determination of about 7% of earthquakes, at least data from one station with wrong coordinates was employed. For these two groups of events, a clear dependence exists between the azimuthal gap and the value of the observed shift in the location parameters; with increasing the azimuthal gap, the shift increases. Investigations on the manually picked phases in the IRSC catalog show a large number of phase misidentification cases which are the other source of systematic errors. Examining the depth reported for events associated with mine blasts in a region in southern Iran implies systematic errors and high overestimation of depth for these events. The reported depth for most of these blasts is more than 10 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hard disk drives (HDDs) are sensitive devices responsible for storing and retrieving digital information in computer systems and electronic products. In particular, HDDs of laptop personal computers (LPCs) are very sensitive especially in harsh mechanical environments. Accordingly, it is necessary to protect them against damages attributable to shock and vibration so as to reach better magnetic read/write performance. In this paper, the nonlinear multi-objective optimization method is utilized to enhance the passive control performance of rubbers through minimizing destructive effects of shock and random excitations. As a matter of fact, this investigation will focus on improving the shock and vibration isolation system with special emphasis on the role of rubber feet. A zero mean, stationary process with Gaussian distribution is applied to the base in order to consider effects of random excitation. Moreover, a half-sine pulse of acceleration is assumed as the base shock excitation. According to limitations of geometrical parameters and lumped modal parameters, twelve inequality constraints are presented. Modal parameters of rubber mounts and rubber feet are selected as design variables of optimization, and the multi-objective optimization problem is solved for three commercial cases of HDD by using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), which was proposed based on Pareto-optimality concept. Therefore, new characteristics of rubber mounts and rubber feet are recommended to be manufactured for the purpose of protecting HDDs against shock and random excitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hard disk drives (HDDs) of laptop personal computers (LPCs) are devices vulnerable in harsh mechanical environments. Hence, they need to be protected against damages due to vibration in order to have better read/write performance. In the present study, a LPC and its HDD are modeled as a system with two degrees of freedom and the nonlinear optimization method is employed to perform a passive control through minimizing the root mean square of HDD absolute acceleration due to a base random excitation. The presented random excitation is considered as a stationary, zero mean process with Gaussian distribution. In addition, eleven inequality constraints are defined based on geometrical limitations and allowable intervals of lumped modal parameters. The target of the optimization is to obtain optimum modal parameters of rubber mounts and rubber feet as design variables and subsequently propose new characteristics of rubber mounts and rubber feet to be manufactured for HDD protection against random excitation. In this paper, a nonlinear optimization problem is separately solved for three widely-used cases of HDD by using modified constrained steepest descent algorithm (PLBA) which was extended based on sequential quadratic programming. Finally, the genetic algorithm is used to verify results of the PLBA algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laptop personal computers (LPCs) and their components are vulnerable devices in harsh mechanical environments. One of the most sensitive components of LPCs is hard disk drive (HDD) which needs to be protected against damages attributable to shock and vibration in order to have better magnetic read/write performance. In the present work, a LPC and its HDD are modeled as two degrees of freedom system and the nonlinear optimization method is employed to perform a passive control through minimizing peak of HDD absolute acceleration caused by a base shock excitation. The presented shock excitation is considered as half-sine pulse of acceleration. In addition, eleven inequality constraints are defined based on geometrical limitations and allowable intervals of lumped modal parameters. The target of the optimization is to reach optimum modal parameters of rubber mounts and rubber feet as design variables and subsequently propose new characteristics of rubber mounts and rubber feet to be manufactured for the HDD protection against shock excitation. The genetic algorithm and the modified constrained steepest descent algorithm are employed in order to solve the nonlinear optimization problem for three widely-used commercial cases of HDD. Finally, the results of both optimization methods are compared to make sure about their accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the influences of non-uniform velocity profile attributable to slip boundary condition and viscosity of fluid on the dynamic instability of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) conveying fluid are investigated. The nonlocal elasticity theory and the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory are employed to derive partial differential equation of nanotubes conveying fluid. Furthermore, a dimensionless momentum correction factor (MCF) is obtained as a function of Knudsen number (Kn) so as to insert the effects of non-uniform velocity profile into the equation of motion. In continuation, complex eigen-frequencies of the system are attained with respect to different boundary conditions, the momentum correction factor, slip boundary condition and nonlocal parameter. The results delineate that considering the effects of non-uniform velocity profile could diminish predicted critical velocity of flow. Therefore, the divergence instability occurs in the lower values of flow velocity. In addition, the MCF decreases through enhancement of Kn; hence, the effects of non-uniform velocity profile are more noticeable for liquid fluid than gas fluid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]