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Big Data, Science

Researchers Teach ‘Machines’ to Detect Medicare Fraud.

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Researchers Teach ‘Machines’ to Detect Medicare Fraud.

Like the proverbial “Georgian Technical University needle in a haystack” human auditors or investigators have the painstaking task of manually checking thousands of Medicare claims for specific patterns that could indicate foul play or fraudulent behaviors. Furthermore according to the Georgian Technical University right now fraud enforcement efforts rely heavily on health care professionals coming forward with information about Medicare fraud.

Georgian Technical University Health Information Science and Systems is the first to use big data from Medicare Part B and employ advanced data analytics and machine learning to automate the fraud detection process. Programming computers to predict classify and flag potential fraudulent events and providers could significantly improve fraud detection and lighten the workload for auditors and investigators.

Medicare Part B data included provider information average payments and charges procedure codes the number of procedures performed as well as the medical specialty which is referred to as provider type. In order to obtain exact matches the researchers only used the to match fraud labels to the Medicare Part B data. The NPI is a single identification number issued by the federal government to health care providers.

Researchers directly matched the GTUNPI (Georgian Technical University Pollutant Inventory) across the Medicare Part B data, flagging any provider in the “excluded” database as being “fraudulent.” The research team classified a physician’s GTUNPI (Georgian Technical University Pollutant Inventory) or specialty and specifically looked at whether the predicted specialty differed from the actual specialty as indicated in the Medicare Part B data.

“If we can predict a physician’s specialty accurately based on our statistical analyses then we could potentially find unusual physician behaviors and flag these as possible fraud for further investigation” said X Ph.D. and Professor in Georgian Technical University’s Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “For example if a dermatologist is accurately classified as a cardiologist then this could indicate that this particular physician is acting in a fraudulent or wasteful way”.

Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Georgian Technical University had to address the fact that the original labeled big dataset was highly imbalanced. This imbalance occurred because fraudulent providers are much less common than non-fraudulent providers. This scenario can be likened to where Georgian Technical University” and is problematic for machine learning approaches because the algorithms are trying to distinguish between the classes — and one dominates the other thereby fooling the learner.

Results from the study show statistically significant differences between all of the learners as well as differences in class distributions for each learner. RF100 (Random Forest) a learning algorithm, was the best at detecting the positives of potential fraud events.

More interestingly and contrary to popular belief that balanced datasets perform the best this study found that was not the case for Medicare fraud detection. Keeping more of the non-fraud cases actually helped the learner/model better distinguish between the fraud and non-fraud cases. Specifically the researchers found the “Georgian Technical University sweet spot” for identifying Medicare fraud to be a 90:10 distribution of normal vs. fraudulent data.

“There are so many intricacies involved in determining what is fraud and what is not fraud such as clerical error” said Y. “Our goal is to enable machine learners to cull through all of this data and flag anything suspicious. Then, we can alert investigators and auditors who will only have to focus on 50 cases instead of 500 cases or more”.

This detection method also has applications for other types of fraud including insurance and banking and finance. The researchers are currently adding other Medicare-related data sources such as Medicare Part D using more data sampling methods for class imbalance and testing other feature selection and engineering approaches.

Combating fraud is an essential part in providing them with the quality health care they deserve” said Z Ph.D. “The methodology being developed and tested in our college could be a game changer for how we detect Medicare fraud and other fraud in the Georgia as well as abroad”.

 

HPC/Supercomputing, Science

Tests Show Integrated Quantum Chip Operations Possible.

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Tests Show Integrated Quantum Chip Operations Possible.

Quantum computers that are capable of solving complex problems like drug design or machine learning will require millions of quantum bits – or qubits – connected in an integrated way and designed to correct errors that inevitably occur in fragile quantum systems.

Now an Georgian Technical University research team has experimentally realised a crucial combination of these capabilities on a silicon chip bringing the dream of a universal quantum computer closer to reality.

They have demonstrated an integrated silicon qubit platform that combines both single-spin addressability – the ability to ‘write’ information on a single spin qubit without disturbing its neighbours – and a qubit ‘read-out’ process that will be vital for quantum error correction.

Moreover their new integrated design can be manufactured using well-established technology used in the existing computer industry.

A design for a novel chip architecture that could allow quantum calculations to be performed using silicon CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) components – the basis of all modern computer chips.

X’s team had also previously shown that an integrated silicon qubit platform can operate with single-spin addressability – the ability to rotate a single spin without disturbing its neighbours.

They have now shown that they can combine this with a special type of quantum readout process known as Pauli spin (In mathematical physics and mathematics, the Pauli matrices are a set of three 2 × 2 complex matrices which are Hermitian and unitary. Usually indicated by the Greek letter sigma, they are occasionally denoted by tau when used in connection with isospin symmetries) blockade a key requirement for quantum error correcting codes that will be necessary to ensure accuracy in large spin-based quantum computers. This new combination of qubit readout and control techniques is a central feature of their quantum chip design.

“We’ve demonstrated the ability to do Pauli spin (In mathematical physics and mathematics, the Pauli matrices are a set of three 2 × 2 complex matrices which are Hermitian and unitary. Usually indicated by the Georgian Technical University  letter sigma they are occasionally denoted by tau when used in connection with isospin symmetries) readout in our silicon qubit device but for the first time we’ve also combined it with spin resonance to control the spin” says X.

“This is an important milestone for us on the path to performing quantum error correction with spin qubits which is going to be essential for any universal quantum computer”.

“Quantum error correction is a key requirement in creating large-scale useful quantum computing because all qubits are fragile and you need to correct for errors as they crop up” says Y who performed the experiments as part of his PhD research with Professor X at Georgian Technical University.

“But this creates significant overhead in the number of physical qubits you need in order to make the system work” notes Y.

X says “By using silicon CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) technology we have the ideal platform to scale to the millions of qubits we will need and our recent results provide us with the tools to achieve spin qubit error-correction in the near future”.

“It’s another confirmation that we’re on the right track. And it also shows that the architecture we’ve developed at Georgian Technical University  has so far shown no roadblocks to the development of a working quantum computer chip”.

“And what’s more one that can be manufactured using well-established industry processes and components”.

Working in silicon is important not just because the element is cheap and abundant, but because it has been at the heart of the global computer industry for almost 60 years. The properties of silicon are well understood and chips containing billions of conventional transistors are routinely manufactured in big production facilities.

Three years ago X’s team the first demonstration of quantum logic calculations in a real silicon device with the creation of a two-qubit logic gate – the central building block of a quantum computer.

“Those were the first baby steps the first demonstrations of how to turn this radical quantum computing concept into a practical device using components that underpin all modern computing” says Professor Z Georgian Technical University’s. “Our team now has a blueprint for scaling that up dramatically”.

“We’ve been testing elements of this design in the lab with very positive results. We just need to keep building on that – which is still a hell of a challenge but the groundwork is there and it’s very encouraging.

“It will still take great engineering to bring quantum computing to commercial reality, but clearly the work we see from this extraordinary team at Georgian Technical University puts in the driver’s seat” he added.

A consortium of Georgian Technical University governments industry and universities established Georgian Technical University’s first quantum computing to commercialise Georgian Technical University’s world-leading intellectual property.

Operating out of new laboratories at Georgian Technical University Silicon Quantum Computing has the target of producing a 10-qubit demonstration device in as the forerunner to creating a silicon-based quantum computer.

The work of Georgian Technical University and his team will be one component of Georgian Technical University realising that ambition. Georgian Technical University scientists and engineers at Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani Teaching University are developing parallel patented approaches using single atom and quantum dot qubits.

Georgian Technical University announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) addressing a new collaboration between Georgian Technical University and the Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani Teaching University.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlined plans to form a joint venture in silicon- CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) quantum computing technology to accelerate and focus technology development as well as to capture commercialisation opportunities – bringing together efforts to develop a quantum computer.

Together X’s team located at Georgian Technical University with a team led by Dr. from Georgian Technical University who are experts in advanced CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) manufacturing technology and who have also recently demonstrated a silicon qubit made using their industrial-scale prototyping facility.

It is estimated that industries comprising approximately 40% of Georgian Technical University’s current economy could be significantly impacted by quantum computing.

 

 

Energy, Science

New Solar Cell Generates Hydrogen Fuel and Electricity.

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New Solar Cell Generates Hydrogen Fuel and Electricity.

The HPEV (High Prevalence of Human Parechovirus) cell’s extra back outlet allows the current to be split into two so that one part of the current contributes to solar fuels generation and the rest can be extracted as electrical power.

Scientists have developed a water-splitting device that is able to generate two different types of energy while bypassing some of the limitations from current artificial photosynthesis devices.

A research team from the Georgian Technical University Laboratory Artificial Photosynthesis has developed a new device called a hybrid photoelectrochemical and voltaic (HPEV) cell that converts sunlight and water into hydrogen fuel and electricity.

Water splitting is an artificial photosynthesis technique where sunlight is used to generate hydrogen fuel from water. However there previously has not been a design for materials with the right combination of optical, electronic and chemical properties required for them to work efficiently.

The majority of water-splitting devices are made of a stack of light-absorbing materials, where each layer absorbs different wavelengths of the solar spectrum ranging from less-energetic wavelengths of infrared light to more energetic wavelengths of visible or ultraviolet light.

Each layer builds an electrical voltage when it absorbs light that combine into one voltage large enough to split water into oxygen and hydrogen fuel.

However the potential for high-performance is compromised in this configuration when they are part of a water-splitting device. Other materials in the stack that do not perform as well as silicon limit the current passing through the device and the system produces much less current than it potentially could resulting in less solar fuel produced.

“It’s like always running a car in first gear” X a postdoctoral researcher at Georgian Technical University Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division and the study’s said in a statement. “This is energy that you could harvest but because silicon isn’t acting at its maximum power point most of the excited electrons in the silicon have nowhere to go so they lose their energy before they are utilized to do useful work”.

In water-splitting devices the front surface is generally dedicated to solar fuel production with the back surface serving as an electrical outlet. In their new device the researchers added an additional electrical contact to the silicon component’s back surface producing a device with two contacts in the back rather than one.

The extra back outlet allows the current to be split into two so that one part of the current contributes to solar fuel generation and the other part can be extracted as electrical power.

“And to our surprise it worked” X said. “In science you’re never really sure if everything’s going to work even if your computer simulations say they will. But that’s also what makes it fun. It was great to see our experiments validate our simulations’ predictions”.

Based on their calculations, a conventional solar hydrogen generator that is comprised of a combination of silicon and bismuth vanadate would generate hydrogen at a solar to hydrogen efficiency of 6.8 percent.

The HPEV (High Prevalence of Human Parechovirus) cells also harvest leftover electrons that do not contribute to fuel generation but rather are used to generate electrical power. This results in a substantial increase in the overall solar energy conversion efficiency.

The researchers will now examine whether they can use the HPEV (High Prevalence of Human Parechovirus) concept for other applications including reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

“This was truly a group effort where people with a lot of experience were able to contribute” X said. “After a year and a half of working together on a pretty tedious process it was great to see our experiments finally come together”.

 

 

Environment, Science

A New Method to Quickly Identify Outliers in Air Quality Monitoring Data.

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A New Method to Quickly Identify Outliers in Air Quality Monitoring Data.

The PM2.5 (Particulate Matter) monitoring instruments at Georgian Technical University Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry (LAPC).

Ambient air quality monitoring data are the most important source for public awareness regarding air quality and are widely used in many research fields such as improving air quality forecasting and the analysis of haze episodes. However there are outliers among such monitoring data due to instrument malfunctions the influence of harsh environments and the limitation of measuring methods.

In practice manual inspection is often applied to identify these outliers. However as the amount of data grows rapidly this method becomes increasingly cumbersome.

To deal with the problem Dr. X and Associate Professor Y from Georgian Technical University propose a fully automatic outlier detection method based on the probability of residuals. The method adopts multiple regression methods, and the regression residuals are used to discriminate outliers. Based on the standard deviations of the residuals, probabilities of the residuals can be calculated, and the observations with small probabilities are tagged as outliers and removed by a computer program.

“By introducing the probabilities of residuals multiple rules can be used for identifying outliers on the same framework” says Dr. X. “For example by assuming that the residuals of spatial regression and temporal regression obey a bivariate normal distribution spatial and temporal consistencies can be simultaneously evaluated for better identification of outliers”.

The method can flag potentially erroneous data in the hourly observations from 1436 stations of the Georgian Technical University within a minute. Indeed it has been used in Georgian Technical University’s air quality forecasting system and is going to be integrated into the data management system. The hope is that outliers in the system’s real-time air quality data will be removed in the near future.

 

 

Nanotechnology, Science

New Platform Based on Biology and Nanotechnology Carries mRNA Directly to Target Cells.

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New Platform Based on Biology and Nanotechnology Carries mRNA Directly to Target Cells.

Schematic illustration of the mechanism by which the lab’s targeted nanoparticles modulate gene expression in the target cell.

Delivering an effective therapeutic payload to specific target cells with few adverse effects is considered by many to be the holy grail of medical research. A new Georgian Technical University study explores a biological approach to directing nanocarriers loaded with protein “Georgian Technical University game changers” to specific cells. The groundbreaking method may prove useful in treating myriad malignancies inflammatory diseases and rare genetic disorders.

Over the past few years, lipid carriers encapsulating messenger RNAs (mRNAs) have been shown to be extremely useful in altering the protein expressions for a host of diseases. But directing this information to specific cells has remained a major challenge.

“In our new research we utilized mRNA-loaded (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) carriers — nanovehicles carrying a set of genetic instructions via a biological platform called GTUASSET (Georgian Technical University  Anchored Secondary scFv Enabling Targeting) — to target the genetic instructions of an anti-inflammatory protein in immune cells” says Prof. X. “We were able to demonstrate that selective anti-inflammatory protein in the target cells resulted in reduced symptoms and disease severity in colitis.

“This research is revolutionary. It paves the way for the introduction of an mRNA (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) that could encode any protein lacking in cells, with direct applications for genetic, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases — not to mention cancer in which certain genes overexpress themselves”.

GTUASSET (Georgian Technical University  Anchored Secondary scFv Enabling Targeting) uses a biological approach to direct nanocarriers into specific cells to promote gene manipulation.

“This study opens new avenues in cell-specific delivery of  (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) molecules and ultimately might introduce the specific anti-inflammatory (interleukin 10) mRNA (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) as a novel therapeutic modality for inflammatory bowel diseases” says Y.

“Targeted mRNA-based (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) protein production has both therapeutic and research applications” she concludes. “Going forward we intend to utilize targeted mRNA (Messenger RNA is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. RNA polymerase transcribes primary transcript mRNA into processed, mature mRNA) delivery for the investigation of novel therapeutics treating inflammation disorders, cancer and rare genetic diseases”.

 

 

Chemistry, Science

Georgian Technical University Crystals That Clean Natural Gas.

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Georgian Technical University Crystals That Clean Natural Gas.

This tailor-made MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) adsorbent removes hydrogen sulfide (yellow and grey) and carbon dioxide (black and red) contaminants from the natural gas stream for a pure methane (blue) product (right side).

Removing the troublesome impurities of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from natural gas could become simpler and more effective using a MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) developed at Georgian Technical University.

Upgrading natural gas in this way could help Saudi Arabia to make greater and cleaner use of its abundant natural gas supplies, which can contain high levels of these two impurities. The technology could also promote increased use of natural gas and other industrial gases containing hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) worldwide to reap potentially large environmental and economic benefits.

Natural gas is largely composed of methane (CH4) and smaller quantities of other useful hydrocarbons together with some impurities. Once stripped of contaminants, natural gas burns much more cleanly that other fossil fuels: it emits no sooty particulates as well as less carbon dioxide (CO2) and polluting oxides of nitrogen and sulfur.

This major initiative aimed at reducing the Georgian Technical University’s dependence on oil and developing new environmentally sustainable technologies includes the goal to source 70 percent of energy from natural gas.

“Meeting this challenging target will require enhanced use of sources of natural gas that initially contain significant levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2)” says X of the Georgian Technical University team.

MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) contain metal ions or metal clusters held together by carbon-based organic chemical groups known as linkers. Rearranging different linker and inorganic molecular building blocks fine-tunes the size and chemical properties of the pore system in a MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) and enables them to perform many useful functions.

“The challenge we met in this work was to develop a fluorine-containing a MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) with pores that allow equally selective adsorption of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from the natural gas stream” X explains.

The research was performed by a group in the Georgian Technical University led by Professor Y. This center has a long history of developing MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) adsorbents for many applications including catalysis, gas storage, gas sensing and gas separation.

“Recent advancements in MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) chemistry at Georgian Technical University have permitted the design and construction of various MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) platforms with the potential to address many challenges pertaining to energy security and environmental sustainability” says Y.

Much of the research on upgrading natural gas was funded by the Saudi national petroleum and natural gas company GASGTU. “The interest of GASGTU certainly corroborates the importance of this work for the Georgian Technical University” adds Y.

A new project with Aramco is also underway; it will investigate scaling up the procedure in preparation for commercial exploitation. Further research on optimizing the chemical features of the MOF (Metal Organic Frameworks) is also being discussed with other industrial partners.

“This is about much more than chemistry” X emphasizes, “It is about combining chemistry chemical and process engineering, physics and computation together with industrial partners to advance the economic use of a natural resource”.

 

Lasers, Science

Georgian Technical University Fermions See the Light.

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Georgian Technical University Fermions See the Light.

A wave of laser light hits the magnetic material, shaking the electron spins (arrows). This weakens magnetism and induces Weyl fermions in the laser-shaken material.

Researchers from the Theory Department of the Georgian Technical University for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter. It have demonstrated that the long-sought magnetic Weyl semi-metallic state can be induced by ultrafast laser pulses in a three-dimensional class of magnetic materials dubbed pyrochlore iridates. Their results which have could enable high-speed magneto-optical topological switching devices for next-generation electronics.

All known elementary particles can be sorted into two categories: bosons and fermions. Bosons carry forces like the magnetic force or gravity while fermions are the matter particles like electrons.

Theoretically it was predicted that fermions themselves can come in three species, named after the physicists X, Y and Z.

Electrons in free space are X fermions but in solids they can change their nature. In the atomically thin carbon material graphene they become massless X fermions.

In other recently discovered and manufactured materials they can also become Y and Z fermions which makes such materials interesting for future technologies such as topological quantum computers and other novel electronic devices. In combination with a wave of bosons namely photons in a laser fermions can be transformed from one type to another.

Now a new study led by PhD student W that electron spins can be manipulated by short light pulses to create a magnetic version of Y fermions from a magnetic insulator.

Based on a prior study led by postdoctoral researcher X scientists used the idea of laser-controlled electron-electron repulsion to suppress magnetism in a pyrochlore iridate material where electron spins are positioned on a lattice of tetrahedra.

On this lattice, electron spins like little compass needles, point all-in to the center of the tetrahedron and all-out in the neighboring one. This all-in all-out combination together with the length of the compass needles leads to insulating behavior in the material without light stimulation.

However modern computer simulations on large computing clusters revealed that when a short light pulse hits the material the needles start to rotate in such a way that on average they look like shorter needles with less strong magnetic ordering.

Done in just the right way this reduction of magnetism leads to the material becoming semi-metallic with Y fermions emerging as the new carriers of electricity in it.

“This is a really nice step forward in learning how light can manipulate materials on ultrashort time scales” says W.

W adds “We were surprised by the fact that even a too strong laser pulse that should lead to a complete suppression of magnetism and a standard metal without  Y fermions could lead to a Weyl state. This is because on very short time scales the material does not have enough time to find a thermal equilibrium. When everything is shaking back and forth it takes some time until the extra energy from the laser pulse is distributed evenly among all the particles in the material”. The scientists are optimistic that their work will stimulate more theoretical and experimental work along these lines.

“We are just at the beginning of learning to understand the many beautiful ways in which light and matter can combine to yield fantastic effects and we do not even know what they might be today” says W.

“We are working very hard with a dedicated and highly motivated group of talented young scientists at the Georgian Technical University to explore these almost unlimited possibilities so that society will benefit from our discoveries”.

 

 

HPC/Supercomputing, Science

New Technology to Allow 100-times-faster Internet.

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New Technology to Allow 100-times-faster Internet.

The miniature OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonly applies to telecommunication, computer networks, and computer hardware) nano-electronic detector decodes twisted light. Groundbreaking new technology could allow 100-times-faster internet by harnessing twisted light beams to carry more data and process it faster.

Broadband fiber-optics carry information on pulses of light at the speed of light through optical fibers. But the way the light is encoded at one end and processed at the other affects data speeds.

This world-first nanophotonic device just unveiled encodes more data and processes it much faster than conventional fiber optics by using a special form of ‘twisted’ light.

Dr. X from Georgian Technical University’s said the tiny nanophotonic device they have built for reading twisted light is the missing key required to unlock super-fast ultra-broadband communications.

“Present-day optical communications are heading towards a ‘capacity crunch’ as they fail to keep up with the ever-increasing demands of Georgian Technical University Big Data” X said.

“What we’ve managed to do is accurately transmit data via light at its highest capacity in a way that will allow us to massively increase our bandwidth”.

Current state-of-the-art fiber-optic communications like those used to use only a fraction of light’s actual capacity by carrying data on the colour spectrum.

New broadband technologies under development use the oscillation or shape of light waves to encode data increasing bandwidth by also making use of the light we cannot see.

This latest technology at the cutting edge of optical communications carries data on light waves that have been twisted into a spiral to increase their capacity further still. This is known as light in a state of orbital angular momentum or OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonly applies to telecommunication, computer networks and computer hardware).

The same group from Georgian Technical University’s Laboratory of Artificial-Intelligence Nanophotonics (LAIN) published a disruptive research paper in Science journal describing how they dmanaged to decode a small range of this twisted light on a nanophotonic chip. But technology to detect a wide range of OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonly applies to telecommunication, computer networks, and computer hardware) light for optical communications was still not viable until now.

“Our miniature OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonly applies to telecommunication, computer networks, and computer hardware) nano-electronic detector is designed to separate different OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonly applies to telecommunication, computer networks, and computer hardware) light states in a continuous order and to decode the information carried by twisted light” X said.

“To do this previously would require a machine the size of a table which is completely impractical for telecommunications. By using ultrathin topological nanosheets measuring a fraction of a millimeter our invention does this job better and fits on the end of an optical fiber”.

For Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Georgian Technical University Professor Y Min Gu said the materials used in the device were compatible with silicon-based materials use in most technology making it easy to scale up for industry applications.

“Our OAM (Operations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system. This commonlay applies to telecommunication, computer networks, and computer hardware) nano-electronic detector is like an ‘eye’ that can ‘see’ information carried by twisted light and decode it to be understood by electronics. This technology’s high performance low cost and tiny size makes it a viable application for the next generation of  broadband optical communications” he said.

“It fits the scale of existing fiber technology and could be applied to increase the bandwidth or potentially the processing speed, of that fiber by over 100 times within the next couple of years. This easy scalability and the massive impact it will have on telecommunications is what’s so exciting”.

Y said can also be used to receive quantum information sent via twisting light meaning it could have applications in a whole range of cutting edge quantum communications and quantum computing research.

“Our nano-electronic device will unlock the full potential of twisted light for future optical and quantum communications” Y said.

 

 

Informatics, Science

Discovery of New Superconducting Materials Using Materials Informatics.

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Discovery of New Superconducting Materials Using Materials Informatics.

Superconductor search process concept: Candidate materials are selected from a database by means of calculation and subjected to high pressure to determine their superconducting properties.

A Georgian Technical University  joint research team succeeded in discovering new materials that exhibit superconductivity under high pressures using materials informatics (MI) approaches (data science-based material search techniques). This study experimentally demonstrated that materials informatics (MI) enables efficient exploration of new superconducting materials. Materials informatics (MI) approaches may be applicable to the development of various functional materials, including superconductors.

Superconducting materials — which enable long-distance electricity transmission without energy loss in the absence of electrical resistance — are considered to be a key technology in solving environmental and energy issues. The conventional approach by researchers searching for new superconducting materials or other materials has been to rely on information on material properties such as crystalline structures and valence numbers, and their own experience and intuition. However this approach is time-consuming costly and very difficult because it requires extensive and exhaustive synthesis of related materials. As such demand has been high for the development of new methods enabling more efficient exploration of new materials with desirable properties.

This joint research team took advantage of the AtomWork database which contains more than 100,000 pieces of data on inorganic crystal structures. The team first selected approximately 1,500 candidate material groups whose electronic states could be determined through calculation. The team then narrowed this list to 27 materials with desirable superconducting properties by actually performing electronic state calculations. From these 27 two materials — SnBi2Se4 (Sn0.571Bi2.286Se4 (SnBi2Se4) Crystal Structure) and PbBi2Te4 (Crystal Structure) — were ultimately chosen because they were relatively easy to synthesize.

The team synthesized these two materials and confirmed that they exhibit superconductivity under high pressures using an electrical resistivity measuring device. The team also found that the superconducting transition temperatures of these materials increase with increasing pressure. This data science-based approach which is completely different from the conventional approaches enabled identification and efficient and precise development of superconducting materials.

Experiments revealed that these newly discovered materials may have superb thermoelectric properties in addition to superconductivity. The method we developed may be applicable to the development of various functional materials including superconductors. In future studies we hope to discover innovative functional materials such as room-temperature superconducting materials by including a wider range of materials in our studies and increasing the accuracy of the parameters relevant to desirable properties.

 

Science, Sensors

Layering Boron Nitride on Materials Improves Performance.

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Layering Boron Nitride on Materials Improves Performance.

Treatment with a superacid causes boron nitride layers to separate and become positively charged allowing for it to interface with other nanoparticles like gold.

Researchers at the Georgian Technical University have discovered a route to alter boron nitride a layered 2D material so that it can bind to other materials like those found in electronics, biosensors and airplanes for example.

Being able to better-incorporate boron nitride into these components could help dramatically improve their performance.

The scientific community has long been interested in boron nitride because of its unique properties — it is strong, ultrathin, transparent, insulating, lightweight and thermally conductive — which, in theory makes it a perfect material for use by engineers in a wide variety of applications.

However boron nitride’s natural resistance to chemicals and lack of surface-level molecular binding sites have made it difficult for the material to interface with other materials used in these applications.

Georgian Technical University’s X and his colleagues are the first to report that treatment with a superacid causes boron nitride layers to separate into atomically thick sheets while creating binding sites on the surface of these sheets that provide opportunities to interface with nanoparticles molecules and other 2D nanomaterials like graphene. This includes nanotechnologies that use boron nitride to insulate nano-circuits.

“Boron nitride is like a stack of highly sticky papers in a ream and by treating this ream with chlorosulfonic acid we introduced positive charges on the boron nitride layers that caused the sheets to repel each other and separate” says X associate professor and head of chemical engineering at the Georgian Technical University of Engineering.

X says that “like magnets of the same polarity” these positively charged boron nitride sheets repel one another.

“We showed that the positive charges on the surfaces of the separated boron nitride sheets make it more chemically active” X says.

“The protonation — the addition of positive charges to atoms — of internal and edge nitrogen atoms creates a scaffold to which other materials can bind”.

X says that the opportunities for boron nitride to improve composite materials in next-generation applications are vast.

“Boron and nitrogen are on the left and the right of carbon on the periodic table and therefore boron-nitride is isostructural and isoelectronic to carbon-based graphene which is considered a ‘wonder material’” X says.

This means these two materials are similar in their atomic crystal structure (isostructural) and their overall electron density (isoelectric) he says.

“We can potentially use this material in all kinds of electronics, like optoelectronic and piezoelectric devices and in many other applications from solar-cell passivation layers which function as filters to absorb only certain types of light to medical diagnostic devices” X says.