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People use videos to learn new recipes, exercises, and crafts. Such videos remain difficult for blind and low vision (BLV) people to follow as they rely on visual comparison. Our observations of visual rehabilitation therapists (VRTs) guiding BLV people to follow how-to videos revealed that VRTs provide both proactive and responsive support including detailed descriptions, non-visual workarounds, and progress feedback. We propose Vid2Coach, a system that transforms how-to videos into wearable camera-based assistants that provide accessible instructions and mixed-initiative feedback. From the video, Vid2Coach generates accessible instructions by augmenting narrated instructions with demonstration details and completion criteria for each step. It then uses retrieval-augmented-generation to extract relevant non-visual workarounds from BLV-specific resources. Vid2Coach then monitors user progress with a camera embedded in commercial smart glasses to provide context-aware instructions, proactive feedback, and answers to user questions. BLV participants (N=8) using Vid2Coach completed cooking tasks with 58.5\% fewer errors than when using their typical workflow and wanted to use Vid2Coach in their daily lives. Vid2Coach demonstrates an opportunity for AI visual assistance that strengthens rather than replaces non-visual expertise. 

Accurate modeling of the response of molecular systems to an external electromagnetic field is challenging on classical computers, especially in the regime of strong electronic correlation. In this article, we develop a quantum linear response (qLR) theory to calculate molecular response properties on near-term quantum computers. Inspired by the recently developed variants of the quantum counterpart of equation of motion (qEOM) theory, the qLR formalism employs “killer condition” satisfying excitation operator manifolds that offer a number of theoretical advantages along with reduced quantum resource requirements. We also used the qEOM framework in this work to calculate the state-specific response properties. Further, through noiseless quantum simulations, we show that response properties calculated using the qLR approach are more accurate than the ones obtained from the classical coupled-cluster-based linear response models due to the improved quality of the ground-state wave function obtained using the ADAPT-VQE algorithm. 

Motivated by recent experiments on pump-induced polar ordering in the quantum paraelectric Sr⁢Ti⁢O3, we study a driven phonon system close to a second-order phase transition. Analyzing its classical dynamics, we find that sufficiently strong driving leads to transitions into polar phases whose structures, determined by the light polarization, are not all accessible in equilibrium. In addition, for certain intensity profiles, we demonstrate the possibility of two-step transitions as a function of fluence. For even stronger field intensities, the possibility of period-doubling and chaotic behavior is demonstrated. Finally we develop a generalized formalism that allows us to consider quantum corrections to the classical dynamics in a systematic fashion. We predict a shift in the critical pump fluence due to quantum fluctuations with a characteristic dependence on the fluence increase rate that should be observable in experiment.