Tag: machine learning

Workshop Machine Learning for Coatings: Stochos and DGCN (day 4)

Day 4 of the workshop is again a machine learning centered day. Today we were introduced into the world of Gaussian Processes, and ML approach which is rooted in statistics and models data by looking at the averages of a distribution of functions…it is a function of functions. In contrast to most other ML approaches it is also very well suited for small data sets, which is why I had my eye on them already for quite some time. However, Gaussian Processes are not perfect and interestingly enough, their drawbacks and benefits seem quite complementary with the benefits and drawbacks to neural networks. Deep Gaussian Covariance Networks (DGCN) find their origin in this observation, and were designed with the idea of compensating the drawbacks of both approaches by combining them. The resulting approach is rather powerful and in contrast to any other ML approach: it does not have any hyper-parameter!!

Tomorrow, during the last day of the workshop, we will be using this DGCN to optimize our raspberry pink lacquers.

Workshop Machine Learning for Coatings: First Machine Learning (day 3)

Gartner hype cycle. Courtesy of Kevin Cremanns.

Gartner hype cycle. Courtesy of Kevin Cremanns.

Today the workshop shifted gears a bit. We left the experimental side of the story and moved fully into the world of machine learning. This change went hand-in-hand with a doubling of the number of participants, showing how a hot-topic machine learning really is.  Kevin Cremanns, who is presenting this part of the workshop, started by putting things into perspective a bit, and warned everyone not to hope for magical solutions (ML and AI have their problems), while at the same time presenting some very powerful examples of what is possible. A fun example is the robotic arm learning to flip pancakes:



During the introduction, all the usual suspects of machine learning passed the stage. And although you can read about them in every ML-book, it is nice to hear them discussed by someone who uses them on a daily basis. This mainly because practical details (often omitted in text-books) are also mentioned, helping one to avoid the same mistakes many have made before you. Furthermore, the example codes provided are extremely well documented, making them an interesting source of teaching material (the online manuals for big libraries like sci-kit learn or pandas tend to be too abstract, too big, and too intertwined for new users).

All-in-all a very interesting day. I look forward to tomorrow, as then we will be introduced into the closed source machine learning library developed at the University Hochschule Niederrhein.

Workshop Machine Learning for Coatings: Magical Humans (day 2)

Today was the second day of the machine learning workshop on coatings. After having focused on the components of coatings, today our focus went to characterization and deposition. The set of available characterization techniques is as extensive as the possible components to use. There was, however, one thing which grabbed my attention: “The magical human observer”. Several characterization techniques were presented to heavily rely on the human observer’s opinion and Fingerspitzengefühl.  Sometimes this even came with the suggestion that such a human observer outperforms the numerical results of characterization machinery. This makes me wonder if this isn’t an indication of a poor translation of the human concept to the experiment intended to perform the same characterization. Another important factor to keep in mind when building automation frameworks and machine learning models.

In the afternoon, we again put on our lab coats and goggles. The task of the day: put our raspberry pink lacquer on different substrates and characterize the glossiness (visually) and the pendulum hardness.

Tomorrow the machine learning will kick in.

Workshop Machine Learning for Coatings (day 1)

Today was the first day of school…not only for my son, but for me as well. While he bravely headed for the second grade of primary school, I was en route to the first day of a week-long workshop on Machine Learning and Coatings technology at the Hochschule Niederrhein in Krefeld. A workshop combining both the practical art of creating coating formulations and the magic of simulation, more specifically machine learning.

During my career as a computational materials researcher, I have worked with almost every type of material imaginable (from solids to molecules, including the highly porous things in between called MOFs), and looked into every aspect available, be it configuration (defects , surfaces, mixtures,…) or materials properties (electronic structure, charge transfer, mechanical behavior and spin configurations). But each and every time, I did this from a purely theoretical perspective*. As a result, I have not set foot in a lab (except when looking for a colleague) since 2002 or 2003, so you can imagine my trepidation at the prospect of having to do “real” lab-work during this workshop.

Participating in such a practical session— even such a ridiculously simple and safe one— is a rather interesting experience. The safety-goggles, white-coat and gloves are cool to wear, true, but from my perspective as a computational researcher who wants to automate things, this gives me a better picture of what is going on. For example, we** carefully weigh 225.3 grams of a liquid compound and add 2.2 grams of another (each with an accuracy of about 0.01 gram). In another cup, we collect two dye compounds (powders), again trying our best to perfectly match the prescribed quantities. But when the two are combined in the mixer it is clear that a significant quantity (multiple grams) are lost, just sticking to the edge of the container and spatula. So much for carefully weighing (of course a pro has tricks and skills to deal with this better than we did, but still). Conclusion: (1)Error bars are important, but hard to define. (2) Mixtures made by hand or by a robot should be quite different in this regard.

For the theoretical part of my brain, mixing 10 compounds is just putting them in the same box and stir, mix or shake. Practice can be quite different, especially if you need 225 grams of compound A, and 2.2 grams of compound B. This means that for the experimentalist there is a “natural order” for doing things. This order does not exist at the theoretical side of the spectrum***, where I build my automation and machine learning. This, in addition to the implicit interdependence of combined compounds, gives the high-dimensional space of possible mixtures a rather contorted shape. This gives rise to several questions begging for answers, such as: how important is this order, and can we (ab)use all this to make our search space smaller (but still efficient to sample).

At the end of the day, I learned a lot of interesting things and our team of three ended up with a nice raspberry pink varnish.

Next, day two, where we will characterize our raspberry pink varnish.

 

Footnotes

* Yes, I do see how strange this may appear for someone whose main research focus is aimed at explaining and predicting experiments. 🙂
** We were divided in teams of 2-3 people, so there were people with actual lab skills nearby to keep me safe. However, if this makes you think I was just idly present in the background, I have to disappoint you. I am brave enough to weigh inanimate powders and slow flowing resins 😉 .
*** Computational research in its practice uses aspects of both the experimental and theoretical branches of research. We think as theoreticians when building models and frameworks, and coax our algorithms to a solution with a gut-feeling and Fingerspitzengefühl only experimentalists can appreciate.

New year’s resolution

A new year, a new beginning.

For most people this is a time of making promises, starting new habits or stopping old ones. In general, I forgo making such promises, as I know they turn out idle in a mere few weeks without external stimulus or any real driving force.

In spite of this, I do have a new years resolution for this year: I am going to study machine learning and use it for any suitable application I can get my hands on (which will mainly be materials science, but one never knows).  I already have a few projects in mind, which should help me stay focused and on track. With some luck, you will be reading about them here on this blog. With some more luck, they may even end up being part of an actual scientific publication.

But first things first, learn the basics (beyond hear-say messages of how excellent and world improving AI is/will be). What are the different types of machine learning available, is it all black box or do you actually have some control over things. Is it a kind of magic? What’s up with all these frameworks (isn’t there anyone left who can program?), and why the devil seem they all to be written in a script langue (python) instead of a proper programming language? A lot of questions I hope to see answered. A lot of things to learn. Lets start by building some foundations…the old fashioned way: By studying using a book, with real paper pages!

Happy New Year, and best wishes to you all!