Analog Quantum Bit Based on Pancharatnam‐Berry Phase Metasurfaces

A quantum computer based on the manipulation and detection of coherent states of electrons localized above a helium film is described. Each quantum logic element (qubit) is made of a combination of the ground and first excited states of an electron trapped in the image potential well at the surface. Potentials applied to micro-electrodes located beneath each electron confine the lateral motion of the electron and are used to operate gates. Mechanisms for one- and two-qubit logic operations and a readout of the final state are discussed. The principle decay channel for the excited state is via the emission of one phonon into the bulk liquid. Dechoherence times are calculated to be of order of 100 μs and allow greater than 10⁴ serial operations.

PurposeThis study aims to showcase the effect of gender in the field of library and information science.Design/methodology/approachResearch and review articles published from 2005 through 2014 inThe Electronic Library, a prominent journal in the field of Library and Information Science, were examined from the perspective of authors’ gender. Influence of gender was assessed with respect to at individual and collaborative levels, quality in terms of citedness and citation count, and receipt of research grants.FindingsThere has been an increase in the proportion of male authors over the years with a resulting decline in female authors. Male authors are more productive as teachers, while females contribute more as working professionals or while they peruse their academic/research programmes. Though the productivity in collaborative works has increased in all gender combinations, it is more prominent when authors of opposite gender team up. No significant difference is observed in the number of national or international works produced in different collaborative authorship patterns. There is no difference in the number of male and female authors in male–female collaborative works. Works sponsored by grants are produced more frequently in groups comprising male–female or male–male members. No significant difference is observed in the number of cited or uncited works produced in different authorship patterns. The number of citations to works is independent of the nature of gender-wise authorship patterns.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examines the status of women in research, specifically in the field of library and information science. The findings of the study are based on the contribution of the authors involved with the journal, “The Electronic Library”. Readers are encouraged to expand the study by including authors that contribute to other library and information science journals.Originality/valueThe study is first of its kind to highlight the involvement and observe the influence of female authors in the field of library and information science research.

Libraries are no longer just repositories of books; they are dynamic spaces where information is curated, organized, and disseminated. In this modern era, the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) demands more than just technical knowledge. Soft skills, including communication, empathy, adaptability, and problem-solving play a crucial role in the success of library professionals. This paper explores the significance of soft skills in LIS, their impact on various aspects of library services, and the evolving role of librarians in the digital age. In today’s context, soft skills are a buzz word to minimize the knowledge gap among the various operational individuals of an organization, which deals with personal attributes, social skills, and qualities. Soft skills are crucial in the workplace and in various aspects of life, as they often determine how well someone can work with others, solve problems, and navigate complex situations. These skills are not typically taught in formal education settings but are developed through experience, social interactions, and self-reflection. This analytical study is based on the research output of the publications on ‘soft skills with reference to LIS education and librarianship’. Today soft skills are need of the hour, as these minimize the gaps, what we preach and practice in the field of library and information science. This analytical study depicted that organizations/institutions are striving for soft skills training and development for their different stakeholders such as students and employees. Authors extracted (n=510) papers for the period 2011 to 2020 using various ontological key words based search. Based on the combination of keywords-based searches, the outcome was that in 2020 (n = 94) had the maximum number of documents. Among the other countries, the USA has the highest number of publications (n = 237) and the most studied document type is article (n = 283). Based on this analysis, the authors want to examine the inferences the need of soft skills development in the country to minimize the knowledge gap in the field of library and information science.

The aim of the article is to review the areas of training specialists in library and information science in higher education institutions of Poland at the beginning of the 21st cent. Research methods. The offered research is based on the analytical and synthetic analysis of scientific publications by leading Polish scientists who studied the issues of higher library and information education. The author’s presentation of the current state of university education in the information and library sphere in Poland is based on the processing of materials from the official web portals of higher education establishments that provide specialised training for their applicants. Among a complex of special research methods, the method of content analysis is used to identify the views of certain scientists on the problems of development of information and library education in Poland. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the formulation of the problem that is practically unresearched in Ukrainian science, and requires studying in view of the practical significance of the Polish experience in reforming higher education of the information and library sphere. Main conclusions. In the process of this research, it is found that in Poland the process of transforming the training of information and library specialists in accordance with the needs of modern information society has not yet been completed. There are still scientific discussions on optimising the nomenclature of the training areas at universities, as well as variants of creating interdisciplinary specialities are being considered, some of which have been tested for several years in some higher education institutions. The analysis of the official websites of 11 state universities in Poland has highlighted tendencies toward a rapid reduction in the classical programmes of training in the field of information and library science, which is primarily caused by the demands of potential employers and the increased integration of the latest technologies into all spheres of society activity.

PurposeThis bibliometric study is steered to compute the impact of literature published on cloud computing within the fields of information science and library science. The research has been conducted on concentrating the term “Cloud Computing” to search the literature published in both fields, i.e. information science and library science from the time span 2007 to August 2023. This study aims to investigate the top productive country, organizations and highly cited publications.Design/methodology/approachThe period of the exploration was from 2007 to August 2023 for bibliometric analysis and data was collected from the ISI Web of Science. Total 401 documents were retrieved and analyzed to highlight the year-wise distribution of documents type, year-wise most cited articles, prominent journals of the subjects, productivity of organizations, impact of countries and cooccurrences of keywords. The results are grounded on the basis of documents types (articles, early access articles, proceeding papers, book review, editorial material, news items and reviews).FindingsThe findings reveal that the most productive year of publication on cloud computing services was 2013. The top productive source is “International Journal of Information Management.” The articles entitled “Assessing the determinants of cloud computing adoption: An analysis of the manufacturing and services sectors” found as the most cited article and the significant increase in citations is also noteworthy. The most productive organizations on the topic include “Islamic Azad University of Iran,” “University Cologne of Germany” and “University Nova Lisboa of Portugal.” The results confirmed that the USA dominates in the production of research on “Cloud Computing Services” and the most repeated keyword in the literature is cloud computing. The research articles are the most cited sources of research.Originality/valueThis bibliometric research is an original piece of work that has been conducted to measure the research production in the field of information science and library science during 2007−2023. This piece of work is valuable for those who want to study the literature on cloud computing in the area of information science and library science.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Tamara Fedorovna Izmestyeva, a well-known specialist in the field of economic history and historical information science. A graduate of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, she began her scientific and teaching work at the Faculty of History in 1969 at the Department of Source Studies, then as a researcher and senior researcher at the interdepartmental Laboratory of Historical Information Science, transformed into the Department of the same name. Tamara Fyodorovna's research interests lay in the mainstream of both economic history and historical information science. In 1991, the publishing house of Moscow State University published a monograph based on her dissertation "Russia in the European market system, late XIX – early XX century". T.F.Izmestyeva became one of the founders of the Association "History and Computer" (AIK), she was a member of the organizing committees of many AIK conferences, participated in the organization of schools for young scholars. The article uses publications by T.F. Izmestyeva in the journals "Russian History", "Economic History. Review", "Historical Information Scince", "AIK Newsletter", her presentations at Russian and international conferences, memoirs of colleagues and students. The article gives a high assessment of T.F. Izmestyeva's research and teaching work. Publications on economic history reflected her interests in the field of studying the foreign market of the Russian Empire, analyzing mass statistical sources. Tamara Fyodorovna introduced "economic tools" into research on economic history. In the field of historical information science, she paid much attention to the creation of historically oriented databases, source studies and methodological problems of working with mass statistical data. She has co-authored a number of textbooks, including "Quantitative Methods in Historical Research", "Historical Information Science", "Computerized Statistical Analysis for Historians", "Inforfmation Science for Humanities", "Information Technology for Historians".

In the existing quantum-behaved optimization algorithms, almost all of the individuals are encoded by qubits described on plane unit circle. As qubits contain only a variable parameter, quantum properties have not been fully embodied, which limits the optimization ability rise further. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a quantum ant colony optimization algorithm based on Bloch sphere search. In the proposed algorithm, the positions of ants are encoded by qubits described on Bloch sphere. First, the destination to move is determined according to the select probability constructed by the pheromone and heuristic information, then, the rotation axis is established with Pauli matrixes, and the evolution search is realized with the rotation of qubits on Bloch sphere. In order to avoid premature convergence, the mutation is performed with Hadamard gates. Finally, the pheromone and the heuristic information are updated in the new positions of ants. As the optimization process is performed in n-dimensional hypercube space (−1, 1) n , which has nothing to do with the specific issues, hence, the proposed method has good adaptability for a variety of optimization problems. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to other quantum-behaved optimization algorithms in both search ability and optimization efficiency.

Probabilistic bits, or p‐bits, represent a novel computational element that bridges the gap between deterministic classical bits and quantum bits (qubits) used in quantum computing. Unlike classical bits that maintain a definite state of 0 or 1, a p‐bit fluctuates between these states in a controlled, stochastic manner. This probabilistic behavior allows for the representation and processing of information in a form that leverages inherent randomness. In this study, a unique approach is presented to generating p‐bits using a hybrid conjugated polymer, poly‐4‐((6‐(4H‐dithieno[3,2‐b:2',3'‐d]pyrrol‐4‐yl)hexyl)oxy)‐N,N‐diphenylaniline (pTPADTP), as a memristive material. The polymer's conjugated backbone, combined with pendant triphenylamine groups, enables the creation of p‐bits through random resistance switching. The stochasticity of this polymeric memristor makes it particularly suited for p‐bit applications in stochastic optimization, probabilistic algorithms, and artificial neural networks. The charge transport in the polymer is facilitated by two synergistic percolation mechanisms: one occurring along the polymer backbone and the other through the pendant triphenylamine groups. The study of p‐bits generated from pTPADTP opens new avenues for advancing both the theory and practice of computation, where uncertainty and randomness are harnessed as valuable computational resources.

Quantum cooperative search algorithm for 3-SAT

Foundations and methods for Knowledge Organization in European iSchools courses

Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) has been frequently referred to and used as a substantive theory, particularly so in the field of Information Science. Yet, SMM was not developed as a substantive theory but rather as a philosophically informed methodological approach for attending to (and researching) human sense-making and sense-unmaking. In the field of Information Science, this “theoretical approach” has been most frequently used to explicate and study variable analytic measures categorized as information needs, seeking, and use. In its uses, SMM can be termed depending on context as theory, as well as meta-theory, methodology, and method. All of these perspectives are relevant to the purposes of this chapter - to position SMM within the Information Science field in terms of its historical origins and to describe how it's positioning as meta-theory, methodology, and method has had applications to the study of information needs, seeking, and use, and to substantive theorizing.

هدف:هدف این پژوهش تعیین پوشش موضوعی عناوین اولویت های پژوهشی، رشته کتابداری و اطلاع‌رسانی می‌باشد. روش: این پژوهش از نوع توصیفی به روش تحلیل محتوا می باشد.جامعه مورد مطالعه در این پژوهش شامل 364 عنوان اولویت پژوهشی گردآوری‌شده از سایت های سازمان های مختلف می باشد.ابزار گردآوری داده ها در این پژوهش فهرست کنترل بوده و تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها با استفاده از نرم افزار اکسل انجام شده است. یافته ها: یافته ها نشان دادند که موضوعات کتابداری و بازیابی در موضوعات اولویت های پژوهشی بیشتر، ولی موضوعات تکنولوژی اطلاعات، کتابسنجی، منابع چاپی و الکترونیکی، مدیریت اطلاعات، رده‌بندی، ارتباطات علمی و نشر الکترونیک کمتر بررسی‌شده‌اند.این مقاله نتیجه گیری می‌کند که اولویت های پژوهشی در رشته علم اطلاعات و دانش‌شناسی از پوشش موضوعی متنوعی برخوردارمی باشند.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and design the axial coding pattern of the factors affecting the unplanned use behavior of users of the academic libraries and information centers. Design/methodology/approach The study as an applied research with a qualitative approach employed the grounded theory. The data collection tool was a deep and semi-structured interview. The interviews data were analyzed and coded during three stages of open, axial and selective coding using the MAXQDA 10 qualitative analysis software. The research population consisted of faculty members and experts in three areas of library and information science, management and psychology. Using the combined targeted sampling method (targeted and then the snowball), 12 subjects were selected as the sample size. Findings According to the research findings, the factors affecting the unplanned behavior of users in the use of academic libraries resources and services were identified as factors related to technology, environmental factors, information resources, information services, human resources, individual features, time position factor, cultural factors and social factors. Accordingly, the axial coding pattern of this type of behaviors was designed. Research limitations/implications The research limitations include the lack of theoretical basis related to the unplanned behavior issue in the field of library and information science and the lack of full familiarity of most of the experts in the field of library and information science with this topic. These factors lead to the necessity of explaining the subject under discussion. Originality/value The unplanned behavior of clients can be utilized to persuade users to use the information resources and library services so that the costs spent on their preparation and collection will be justifiable. The current research addressed this aspect of the unplanned information-seeking behavior.

Quantum bit commitment (QBC) is a quantum version of the classical bit commitment security primitive. As other quantum security primitives and protocols, QBC improves on cheating detection over its classical counterpart. The implementation of the QBC protocol below relies on the use of common quantum gates: the Hadamard gate used for orthonormal bases and the CNOT gate used to swap qubits. The protocol was run and tested on IBM quantum experience (IBM QX). IBM QX offers two different quantum environments: as a simulator and as a real quantum machine. In our implementation, honest and dishonest participants were considered. Results of both the simulation and the quantum execution were compared against the theoretical expectations. The IBM QX simulator gives results that match the theoretical model. The IBM QX real computer deviates from the expected behavior by a measurable amount. Using the standard deviation and the Hamming distance, the conclusion is that the quantum computer is usable as the difference to the simulator is within an acceptable margin of error. The QBC protocol of choice is fully secure against cheating by Bob. The only way Alice can cheat is using multi-dimensional entanglement. The cost for Alice to cheat is exponential in the number of qubits used, namely $$ O(2^{6n + 3k + 1} ) $$.

Can quantum communication be more efficient than its classical counterpart? Holevo's theorem rules out the possibility of communicating more than n bits of classical information by the transmission of n quantum bits—unless the two parties are entangled, in which case twice as many classical bits can be communicated but no more. In apparent contradiction, there are distributed computational tasks for which quantum communication cannot be simulated efficiently by classical means. In some cases, the effect of transmitting quantum bits cannot be achieved classically short of transmitting an exponentially larger number of bits. In a similar vein, can entanglement be used to save on classical communication? It is well known that entanglement on its own is useless for the transmission of information. Yet, there are distributed tasks that cannot be accomplished at all in a classical world when communication is not allowed, but that become possible if the non-communicating parties share prior entanglement. This leads to the question of how expensive it is, in terms of classical communication, to provide an exact simulation of the spooky power of entanglement.