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We present a quantum network that distributes entangled photons between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a public library in Urbana. The network allows members of the public to perform measurements on the photons. We describe its design and implementation and outreach based on the network. Over 400 instances of public interaction have been logged with the system since it was launched in November 2023.

 

Graph neural networks (GNNs) are proficient machine learning models in handling irregularly structured data. Nevertheless, their generic formulation falls short when applied to the analysis of brain connectomes in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), necessitating the incorporation of domain-specific knowledge to achieve optimal model performance. The integration of AD-related expertise into GNNs presents a significant challenge. Current methodologies reliant on manual design often demand substantial expertise from external domain specialists to guide the development of novel models, thereby consuming considerable time and resources. To mitigate the need for manual curation, this paper introduces a novel self-guided knowledge-infused multimodal GNN to autonomously integrate domain knowledge into the model development process. We propose to conceptualize existing domain knowledge as natural language, and devise a specialized multimodal GNN framework tailored to leverage this uncurated knowledge to direct the learning of the GNN submodule, thereby enhancing its efficacy and improving prediction interpretability. To assess the effectiveness of our framework, we compile a comprehensive literature dataset comprising recent peer-reviewed publications on AD. By integrating this literature dataset with several real-world AD datasets, our experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in extracting curated knowledge and offering explanations on graphs for domain-specific applications. Furthermore, our approach successfully utilizes the extracted information to enhance the performance of the GNN. 

We describe new species in the genus Ceroptres Hartig, 1840 (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Ceroptresini) represented by voucher material sequenced by Ward et al. (2024). We describe 22 new species, all authored by Nastasi, Smith, & Davis: C. anansii sp. nov., C. anzui sp. nov., C. bruti sp. nov., C. curupira sp. nov., C. daleki sp. nov., C. dandoi sp. nov., C. demerzelae sp. nov., C. iktomii sp. nov., C. jabbai sp. nov., C. jarethi sp. nov., C. lokii sp. nov., C. lupini sp. nov., C. mallowi sp. nov., C. promethei sp. nov., C. sandiegoae sp. nov., C. selinae sp. nov., C. soloi sp. nov., C. songae sp. nov., C. swiperi sp. nov., C. thrymi sp. nov., C. tikoloshei sp. nov., and C. zorroi sp. nov. After our taxonomic treatment, the genus Ceroptres includes 43 species, all but three of which are known from North America. Among our new species are two reared from cecidomyiid midge galls, an association previously recorded but without valid taxonomic association. We provide new records for two additional previously described species; we record C. ensiger (Walsh, 1864) from Pennsylvania and confirm characters for the male, and we record C. lanigerae Ashmead, 1885 from Texas. We also examined several putative species corresponding to either C. cornigera Melika & Buss, 2002 and/or C. frondosae Ashmead, 1896, which we regard as a species complex that requires elucidation in future studies. To enable further studies on Ceroptres, we provide an updated key to North American females. Overall, we find that species of Ceroptres are host specialists associated with a single host gall species or several galls that are phylogenetically or ecologically related. We suggest that there are many North American species of Ceroptres, possibly hundreds, still awaiting collection and characterization. 

 

Understanding how climate and local stressors interact is paramount for predicting future ecosystem structure. The effects of multiple stressors are often examined in small‐scale and short‐term field experiments, limiting understanding of the spatial and temporal generality of the findings. Using a 22‐year observational dataset of plant and grazer abundance in a southeastern US salt marsh, we analyzed how changes in drought and grazer density combined to affect plant biomass. We found: (1) increased drought severity and higher snail density both correlated with lower plant biomass; (2) drought and snail effects interacted additively; and, (3) snail effects had a threshold, with additive top‐down effects only occurring when snails were present at high densities. These results suggest that the emergence of multiple stressor effects can be density dependent, and they validate short‐term experimental evidence that consumers can augment environmental stress. These findings have important implications for predicting future ecosystem structure and managing natural ecosystems.

 

The unpredictability of random numbers is fundamental to both digital security and applications that fairly distribute resources. However, existing random number generators have limitations-the generation processes cannot be fully traced, audited, and certified to be unpredictable. The algorithmic steps used in pseudorandom number generators are auditable, but they cannot guarantee that their outputs were a priori unpredictable given knowledge of the initial seed. Device-independent quantum random number generators can ensure that the source of randomness was unknown beforehand, but the steps used to extract the randomness are vulnerable to tampering. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate a fully traceable random number generation protocol based on device-independent techniques. Our protocol extracts randomness from unpredictable non-local quantum correlations, and uses distributed intertwined hash chains to cryptographically trace and verify the extraction process. This protocol is at the heart of a public traceable and certifiable quantum randomness beacon that we have launched. Over the first 40 days of operation, we completed the protocol 7434 out of 7454 attempts -- a success rate of 99.7%. Each time the protocol succeeded, the beacon emitted a pulse of 512 bits of traceable randomness. The bits are certified to be uniform with error times actual success probability bounded by 2^(−64). The generation of certifiable and traceable randomness represents one of the first public services that operates with an entanglement-derived advantage over comparable classical approaches.