Data and cloud are not virtual technology. They need costly infrastructure and electricity. Researchers forecast that in the future their emissions could be much more than expected. Who does not make us sleep the night? A few weeks ago the UK break the temperature record, for the first time the temperature rose over 40 C. The summer nights are warm and humid and it is hard to sleep on similar days.

Impact-sounding (IS) and impact-echo (IE) are well-developed non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods that are widely used for inspections of concrete structures to ensure the safety and sustainability. However, it is a tedious work to collect IS and IE data along grid lines covering a large target area for characterization of subsurface defects. On the other hand, data processing is very complicated that requires domain experts to interpret the results. To address the above problems, we present a novel robotic inspection system named as Impact-Rover to automate the data collection process and introduce data analytics software to visualize the inspection result allowing regular non-professional people to understand. The system consists of three modules: 1) a robotic platform with vertical mobility to collect IS and IE data in hard-to-reach locations, 2) vision-based positioning module that fuses the RGB-D camera, IMU and wheel encoder to estimate the 6-DOF pose of the robot, 3) a data analytics software module for processing the IS data to generate defect maps. The Impact-Rover hosts both IE and IS devices on a sliding mechanism and can perform move-stop-sample operations to collect multiple IS and IE data at adjustable spacing. The robot takes samples much faster than the manual data collection method because it automatically takes the multiple measurements along a straight line and records the locations. This paper focuses on reporting experimental results on IS. We calculate features and use unsupervised learning methods for analyzing the data. By combining the pose generated by our vision-based localization module and the position of the head of the sliding mechanism we can generate maps of possible defects. The results on concrete slabs demonstrate that our impact-sounding system can effectively reveal shallow defects.

For decades, engineers seeking to build tunnels underground have relied on huge tube-like machines armed with a frightening array of cutting wheels at one end--blades that eat dirt for breakfast. These behemoths, called tunnel-boring machines, or TBMs, are expensive and often custom-built for each project, as were the TBMs used to excavate a path for London's recently opened Elizabeth Line railway. The machines deployed on that project weighed over 1,000 tons each and cut tunnels over 7 meters in diameter beneath the UK capital. But British startup hyperTunnel has other ideas. The firm proposes a future in which much smaller, roughly 3-meter-long robots shaped like half-cylinders zoom about underground via predrilled pipes.

The past few years has seen the application of machine learning utilised in the exploration of new materials. As in many fields of research - the vast majority of knowledge is published as text, which poses challenges in either a consolidated or statistical analysis across studies and reports. Such challenges include the inability to extract quantitative information, and in accessing the breadth of non-numerical information. To address this issue, the application of natural language processing (NLP) has been explored in several studies to date. In NLP, assignment of high-dimensional vectors, known as embeddings, to passages of text preserves the syntactic and semantic relationship between words. Embeddings rely on machine learning algorithms and in the present work, we have employed the Word2Vec model, previously explored by others, and the BERT model - applying them towards a unique challenge in materials engineering. That challenge is the search for chromate replacements in the field of corrosion protection. From a database of over 80 million records, a down-selection of 5990 papers focused on the topic of corrosion protection were examined using NLP. This study demonstrates it is possible to extract knowledge from the automated interpretation of the scientific literature and achieve expert human level insights.

Variational optimization of neural-network representations of quantum states has been successfully applied to solve interacting fermionic problems. Despite rapid developments, significant scalability challenges arise when considering molecules of large scale, which correspond to non-locally interacting quantum spin Hamiltonians consisting of sums of thousands or even millions of Pauli operators. In this work, we introduce scalable parallelization strategies to improve neural-network-based variational quantum Monte Carlo calculations for ab-initio quantum chemistry applications. We establish GPU-supported local energy parallelism to compute the optimization objective for Hamiltonians of potentially complex molecules. Using autoregressive sampling techniques, we demonstrate systematic improvement in wall-clock timings required to achieve CCSD baseline target energies. The performance is further enhanced by accommodating the structure of resultant spin Hamiltonians into the autoregressive sampling ordering. The algorithm achieves promising performance in comparison with the classical approximate methods and exhibits both running time and scalability advantages over existing neural-network based methods.

MIT researchers have developed a method for 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties, that sense how they are moving and interacting with the environment. The researchers create these sensing structures using just one material and a single run on a 3D printer. To accomplish this, the researchers began with 3D-printed lattice materials and incorporated networks of air-filled channels into the structure during the printing process. By measuring how the pressure changes within these channels when the structure is squeezed, bent, or stretched, engineers can receive feedback on how the material is moving. The method opens opportunities for embedding sensors within architected materials, a class of materials whose mechanical properties are programmed through form and composition.

In this work, we address the inverse kinetics problem of motion planning of soft biomimetic actuators driven by three chambers. Soft biomimetic actuators have been applied in many applications owing to their intrinsic softness. Although a mathematical model can be derived to describe the inverse dynamics of this actuator, it is still not accurate to capture the nonlinearity and uncertainty of the material and the system. Besides, such a complex model is time-consuming, so it is not easy to apply in the real-time control unit. Therefore, developing a model-free approach in this area could be a new idea. To overcome these intrinsic problems, we propose a back-propagation (BP) neural network learning the inverse kinetics of the soft biomimetic actuator moving in three-dimensional space. After training with sample data, the BP neural network model can represent the relation between the manipulator tip position and the pressure applied to the chambers. The proposed algorithm is more precise than the analytical model. The results show that a desired terminal position can be achieved with a degree of accuracy of 2.46% relative average error with respect to the total actuator length.

Data science is a branch of information technology that deals with the analysis and processing of large volumes of data, which may be structured or unstructured or a mix of both, in order to find unseen patterns and derive meaningful information. Data science is useful to identify market opportunities, for process optimisation and cost reduction, and to identify abnormal financial transactions, among others. A typical project involves components that require expertise from several of these areas in combinations of varying proportions from one project, to another. As technology finds its way into all our daily activities, so do the digital data trails we leave behind, be it at retail outlets, banks and many other places. Many organisations have realised they are sitting on a veritable gold mine of information that they can capitalise on and put to good use.

During the operation of a chemical plant, product quality must be consistently maintained, and the production of off-specification products should be minimized. Accordingly, process variables related to the product quality, such as the temperature and composition of materials at various parts of the plant must be measured, and appropriate operations (that is, control) must be performed based on the measurements. Some process variables, such as temperature and flow rate, can be measured continuously and instantaneously. However, other variables, such as composition and viscosity, can only be obtained through time-consuming analysis after sampling substances from the plant. Soft sensors have been proposed for estimating process variables that cannot be obtained in real time from easily measurable variables. However, the estimation accuracy of conventional statistical soft sensors, which are constructed from recorded measurements, can be very poor in unrecorded situations (extrapolation). In this study, we estimate the internal state variables of a plant by using a dynamic simulator that can estimate and predict even unrecorded situations on the basis of chemical engineering knowledge and an artificial intelligence (AI) technology called reinforcement learning, and propose to use the estimated internal state variables of a plant as soft sensors. In addition, we describe the prospects for plant operation and control using such soft sensors and the methodology to obtain the necessary prediction models (i.e., simulators) for the proposed system.

Much of our experiments are designed to uncover the cause(s) and effect(s) behind a data generating mechanism (i.e., phenomenon) we happen to be interested in. Uncovering such relationships allows us to identify the true working of a phenomenon and, most importantly, articulate a model that may enable us to further explore the phenomenon on hand and/or allow us to predict it accurately. Fundamentally, such models are likely to be derived via a causal approach (as opposed to an observational or empirical mean). In this approach, causal discovery is required to create a causal model, which can then be applied to infer the influence of interventions, and answer any hypothetical questions (i.e., in the form of What ifs? Etc.) that we might have. This paper builds a case for causal discovery and causal inference and contrasts that against traditional machine learning approaches; all from a civil and structural engineering perspective. More specifically, this paper outlines the key principles of causality and the most commonly used algorithms and packages for causal discovery and causal inference. Finally, this paper also presents a series of examples and case studies of how causal concepts can be adopted for our domain.