Synergy conformal prediction applied to large-scale bioactivity datasets and in federated learning

Confidence predictors can deliver predictions with the associated confidence required for decision making and can play an important role in drug discovery and toxicity predictions. In this work we investigate a recently introduced version of conformal prediction, synergy conformal prediction, focusing on the predictive performance when applied to bioactivity data. We compare the performance to other variants of conformal predictors for multiple partitioned datasets and demonstrate the utility of synergy conformal predictors for federated learning where data cannot be pooled in one location. Our results show that synergy conformal predictors based on training data randomly sampled with replacement can compete with other conformal setups, while using completely separate training sets often results in worse performance. However, in a federated setup where no method has access to all the data, synergy conformal prediction is shown to give promising results. Based on our study, we conclude that synergy conformal predictors are a valuable addition to the conformal prediction toolbox

Big-Data Science in Porous Materials: Materials Genomics and Machine Learning

By combining metal nodes with organic linkers we can potentially synthesize millions of possible metal organic frameworks (MOFs). At present, we have libraries of over ten thousand synthesized materials and millions of in-silico predicted materials. The fact that we have so many materials opens many exciting avenues to tailor make a material that is optimal for a given application. However, from an experimental and computational point of view we simply have too many materials to screen using brute-force techniques. In this review, we show that having so many materials allows us to use big-data methods as a powerful technique to study these materials and to discover complex correlations. The first part of the review gives an introduction to the principles of big-data science. We emphasize the importance of data collection, methods to augment small data sets, how to select appropriate training sets. An important part of this review are the different approaches that are used to represent these materials in feature space. The review also includes a general overview of the different ML techniques, but as most applications in porous materials use supervised ML our review is focused on the different approaches for supervised ML. In particular, we review the different method to optimize the ML process and how to quantify the performance of the different methods. In the second part, we review how the different approaches of ML have been applied to porous materials. In particular, we discuss applications in the field of gas storage and separation, the stability of these materials, their electronic properties, and their synthesis. The range of topics illustrates the large variety of topics that can be studied with big-data science. Given the increasing interest of the scientific community in ML, we expect this list to rapidly expand in the coming years.Comment: Editorial changes (typos fixed, minor adjustments to figures