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Library revitalization promises improved experience for students
Last year students visited Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries over 2 million times. Now, with generous donations and the University’s matched support, new study and collaboration spaces have been created, revitalizing both libraries.
By gathering feedback, the Library discovered that students wanted more study spaces, reduced noise and an enhanced atmosphere. Guided by this feedback, the Library revitalization team worked with an advisory committee and architects at WalterFedy on a plan to transform library spaces. In Dana Porter there are now more bookable study rooms, a lounge area and a quiet reflection room. On the third floor, there is a new flexible learning lab, which facilitates innovative teaching and learning activities. In Davis Centre, new study furniture has been added, along with a quiet reading lounge and a fully-accessible and gender-neutral washroom.
“On behalf of everyone in the Library I’m thrilled to share with the University community these updated spaces for learning and scholarship,” said Beth Sandore Namachchivaya, University Librarian. “Year after year, Waterloo students and scholars make the Library the true ‘heart’ of the campus through heavy use of Library spaces, expertise, and information resources. These renovations are possible through generous donor support, creative and thoughtful planning, and contributions from the Office of the Provost.”
The campus community is invited to explore the new, transformative spaces at the Library revitalization grand opening on Thursday, September 12 from 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. The grand opening will be held at the Davis Centre Library where there will be refreshments, remarks and a celebration of the opening of the new Art in the Library exhibit.
Extending the reach of classical AI into the quantum realm
This is an excerpt of an article originally published on the Applied Mathematics news site.
The Physics of Information lab, led by Professor Achim Kempf, was awarded one of the 2018 Google Faculty Research Awards. Kempf’s lab focuses on the physics of information, a wide research field that ranges from general relativity and quantum theory to information theory and artificial intelligence (AI).
The Kempf lab received the Google award for a project in quantum machine learning. Kempf’s PhD student Guillaume Verdon and his Master’s student Evan Peters, with help from undergraduate student Michael Broughton pioneered this project which sits at the interface of quantum theory and deep learning. The research focuses on how artificial intelligence-like algorithms on a quantum computer can be paired, or hybridized, with artificial intelligence on a classical computer. The team caught Google’s attention with substantial papers, such as A Universal Training Algorithm for Quantum Deep Learning in 2018, which details how quantum dynamics can be used to optimize classical and quantum neural networks.
“I took a risk two years ago jumping into this new field of quantum machine learning when nobody had any clue of what it was going to be,” said Verdon. Adding: “I thought that machine learning and quantum machine learning was an area of application that could propel near-term quantum computers forward. Ultimately, I believe that, someday, quantum computers could even help us test our various models of theoretical physics and quantum gravity, thus extending our computational reach and our capabilities for modelling and understanding how the universe works.”
Richard Feynman first proposed quantum computers for the purpose of simulating the world at the quantum level to better understand quantum mechanics. A quantum computer could, for example, simulate chemical reactions which produce new molecules with potentially valuable uses from materials design to drug design. Since chemistry is fundamentally quantum, quantum simulation and the new quantum AI developed in this project should eventually significantly help explore, understand, and refine simulated chemical reactions for materials and drug design.