A superconducting chip containing a regular array of flux qubits, tunable interqubit inductive couplers, an XY-addressable readout system, on-chip programmable magnetic memory, and a sparse network of analog control lines has been studied. The architecture of the chip and the infrastructure used to control it were designed to facilitate the implementation of an adiabatic quantum optimization algorithm. The performance of an eight-qubit unit cell on this chip has been characterized by measuring its success in solving a large set of random Ising spin glass problem instances as a function of temperature. The experimental data are consistent with the predictions of a quantum mechanical model of an eight-qubit system coupled to a thermal environment. These results highlight many of the key practical challenges that we have overcome and those that lie ahead in the quest to realize a functional large scale adiabatic quantum information processor.

Efforts to develop useful quantum computers have been blocked primarily by environmental noise. Quantum annealing is a scheme of quantum computation that is predicted to be more robust against noise, because despite the thermal environment mixing the system's state in the energy basis, the system partially retains coherence in the computational basis, and hence is able to establish well-defined eigenstates. Here we examine the environment's effect on quantum annealing using 16 qubits of a superconducting quantum processor. For a problem instance with an isolated small-gap anticrossing between the lowest two energy levels, we experimentally demonstrate that, even with annealing times eight orders of magnitude longer than the predicted single-qubit decoherence time, the probabilities of performing a successful computation are similar to those expected for a fully coherent system. Moreover, for the problem studied, we show that quantum annealing can take advantage of a thermal environment to achieve a speedup factor of up to 1,000 over a closed system.

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The FDM technology is an easy solution when someone need freedom of design but with a high precision of manufacturing and so, one can built conceptual models or molds, engineering models, manufacturing tools, and functional testing prototypes. The problem addressed in this paper is to identify and investigate the possibility of design and the achieving sustainability of a temporary hand prosthesis used for supporting and immobilizing a broken bone. The research tries to highlight some common and distinct aspects specific to FDM printing technology. One of the objectives of this paper is to use the FDM technology in order to achieve a modern version of the classics splints or of the orthopedic cast. The prototype models proposed can be made vertically on a 3D printer with small motherboard and are easy to wear, attractive to children through its colors and can be made with a manufacturing low price.

Abstract. The critical analysis of the self-centering devices for inner cylindrical surfaces highlights a number of advantages and disadvantages of these solutions. The key benefit is the precision but the most important disadvantage it is that doesn't covers a sufficiently range of values for the inner diameters and are very complex. In the present paper a solution of centering mechanism with calibrated rollers that eliminates the disadvantages mentioned above, with a medium complexity but ensuring a sufficient range of values for measured surfaces is proposed. The method used to obtain the specified range of values is graphic method.