As organizations face increasing pressure to understand their corporate and products' carbon footprints, artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted calculation systems for footprinting are proliferating, but with widely varying levels of rigor and transparency. Standards and guidance have not kept pace with the technology; evaluation datasets are nascent; and statistical approaches to uncertainty analysis are not yet practical to apply to scaled systems. We present a set of criteria to validate AI-assisted systems that calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for products and materials. We implement a three-step approach: (1) Identification of needs and constraints, (2) Draft criteria development and (3) Refinements through pilots. The process identifies three use cases of AI applications: Case 1 focuses on AI-assisted mapping to existing datasets for corporate GHG accounting and product hotspotting, automating repetitive manual tasks while maintaining mapping quality. Case 2 addresses AI systems that generate complete product models for corporate decision-making, which require comprehensive validation of both component tasks and end-to-end performance. We discuss the outlook for Case 3 applications, systems that generate standards-compliant models. We find that credible AI systems can be built and that they should be validated using system-level evaluations rather than line-item review, with metrics such as benchmark performance, indications of data quality and uncertainty, and transparent documentation. This approach may be used as a foundation for practitioners, auditors, and standards bodies to evaluate AI-assisted environmental assessment tools. By establishing evaluation criteria that balance scalability with credibility requirements, our approach contributes to the field's efforts to develop appropriate standards for AI-assisted carbon footprinting systems.

Rebar tying is a repetitive but critical task in reinforced concrete construction, typically performed manually at considerable ergonomic risk. Recent advances in robotic manipulation hold the potential to automate the tying process, yet face challenges in accurately estimating tying poses in congested rebar nodes. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid perception and motion planning approach that integrates geometry-based perception with Equivariant Denoising Diffusion on SE(3) (Diffusion-EDFs) to enable robust multi-node rebar tying with minimal training data. Our perception module utilizes density-based clustering (DBSCAN), geometry-based node feature extraction, and principal component analysis (PCA) to segment rebar bars, identify rebar nodes, and estimate orientation vectors for sequential ranking, even in complex, unstructured environments. The motion planner, based on Diffusion-EDFs, is trained on as few as 5-10 demonstrations to generate sequential end-effector poses that optimize collision avoidance and tying efficiency. The proposed system is validated on various rebar meshes, including single-layer, multi-layer, and cluttered configurations, demonstrating high success rates in node detection and accurate sequential tying. Compared with conventional approaches that rely on large datasets or extensive manual parameter tuning, our method achieves robust, efficient, and adaptable multi-node tying while significantly reducing data requirements. This result underscores the potential of hybrid perception and diffusion-driven planning to enhance automation in on-site construction tasks, improving both safety and labor efficiency.

Robotic practices on the construction site emerge as an attention-attracting manner owing to their capability of tackle complex challenges, especially in the rebar-involved scenarios. Most of existing products and research are mainly focused on flat rebar setting with model training demands. To fulfill this gap, we propose OpenTie, a 3D training-free rebar tying framework utilizing a RGB-to-point-cloud generation and an open-vocabulary detection. We implements the OpenTie via a robotic arm with a binocular camera and guarantees a high accuracy by applying the prompt-based object detection method on the image filtered by our propose post-processing procedure based a image to point cloud generation framework. The system is flexible for horizontal and vertical rebar tying tasks and the experiments on the real-world rebar setting verifies that the effectiveness of the system in practice.

Steel casting processes are vulnerable to financial losses due to slag flow contamination, making accurate slag flow condition detection essential. This study introduces a novel cross-domain diagnostic method using vibration data collected from an industrial steel foundry to identify various stages of slag flow. A hybrid deep learning model combining one-dimensional convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory layers is implemented, tested, and benchmarked against a standard one-dimensional convolutional neural network. The proposed method processes raw time-domain vibration signals from accelerometers and evaluates performance across 16 distinct domains using a realistic cross-domain dataset split. Results show that the hybrid convolutional neural network and long short-term memory architecture, when combined with root mean square preprocessing and a selective embedding data loading strategy, achieves robust classification accuracy, outperforming traditional models and loading techniques. The highest test accuracy of 99.10 +/- 0.30 demonstrates the method's capability for generalization and industrial relevance. This work presents a practical and scalable solution for real-time slag flow monitoring, contributing to improved reliability and operational efficiency in steel manufacturing.

Large language models (LLMs) have shown significant promise in embodied decision-making tasks within virtual open-world environments. Nonetheless, their performance is hindered by the absence of domain-specific knowledge. Methods that finetune on large-scale domain-specific data entail prohibitive development costs. This paper introduces VistaWise, a cost-effective agent framework that integrates cross-modal domain knowledge and finetunes a dedicated object detection model for visual analysis. It reduces the requirement for domain-specific training data from millions of samples to a few hundred. VistaWise integrates visual information and textual dependencies into a cross-modal knowledge graph (KG), enabling a comprehensive and accurate understanding of multimodal environments. We also equip the agent with a retrieval-based pooling strategy to extract task-related information from the KG, and a desktop-level skill library to support direct operation of the Minecraft desktop client via mouse and keyboard inputs. Experimental results demonstrate that VistaWise achieves state-of-the-art performance across various open-world tasks, highlighting its effectiveness in reducing development costs while enhancing agent performance.

Natural organisms utilize distributed actuation through their musculoskeletal systems to adapt their gait for traversing diverse terrains or to morph their bodies for varied tasks. A longstanding challenge in robotics is to emulate this capability of natural organisms, which has motivated the development of numerous soft robotic systems. However, such systems are generally optimized for a single functionality, lack the ability to change form or function on demand, or remain tethered to bulky control systems. To address these limitations, we present a framework for designing and controlling robots that utilize distributed actuation. We propose a novel building block that integrates 3D-printed bones with liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) muscles as lightweight actuators, enabling the modular assembly of musculoskeletal robots. We developed LCE rods that contract in response to infrared radiation, thereby providing localized, untethered control over the distributed skeletal network and producing global deformations of the robot. To fully capitalize on the extensive design space, we introduce two computational tools: one for optimizing the robot's skeletal graph to achieve multiple target deformations, and another for co-optimizing skeletal designs and control gaits to realize desired locomotion. We validate our framework by constructing several robots that demonstrate complex shape morphing, diverse control schemes, and environmental adaptability. Our system integrates advances in modular material building, untethered and distributed control, and computational design to introduce a new generation of robots that brings us closer to the capabilities of living organisms.

We present a perspective on molecular machine learning (ML) in the field of chemical process engineering. Recently, molecular ML has demonstrated great potential in (i) providing highly accurate predictions for properties of pure components and their mixtures, and (ii) exploring the chemical space for new molecular structures. We review current state-of-the-art molecular ML models and discuss research directions that promise further advancements. This includes ML methods, such as graph neural networks and transformers, which can be further advanced through the incorporation of physicochemical knowledge in a hybrid or physics-informed fashion. Then, we consider leveraging molecular ML at the chemical process scale, which is highly desirable yet rather unexplored. We discuss how molecular ML can be integrated into process design and optimization formulations, promising to accelerate the identification of novel molecules and processes. To this end, it will be essential to create molecule and process design benchmarks and practically validate proposed candidates, possibly in collaboration with the chemical industry.

Rapid and reliable qualification of advanced materials remains a bottleneck in industrial manufacturing, particularly for heterogeneous structures produced via non-conventional additive manufacturing processes. This study introduces a novel framework that links microstructure informatics with a range of expert characterization knowledge using customized and hybrid vision-language representations (VLRs). By integrating deep semantic segmentation with pre-trained multi-modal models (CLIP and FLAVA), we encode both visual microstructural data and textual expert assessments into shared representations. To overcome limitations in general-purpose embeddings, we develop a customized similarity-based representation that incorporates both positive and negative references from expert-annotated images and their associated textual descriptions. This allows zero-shot classification of previously unseen microstructures through a net similarity scoring approach. Validation on an additively manufactured metal matrix composite dataset demonstrates the framework's ability to distinguish between acceptable and defective samples across a range of characterization criteria. Comparative analysis reveals that FLAVA model offers higher visual sensitivity, while the CLIP model provides consistent alignment with the textual criteria. Z-score normalization adjusts raw unimodal and cross-modal similarity scores based on their local dataset-driven distributions, enabling more effective alignment and classification in the hybrid vision-language framework. The proposed method enhances traceability and interpretability in qualification pipelines by enabling human-in-the-loop decision-making without task-specific model retraining. By advancing semantic interoperability between raw data and expert knowledge, this work contributes toward scalable and domain-adaptable qualification strategies in engineering informatics.

In post-disaster scenarios, rapid and efficient delivery of medical resources is critical and challenging due to severe damage to infrastructure. To provide an optimized solution, we propose a cooperative trajectory optimization and task allocation framework leveraging unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). This study integrates a Genetic Algorithm (GA) for efficient task allocation among multiple UAVs and UGVs, and employs an informed-RRT* (Rapidly-exploring Random Tree Star) algorithm for collision-free trajectory generation. Further optimization of task sequencing and path efficiency is conducted using Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES). Simulation experiments conducted in a realistic post-disaster environment demonstrate that our proposed approach significantly improves the overall efficiency of medical rescue operations compared to traditional strategies. Specifically, our method reduces the total mission completion time to 26.7 minutes for a 15-task scenario, outperforming K-Means clustering and random allocation by over 73%. Furthermore, the framework achieves a substantial 15.1% reduction in total traveled distance after CMA-ES optimization. The cooperative utilization of UAVs and UGVs effectively balances their complementary advantages, highlighting the system's scalability and practicality for real-world deployment.

More than 350 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually. But AI-designed enzymes can "un-bake the cake--turn [plastic] back into the chemical compounds that are used to make it--unlock[ing] infinite recycling applications for all the materials that go to landfill or incineration today," says Jacob Nathan founder and CEO of London-based Epoch Biodesign. It has designed enzymes for the three major plastic groups using machine learning, which could help break down not just textiles, but packaging, and more. The startup, which spun out of Nathan's high school project in 2019 and has since raised 18.3 million, will complete its first production-scale facility later this year, which is expected to be capable of processing 150 tons of waste annually, Nathan says. AI tools that help diagnose strokes, cancers, and other medical conditions are becoming a fixture in healthcare systems around the world.