A software framework for data dimensionality reduction: application to chemical crystallography

Materials science research has witnessed an increasing use of data mining techniques in establishing process‐structure‐property relationships. Significant advances in high‐throughput experiments and computational capability have resulted in the generation of huge amounts of data. Various statistical methods are currently employed to reduce the noise, redundancy, and the dimensionality of the data to make analysis more tractable. Popular methods for reduction (like principal component analysis) assume a linear relationship between the input and output variables. Recent developments in non‐linear reduction (neural networks, self‐organizing maps), though successful, have computational issues associated with convergence and scalability. Another significant barrier to use dimensionality reduction techniques in materials science is the lack of ease of use owing to their complex mathematical formulations. This paper reviews various spectral‐based techniques that efficiently unravel linear and non‐linear structures in the data which can subsequently be used to tractably investigate process‐structure‐property relationships. In addition, we describe techniques (based on graph‐theoretic analysis) to estimate the optimal dimensionality of the low‐dimensional parametric representation. We show how these techniques can be packaged into a modular, computationally scalable software framework with a graphical user interface ‐ Scalable Extensible Toolkit for Dimensionality Reduction (SETDiR). This interface helps to separate out the mathematics and computational aspects from the materials science applications, thus significantly enhancing utility to the materials science community. The applicability of this framework in constructing reduced order models of complicated materials dataset is illustrated with an example dataset of apatites described in structural descriptor space. Cluster analysis of the low‐dimensional plots yielded interesting insights into the correlation between several structural descriptors like ionic radius and covalence with characteristic properties like apatite stability. This information is crucial as it can promote the use of apatite materials as a potential host system for immobilizing toxic elements

Classification of damage in structural systems using time series analysis and supervised and unsupervised pattern recognition techniques

Peer reviewedPostprin

Machine learning to empower electrohydrodynamic processing

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) processes are promising healthcare fabrication technologies, as evidenced by the number of commercialised and food-and-drug administration (FDA)-approved products produced by these processes. Their ability to produce both rapidly and precisely nano-sized products provides them with a unique set of qualities that cannot be matched by other fabrication technologies. Consequently, this has stimulated the development of EHD processing to tackle other healthcare challenges. However, as with most technologies, time and resources will be needed to realise fully the potential EHD processes can offer. To address this bottleneck, researchers are adopting machine learning (ML), a subset of artificial intelligence, into their workflow. ML has already made ground-breaking advancements in the healthcare sector, and it is anticipated to do the same in the materials domain. Presently, the application of ML in fabrication technologies lags behind other sectors. To that end, this review showcases the progress made by ML for EHD workflows, demonstrating how the latter can benefit greatly from the former. In addition, we provide an introduction to the ML pipeline, to help encourage the use of ML for other EHD researchers. As discussed, the merger of ML with EHD has the potential to expedite novel discoveries and to automate the EHD workflow