here’s an interesting paper (that I’ve only skimmed and can’t really claim to have understood) that does a few interesting things.

Back when I was young and mentally agile, using parallel computers to solve Ising models was a thing, and it maybe sold a few instances of exotic machines.

This paper is part of a trend that reverses the process: here, they’re using physical instantiations of Ising models to solve parallel computations of the NP-hard variety.

That was interesting thing one.

Interesting thing two is using telecom-grade DSPs to condition the input into the system and to equalize the output, compensating for known distortions in the optical path.

Interesting thing three is what the DSPs on the output end are doing — there’s compensation for known distortions that comes out of the system, but they’re also *leaving in some of the noise*. The noise acts as “simulated”annealing (it’s more like *real* annealing).

So: they’ve gotten a lot of mileage by looking at several problems “in reverse”, which I guess is interesting thing number four.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.09581

University press release with link to an article in Nature:

https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/using-light-based-computing-tackle-complex-challenges

#analogComputing #simulatedAnnealing

Proud of Denisa Arsene for presenting us and our work at the Complex Networks conference last week. She had a lot of engagement during her presentation, and made a ton of cool new science friends from all over the world 🤓 🌟

Key contribution: SANA (simulated annealing for network anonymisation), an algorithm that makes small alterations to social networks to protect the people in the network from de-anonymization attacks.

Motivation: Facilitating data sharing between social scientists while preserving the privacy of the people who were part of those studies.

More info, including preprint and poster (with ALT): https://latower.github.io/posts/2025/11/sana/

#Science #Research #ComputerScience #AI #StudentLife #Networking #SciComm #SocialNetworkAnalysis #Algorithmics #SimulatedAnnealing #AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter #CombinatorialOptimisation #CombinatorialOptimization

My student did a Science!

One week from now, Denisa Arsene will present the her BSc thesis research at the 14th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications, held in Binghamton, New York, USA!

More details and preprint: https://latower.github.io/posts/2025/11/sana/

I'm super proud of her, and I'm super happy that I got to do this project with her and two of my former colleagues from Leiden University: Rachel de Jong and Frank Takes!

#AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter #Preprint #Privacy #SocialNetworks #CombinatorialOptimisation #Combinatoris #StochasticSearch #SimulatedAnnealing #StudentLife #ComplexNetworks #Conference #Science #Research

📝 "Data Morph: Moving Beyond the Datasaurus Dozen"

👤 Stefanie Molin

🔗 https://levelup.gitconnected.com/data-morph-moving-beyond-the-datasaurus-dozen-156927b20f8c?source=rss-af94074c1fa0------2

#pyladies #python #simulatedannealing #datavisualization #datascience #summarystatistics #opensourcesoftware

Interesting article about D-Wave "#quantum" annealing computers. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/companies-are-relying-on-quantum-annealers-for-useful-computations/

My niche in the aughts was "#scheduling" optimization (90% of the time it was bin-packing, technically). I started with #SimulatedAnnealing and #GeneticAlgorithms, but generally found approximation algorithms (Vazirani's book) to be most practical. PS It's a great niche. #SoftwareDevelopment

My write-up on #ICFPC2021:

http://rmathew.com/2021/icfpc21.html

#ICFPC #ICFPContest #Programming #ICFPC21 #BrainWall #WebSite #Plug #SimulatedAnnealing

triangle snake annealing

https://diode.zone/videos/watch/ea897f71-c45b-4548-b743-9784dabff750

triangle snake annealing, 2021-04-09_20-01-04-x64

https://diode.zone/videos/watch/503e8b46-57c6-4393-a822-9a2d5c85eb2e