Sampling via the aggregation value for data-driven manufacturing.

Data-driven modelling has shown promising potential in many industrial applications, while the expensive and time-consuming labelling of experimental and simulation data restricts its further development. Preparing a more informative but smaller dataset to reduce labelling efforts has been a vital research problem. Although existing techniques can assess the value of individual data samples, how to represent the value of a sample set remains an open problem. In this research, the aggregation value is defined using a novel representation for the value of a sample set by modelling the invisible redundant information as the overlaps of neighbouring values. The sampling problem is hence converted to the maximisation of the submodular function over the aggregation value. The comprehensive analysis of several manufacturing datasets demonstrates that the proposed method can provide sample sets with superior and stable performance compared with state-of-the-art methods. The research outcome also indicates its appealing potential to reduce labelling efforts for more data-scarcity scenarios.

Catalytically efficient Ni-NiOx-Y2O3 interface for medium temperature water-gas shift reaction.

The metal-support interfaces between metals and oxide supports have long been studied in catalytic applications, thanks to their significance in structural stability and efficient catalytic activity. The metal-rare earth oxide interface is particularly interesting because these early transition cations have high electrophilicity, and therefore good binding strength with Lewis basic molecules, such as H2O. Based on this feature, here we design a highly efficient composite Ni-Y2O3 catalyst, which forms abundant active Ni-NiOx-Y2O3 interfaces under the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction condition, achieving 140.6 µmolCO gcat-1 s-1 rate at 300 °C, which is the highest activity for Ni-based catalysts. A combination of theory and ex/in situ experimental study suggests that Y2O3 helps H2O dissociation at the Ni-NiOx-Y2O3 interfaces, promoting this rate limiting step in the WGS reaction. Construction of such new interfacial structure for molecules activation holds great promise in many catalytic systems.