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“Small Data” Challenges Facing the Application of Data-Driven Techniques in Materials

Informatics - Research Proposal

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Institution

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“Small Data” Challenges Facing the Application of Data-Driven Techniques in Materials

Informatics

The recent enthusiasm for applying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to material

science has provided a secondary avenue to the traditional intuition-led experimental approach

that pioneered the field (Jain et al., 2016). However, unlike other areas where AI benefits from

readily-available data sources and repositories created by customers and sensors, material

science data takes significant time and resources to collect. Therefore, AI techniques in this field

have to rely on sparse data tailored to specific materials whose properties are known by

researchers. Additional data for material science research may cost thousands of dollars to

acquire and take months of research before being ready for analysis. This article proposes a study

to identify the primary bottlenecks in material science data acquisition for AI analytics to

capitalize on the benefits provided by the growing technology.

Problem statement

This project proposal aims to address the problem of sparse and expensive data in

material informatics to increase the adoption of AI techniques in materials design and analysis.

Frydrych et al. (2021) noted that data transferability was the primary challenge in machine

learning applications in material informatics due to the limited availability of reusable data from

experiments and simulations. This article proposes a qualitative study to investigate the

challenges posed by the lack of reusable and transferable datasets for materials informatics

research and recommend solutions to mitigate or circumvent these issues. AI is an exciting field

offering crucial advances in other scientific sectors, such as medicine and economics. Machines

able to learn from past experiences have made vague scientific notions mathematically precise in

scientific fields such as cognition sciences (Ramprasad et al., 2017). This research will be
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essential to unlocking the potential of AI in materials informatics and other related engineering

fields comparable to medicine.

Objectives

The primary objective of the proposed study will be to identify how the sparsity of large

transferable and reusable materials informatics datasets affects the rate of application of AI

techniques in material science research. This study will provide crucial insights into the

challenges facing modern applications involving big data in materials informatics for researchers

hoping to expand the technology in the engineering industry. The secondary objective of this

study will be to uncover potential solutions to the challenge of sparse reusable datasets from

experiments and simulations in material science research. One of the possible solutions proposed

in this study's hypothesis is the development of specialized machine learning agents that can

infer correlations in materials datasets to expand reusability in heterogeneous datasets obtained

from various simulations and experiments.

Motivation and Justification

This study was motivated by the researchers’ desire to see AI permeate the material

science and engineering field to accelerate innovation and discover quality advancements. Sparse

reusable and large transferable datasets are major bottlenecks in attaining this dream. They

proposed this research to increase the quantity of research data on the topic for future researchers

to innovate solutions to the challenge easily and provide the first steps to lead the way. The

qualitative analysis will highlight significant logical challenges in integrating AI in material

science research for further investigation.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the study proposed in this article will examine the quality and quantity of

reusable and transferable Big Data resources available to scientists and engineers relying on

materials informatics to conduct research. The proposal recommends the development of

machine learning agents that incorporate this variability in their learning processes to provide

solutions to key challenges in material science research. However, the study's primary objective

was to highlight the challenges introduced by this unique issue in material science for future

researchers. Proposed solutions will serve as starting points for researchers hoping to mitigate

this challenge and expand the application of AI in engineering and material sciences.
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References

Frydrych, K., Karimi, K., Pecelerowicz, M., Alvarez, R., Dominguez-Gutiérrez, F. J., Rovaris,

F., & Papanikolaou, S. (2021). Materials informatics for mechanical deformation: A

review of applications and challenges. Materials, 14(19), 5764.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14195764

Jain, A., Hautier, G., Ong, S. P., & Persson, K. (2016). New opportunities for materials

informatics: resources and data mining techniques for uncovering hidden

relationships. Journal of Materials Research, 31(8), 977-994.

Ramprasad, R., Batra, R., Pilania, G., Mannodi-Kanakkithodi, A., & Kim, C. (2017). Machine

learning in materials informatics: recent applications and prospects. npj Computational

Materials, 3(1), 1-13.