Professor Valmor Roberto Mastelaro (Institute of Physics of São Carlos, USP) was recently incorporated into the board of editors of the Journal of Alloys and Compounds of Elsevier.
Mastelaro, who has been a member of B-MRS since 2006, is currently the only Latin American researcher on the editorial board of the journal, which is made up of 44 people.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Professor Newton Martins Barbosa Neto of the Brazilian Federal University of Pará (UFPA) is the new coordinator of the University Chapters (UCs) Program of B-MRS. He follows in this role Professor Rodrigo F. Bianchi, who has coordinated the program since its foundation in 2014.
The objective of the UCs program is to bring together graduate and undergraduate students in Materials Science and Technology and related areas, and to encourage and support these teams to carry out activities that complement university education, such as the organization of events and interaction with similar groups from Brazil and abroad. Eight units of UCs have been created within B-MRS to date.
The board of B-MRS wishes Professor Barbosa Neto a good job and thanks Professor Bianchi for his work.
Words by the new coordinator (Newton Martins Barbosa Neto)
“I believe that assuming the coordination of B-MRS’s University Chapters program (UCs) is a major task. UCs are necessary and strategic bridges between today’s and tomorrow’s materials community as they provide students, in the spirit of learning by doing, the opportunity to evolve through the exchange of experience and discussion of problems related to materials research. Another important aspect of UCs is that they give students the opportunity to develop teamwork skills, which are more than necessary for the leaders of tomorrow, especially in a multidisciplinary area such as materials. It is in this spirit, and with the participation of our community, in Brazil and around the world, that I believe in the development of good work in the coming years that should continue to do what has already been done.
These are some of the main challenges we face: 1) Continue with the policy of creating new UCs, 2) Promote increasing interaction, and 3) Effectively organize the fields of action of UCs. The UCs have great action potential in activities such as: scientific dissemination, promotion of events, training of future researchers, among others. All of these things need to be done in an increasingly efficient and synergistic way, drawing the greatest number of results with the least amount of resources available. In other words, we need to do what we already do as materials scientists in our laboratories”.
The list of the winners of the 2018 Capes Thesis Award was announced earlier this month. The award is given by Capes (the Brazilian federal government agency that is responsible for quality assurance in postgraduate courses in Brazil). It distinguishes the authors of the best doctoral theses defended in 2017 in postgraduate programs of Brazilian institutions. The awards ceremony will take place on December 13 in Brasilia.
The B-MRS Bulletin interviewed some of the winners, who were rewarded for their work on materials topics. Meet these young PhDs and their works.
Andrey Coatrini Soares (born in Aguaí – SP, 33 years old) began increasing research experience in her first undergraduate year in Physics at USP, when he began his scientific initiation stage, which ended when he got his degree in 2010. He then decided to pursue a master’s degree and later a doctorate, both in the program in Materials Science and Engineering of USP. All along those years, he had the guidance of Professor Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior, and worked with nanostructured films with applications in the health area. “Embracing a scientific initiation stage in the first undergraduate year and being able to work with researchers who are references in the field was crucial to accumulate experience in the area of the thesis subject,” says the Capes Award winner who continues to work with nanostructured films for health, now as a postdoctoral fellow at IFSC-USP.
In his doctoral research, Soares developed a low-cost sensor, made from renewable materials, which detects pancreatic cancer in 8 minutes. The research was carried out in the Prof. Bernhard Gross Polymer Group of IFSC-USP, in partnership with the Molecular Oncology Research Center of the Cancer Hospital of Barretos, and with the Microfabrication Laboratory of the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). “The combination of experience in the clinical area of the Barretos team, experience in the area of photolithography/devices of the CNPEM team and the experience in biosensors and thin films of the São Carlos team allowed a rigid selection of what types of materials would be used , the types of devices to be tested and, mainly, which type of cancer would be detected,” says Soares.
B-MRS Newsletter: In your opinion, what is the most relevant contribution of the award-winning thesis?
Andrey Coatrini Soares: The major problem for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is the silent characteristic of the disease; that is, the tumor is only detected at an advanced stage. Therefore, this type of cancer has the highest mortality rate among all cancers (99.3%, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC). In addition, the current cost of the commercial diagnosis plus the detection time (approximately 40 minutes) are not allies of the patient. These were the key factors that led to our choice to develop a low-cost, low-speed miniaturized biosensor that could be implemented in clinics and hospitals, allowing clinicians, for example, to make decisions about patient care or analysis the efficiency of chemotherapy without the need to use invasive diagnoses.
B-MRS Newsletter: Cite the main results generated from the award-winning thesis.
Andrey Coatrini Soares: The work of the doctoral thesis developed a low cost diagnosis using biocompatible and biodegradable materials from renewable sources such as chitosan (found in shrimp exoskeleton) and concanavalin A (protein extracted from the seeds of Breadfruit). The versatility of these biosensors allows them to be implanted in patients for real-time screening of the biomarkers that are present in the blood. Each test costs R$ 5.00-6.00, which detects pancreatic cancer in just 8 minutes, using only 10μL of blood.
The thesis was also honored with the USP 2018 Thesis Highlight in the multidisciplinary area. It also has generated, to date, two papers published in the journals ACS Applied Materials and Interface and Analyst, an article in preparation, and 5 more works in collaboration with researchers who participated in the thesis, which report the development of other biosensors for the detection of breast cancer, head and neck cancer and HPV. These results have been widely disseminated in the media (Portal G1, FAPESP Research Magazine, FAPESP Agency, Portal Onconews,). In addition, a patent is under development and will be deposited in the future. The works are listed below:
B-MRS Newsletter: From your point of view, what are the main factors that led to this outstanding research work at the national level (your thesis)?
Andrey Coatrini Soares: Teamwork, full dedication, in addition to funding from CAPES and FAPESP! In our work we had the participation of 12 researchers/collaborators in different areas of knowledge, from material engineers, chemists, physicists, physicians, geneticists and biologists. My sincere thanks to all of them: Prof. Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior, my advisor and mentor, Dr. Juliana Coatrini Soares, Dr. Valquiria da Cruz Rodrigues, Dr. Flavio Makoto Shimizu, Dr. Maria Helena Piazzetta, Dr. Rui Murer, Dr. Angelo Luiz Gobbi, Dr. Matias Melendez, Dr. Lidia Rebolho Arantes, Dr. Rui Reis, Dr. José Humberto Fregnani and Dr. André Lopes Carvalho, as well as Dr. Rodrigo Marques de Oliveira and André Brisolari, responsible for guiding the first steps in science. The national emphasis achieved by the work is the result of the effort by the entire team, competent and cohesive, that to a certain degree strives to return to the population the investment made in our training, through a product that is accessible to all layers of society.
B-MRS Newsletter: Leave a message to our readers who are undergraduate or graduate students.
Andrey Coatrini Soares: Joining the academic arena means to be aware that virtually all learning will be built primarily by the questions you will ask, the mistakes you will make in trying to answer them, and how you will handle the challenges that the work will impose on you. It is within this growth that we learn to deal with the daily pressure for results and to face all the technical obstacles of the work. Undoubtedly, the satisfaction of overcoming each obstacle together with the satisfaction of contributing to science in a country that does not value researchers overcomes all the difficulties experienced during the doctoral period. Therefore, valuing each moment of individual or group work, every conversation with the advisor and, above all, valuing one’s achievements, even if they are minimal, is very important. And never leave behind the moments of leisure!
Bruno Ricardo de Carvalho (born in Cuiabá – MT, 29 years old) has always liked optics. When he was a child, he wanted to know why the sky is blue, how the rainbow is formed…. However, until a few years ago he had not imagined he would become a PhD in optical spectroscopy.
Carvalho holds a degree and a Master’s degree in Physics from the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). During the master’s degree, guided by professor Jorge Luiz Brito de Faria, he began to study two-dimensional nanomaterials through computational simulations. Influenced by the desire to analyze these materials experimentally, he decided to undergo a doctorate at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) under the guidance of Professor Marcos A. Pimenta, who was the author of interesting articles Carvalho had read regarding nanomaterials analysis by the Resonant Raman Spectroscopy technique. Thus, working in the Raman Spectroscopy Laboratory of UFMG, Carvalho obtained the main results of the awarded thesis.
As soon as he started his doctorate, Carvalho showed interest in an internship abroad to learn about interaction with other research groups, and he expressed it to his advisor. Thus, upon completing two years of his doctorate, Carvalho moved to the city of State College in the United States, where he spent a year participating in several research projects on two-dimensional materials and their applications, at the State University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of professor Mauricio Terrones. “It was a very demanding year of total dedication and focus, but also very productive,” says Carvalho, recalling the articles generated during this period and published in high impact periodicals, the dissemination of results in international sites and the collaborations with theoretical and experimental research groups. Currently Bruno de Carvalho is an adjunct professor at the Department of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).
B-MRS Newsletter: In your opinion, what is the most relevant contribution of the awarded thesis?
Bruno Ricardo de Carvalho: The main contribution is the double resonance model that we proposed to explain a Raman band, known as 2LA in MoS2, which is originated by a process of scattering between valleys. The new model presented to explain such a process can be extended to other two-dimensional systems. This was an open topic for more than 30 years in the scientific community, in the case of the material studied in the thesis, and we were able to propose an explanation.
B-MRS Newsletter: Cite the main results generated from the award-winning thesis.
Bruno Ricardo de Carvalho: In the thesis we wanted to demonstrate that we had a specific problem and that we solved. Thus, the study of resonant Raman spectroscopy in MoS2 was the focus of the doctoral thesis. This work generated the two main articles of the thesis.
Other papers that were also mentioned in the thesis:
B-MRS Newsletter: From your point of view, what are the main factors that led to this outstanding research work at the national level (your thesis)?
Bruno Ricardo de Carvalho: The infrastructure of the laboratory and of the institution where I conducted the research was fundamental to develop the work. The discussion with my mentors and the collaboration regime, made the work more robust and elegant, that is, when people from different points of view work together.
B-MRS Newsletter: Leave a message to our readers who are undergraduate or graduate students.
Bruno Ricardo de Carvalho: My message is that they dedicate themselves to what they do. The doctorate is a phase of intense learning and dedication. To do science is to have a systematic posture, an open mind, a critical posture and spend many hours in the laboratory. All of this, with effort and dedication, generates work that will be recognized. And, much more than that, it will be work that you did and in my opinion this is the greatest satisfaction.
Henrique Bücker Ribeiro (born in Belo Horizonte, MG, 36 years old) was a student of the Physics bachelor’s degree at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), when, in 2004, he started to analyze low-dimensional materials (those ranging from 1 atom to a few nanometers of thickness) using the Raman spectroscopy technique. Within a scientific initiation stage, guided by Professor Marcos Pimenta, he studied carbon nanotubes. In addition to guiding Ribeiro early in his career, Professor Pimenta introduced two professors from the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Eunézio Antonio de Souza and Christiano José Santiago de Matos. “They played and play until now, alongside Marcos, irreplaceable roles as mentors and friends,” says Ribeiro.
From that contact, in 2014, Ribeiro began his doctorate at Mackenzie. There, he continued to study low-dimensional materials using Raman spectroscopy. Ribeiro started with bi-layered graphene and then continued with black phosphorus and monochalcogenides. In addition to the infrastructure at Mackenzie, Ribeiro used equipment from UFMG, CTNnano (Belo Horizonte), LNNano (Campinas), as well as computing centers from Unesp and Unicamp. Ribeiro’s thesis did not only generate knowledge about the studied materials, but also helped to improve the use of the Raman technique to probe this type of materials. Today, Ribeiro is in a postdoctoral program at Stanford University with the help of a FAPESP grant, where he continues to study low-dimensional materials, more precisely, optoelectronic processes of two-dimensional semiconductors.
B-MRS Newsletter: In your opinion, what is the most relevant contribution of the awarded thesis?
Henrique Bücker Ribeiro: I believe that the most important contribution of the thesis was to explain an unexpected effect observed when measuring the angular dependence of Raman spectra on black phosphorus. We were able to explain with this study that when analyzing the angular dependence of the Raman spectra for certain crystals, it is necessary to consider an unusual mathematical treatment. This work has become an important reference for researchers working with low dimensional materials similar to black phosphorus.
B-MRS Newsletter: Cite the main results generated from the award-winning thesis.
Henrique Bücker Ribeiro: The work mentioned above generated an article (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.5b00698) that currently has more than 130 citations and is in the 1% of most cited articles in the area according to Essential Science Indicators, produced by Clarivate Analytics of the Thomson Reuters group.
The thesis is related to the following articles:
In addition to articles from collaborations:
During my PhD I was awarded the Nanocell Institute of Scientists of the Year Award in the category ‘Nanotechnology: from production to application’.
B-MRS Newsletter: From your point of view, what are the main factors that led to an outstanding research work at the national level (your thesis)?
Henrique Bücker Ribeiro: Open dialogue with my mentors, collaborations, development agencies, the post-graduation program and the university, discussions with colleagues, support from my parents, support from technicians, a good work environment, dedication and effort and many other factors. Good work can be achieved when all these elements are in place. The absence of just one is enough to jeopardize the work.
B-MRS Newsletter: Leave a message to our readers who are undergraduate or graduate students.
Henrique Bücker Ribeiro: Do not expect good results to materialize immediately and do not be discouraged when this is the case. Most of the time things will go wrong and even then, nothing will be wasted. A good result can be achieved by overcoming these difficulties and thinking about the problem.
For Adriano dos Santos (35, a native of Araraquara, São Paulo), the laboratory classes he had in the Chemistry undergraduate course at UNESP, in the Araraquara campus, were genuine foundations of his education. The tools and competences developed in these practical classes were very useful for Santos, both in the stages he performed in a company that produces paints and coatings, and in the stages of scientific initiation at UNESP, under the guidance of professors Antonio Eduardo Mauro and Paulo Roberto Bueno.
In 2010, Santos began his Master’s in Chemistry, also at UNESP under the guidance of Professor Bueno. During the master’s research, in which he developed a piezoelectric device to understand a biological process, Santos began to learn about biosensors-related topics and to develop a special interest in this research area. After defending the dissertation, and while working in a chemical company, Santos decided to do a doctorate in a subject related to biosensors. In 2013, he began the doctorate activities. Again under the guidance of Professor Bueno and co-advised by Professor Maria del Pilar Taboada Sotomayor, he developed his research project at the Institute of Chemistry of Araraquara, UNESP. From September 2016 to February 2017, Santos was at the University of Oxford (England) performing part of the research under the guidance of Professor Jason Davis. “This enabled me to expand my knowledge and critical analysis with invaluable gains in professional experience and qualification,” says Santos.
In his thesis, Santos presented a new application of existing techniques that generated biosensors with possible applications in the detection of thrombosis and cancer and in the study of biological phenomena. Currently, the prize winner continues working in this area with Professor Bueno, as a postdoctoral fellow.
B-MRS Newsletter: In your opinion, what is the most relevant contribution of the awarded thesis?
Adriano dos Santos: Biosensors are currently receiving considerable attention due to their economic (investment and market) and social (health impact and population quality of life) potential. These devices, in which the glucometer (device that measures the glucose content directly from the blood) is its greatest example, have the capacity to perform clinical diagnosis faster than the current methods, as well as limits of detection (smaller amount that can be detected in a sample) that is suitable for early diagnosis. Early detection is highly relevant when, for example, performing cancer diagnosis is desired. This is because the chances of cure and the survival time of patients with this disease are greatest when detected in the early stages.
In my thesis it was demonstrated that by means of an electrochemical transduction of a biological recognition signal, called electrochemical capacitance, and also through new data analysis known as immitance functions, there is the potential to diagnose certain diseases in a sensitive and early manner, including cancer and thrombosis, without the need to use enzymatic or fluorescent labels used in the current clinical analysis. In addition, the use of this innovative electrochemical approach in the development of interfaces with potential applications in glycobiology is also unprecedented. The importance of this approach is to provide a new tool that will help researchers understand processes that are related to the interaction of proteins and carbohydrates. In this context, it is possible to encompass cellular invasion processes (whose knowledge may assist in the development of vaccines), and the understanding of the mechanism of tumor formation and proliferation. It is possible that this new approach may one day be employed in developing a technological platform for the development of glycoarrays (that is, techniques that allow the study of interactions between proteins and carbohydrates).
B-MRS Newsletter: Cite the main results generated from the award-winning thesis.
Adriano dos Santos: Specifically from the thesis, there were five published works:
In addition, during the period of my PhD research, there were six more articles published, in partnership, on topics related to the thesis.
It is also important to emphasize that during this period, a clinical diagnosis company was created, with my thesis supervisor, Prof. Dr. Paulo Roberto Bueno, and Prof. Dr. Jason Davis of the University of Oxford, as the founders. This company, Osler Diagnostics, is a spinout located in the city of Oxford, England, which is using part of the research generated in this thesis for its technological development.
B-MRS Newsletter: From your point of view, what are the main factors that led to this outstanding research work at the national level (your thesis)?
Adriano dos Santos: There are many factors, such as the infrastructure of the institution that contains equipment and professionals capable of performing tests and measurements that underlie the theory, as well as research support from the library to the post-graduate technical section, including the entire staff; the excellence of the group of researchers from UNESP – Institute of Chemistry, which includes my advisor (Prof. Dr. Paulo Roberto Bueno) and co-adviser (Prof. Maria Del Pilar Taboada Sotomayor) of the thesis, who assisted me with much advice and learning; the possibility of attending international scientific events, in which the importance of mastering English as a second language was crucial to promote the exchange of knowledge with the researchers in the events; the partnership between UNESP and Oxford University through a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding), which encourages researchers to carry out academic cooperation, raising the level of scientific discussion, and from which favored my internship abroad at this university, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Jason Davis; and the funding of federal (CAPES and CNPq) and state (FAPESP) agencies through thematic projects and a doctoral grant.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Institute of Chemistry-Campus of Araraquara (technicians, professors and researchers) involved in my thesis, to the University of Oxford, especially to Prof. Dr. Jason Davis, for having welcomed me to his laboratory, family and friends, as well as CAPES, CNPq and FAPESP for the financial support.
B-MRS Newsletter: Leave a message to our readers who are undergraduate or graduate students.
Adriano dos Santos: Science is beautiful, and like a sculpture it requires the effort to polish the stone so the art is revealed. The journey to the goal is like a course, often tortuous, that deceives us and forces us to redirect our trajectories. Science is not linear, in that knowledge is ready and finished, but rather a constant review and advance of what is being done, especially for applications in new technologies, which require “returns” and new interpretations of knowledge previously seen as untouchable. Thus, it can be characteristic for the undergraduate student (when in a scientific initiation), and especially for the postgraduate, to encounter unexpected or difficult to interpret results, which may often be grounds for discouragement and abandonment of his/her research project. The only way to overcome these problems is through ethical conduct and professionalism, knowing how to recognize one’s limitations and seek continuous help from his or her supervisor or other researchers in the area. And also always be open-minded and question oneself, not with skepticism, but with consideration to understand the system that is the study object.
Not less important is to remember that it is necessary for family to be close and for friendships to be cultivated. Setting aside leisure time such as hobbies and reading, different from those we are usually accustomed to in academia, are crucial. Consider practicing a physical activity and studying a second language, especially English, as there will certainly be opportunities in which that language will be crucial for career advancement, whether as a university professor or as a professional in a company.
Until October 31, NOVEMBER 18, 2018 (NEW DEADLINE), the Brazilian Materials Research Society (B-MRS) is receiving proposals of thematic symposia to compose the XVIII B-MRS Meeting.
The event will be held from September 22 to 26, 2019, in the city of Balneário Camboriú (State of Santa Catarina, Brazil), at the Hotel Sibara Flat & Conventions. The meeting will be coordinated by professors Ivan H. Bechtold and Hugo Gallardo, both from Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) .
Symposia proposals can be submitted by groups of PhD researchers from Brazil or abroad, working in education and research institutions or companies, who wish to organize a symposium on a particular subject of Materials Science and Technology, within the XVIII B- MRS Meeting Program.
Proposals must be filled online at http://sbpmat.org.br/proposed_symposium/, and should include the title and scope of the symposium, list of topics covered, organizers data and preliminary list of invited speakers. The date of publication of the approved proposals will be announced shortly.
Thematic symposia, proposed and organized by members of the scientific community, are the axis of the B-MRS meetings. Scientific contributions, both in oral and poster sessions, are presented by the symposia participants. The 2018 meeting, held in Natal (RN), had 21 symposia with 1,600 oral and poster presentations, comprising the development, manufacture and characterization of different types of materials (nanomaterials, conductive polymers, advanced metals, composites, metallic oxides, electroceramics, biomaterials, surfaces, coatings) and their applications in segments such as energy, aerospace, health, electronics, bioelectronics, photonics, aumototive and decorative. More than 1,100 professionals and students participated in the 2018 edition of the event.
The site of the XVIII B-MRS Meeting will be released and announced soon.
Fill and submit your proposal here: http://sbpmat.org.br/proposed_symposium/
[Paper: O artigo científico com participação de membros da comunidade brasileira de pesquisa em Materiais em destaque neste mês é: Predicting glass transition temperatures using neural networks. Daniel R.Cassar, André C.P.L.F. de Carvalho, Edgar D. Zanotto. Acta Materialia. Volume 159, 15 October 2018, Pages 249-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
Artificial Intelligence to develop new glasses
Glasses, materials used in a wide variety of products, from a bottle of wine to a dental implant, can make new contributions to the quality of life of humans and animals, and to the preservation of the planet. In fact, so far, about 400,000 (4 x 105) glass formulas have been produced and published, while 1052 new glasses can still be developed using possible combinations of 80 friendly elements from the periodic table.
In order to deal with this myriad of possibilities, it is vital to count on the help of sophisticated computational tools that indicate the most promising chemical formulas in terms of their physicochemical properties. Recent tools use artificial intelligence, mainly algorithms of the so-called “machine learning.” After adequate training with known data, these tools can perform the initial screening that allows deciding in which formulas it is worth investing resources (time, money, efforts) to develop them in the laboratory.
This was the direction chosen by a Brazilian team that brought together researchers from the Materials and Computing areas, and created a machine learning computer tool (an artificial neural network) that proved capable of effectively predicting the glass transition temperature (Tg), which is an important property of glass that depends on its composition [See box].
The work was reported in a scientific paper recently published in the journal Acta Materialia (impact factor 6,036, and 22% acceptance rate).
“The main contribution of the article was to demonstrate the possibility of predicting an important property of oxide glasses (in this case Tg) using an artificial neural network,” says Edgar Dutra Zanotto, professor at the Brazilian Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and one of the paper’s three authors. “The only information needed to make such a prediction is the chemical composition of the material,” he adds.
Artificial neural networks are widely used, for example, for facial recognition in large facial image databases, but their application in Materials research is still scarce and incipient. In the area of vitreous materials, for example, the article by Zanotto and coauthors is the third paper that reports the use of this computational tool.
Artificial neural networks are distributed computing systems made up of data units (equivalent to simplified neurons) interconnected through connections that are equivalent to synapses. They learn through learning algorithms. Working together, the “neurons” can process large volumes of data and make predictions, but for this the network needs to be trained based on concrete examples.
Zanotto’s approach to artificial neural networks began about two years ago when he thought of looking for artificial intelligence tools to facilitate the search for new glass formulas. The idea attracted great interest from Daniel Roberto Cassar, postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Glassy Materials (LaMaV) of the Department of Materials Engineering (DEMa) of UFSCar, coordinated by Zanotto. Cassar then participated in courses and lectures on neural networks and began to venture into the development of neural networks applied to the study of glasses.
About a year ago, these materials scientists felt the need to rely on an artificial intelligence specialist and began collaboration with Professor André Carlos Ponce de Leon Ferreira de Carvalho, a professor at the Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences (ICMC) of the University of São Paulo (USP) at São Carlos. Thus, the research ended up involving a series of postdoctoral research fellows from both groups, all located in the city of São Carlos.
The team designed and implemented an artificial neural network, which was trained so that it could correlate Tg and chemical composition. The training was performed with Tg data and the composition of about 45,000 glasses based on the combination of 45 chemical elements. Each of the formulas used in the training contained at least 3 elements and a maximum of 21 elements. All the data were extracted from a glassy material database that collects experimental data extracted from the scientific literature.
After training the network, the scientists tested its ability to predict Tg. This was done by informing the network the chemical composition of another 5,515 glasses, also present in the database, but that had not been used in the training. When comparing the values predicted by the neural network with the values obtained by means of experimental methods, present in the database, the scientific team was positively surprised. The artificial neural network performed very well in the responses, erring at most 6% up or down in temperature values in 90% of the tests – a level of uncertainty very similar to that exhibited by the experimental studies. In addition, the degree of precision of the results has been shown to be independent of the amount of chemical elements in the glass composition, which is important when thinking about probing materials with extensive chemical formulas.
The neural network of São Carlos is poised to help scientists and materials engineers worldwide to quickly estimate the Tg of any composition glass, making research and development of new glass much faster, easier and more economical. In addition, the study conducted by Cassar, Carvalho and Zanotto shows a path that can be followed to develop new neural networks applied to Materials Science and Engineering. “This result opens a wide path for similar studies aimed at predicting almost all the physico-chemical properties of glass based on their composition!” says Zanotto.
In fact, in the groups of professors Zanotto and Carvalho, a little more than a year after the beginning of the collaboration, a series of works on the subject is now underway. These studies shall generate: new algorithms to further improve neural networks, new networks trained to predict other properties (refractive index, modulus of elasticity, liquidus temperature, etc.), more knowledge about the performance of machine learning algorithms, new scientific articles and software tools to be used by the community.
The work that originated the article published in Acta Materialia was funded by the São Paulo State Research Foundation FAPESP, through the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers CERTEV (Vitreous Materials) and CeMEAI (Applied Mathematical Sciences). The research also received funding from the Nippon Sheet Glass Overseas Grant (Japan).
Professor Victor Carlos Pandolfelli (DEMa – UFSCar), a B-MRS member, is co-author of two papers awarded at the 41st Congress of the Latin American Association of Refractory Manufacturers (“41 Congreso ALAFAR 2018“) held in Medellín, Colombia from September 30 to October 3, 2018.
These works received the first and second prize for the best works of the conference. According to Professor Pandolfelli, “they address the issue of energy conservation in processes using high temperatures, which is the most direct and practical way to help the environment”.
Angelo Fernando Padilha, full professor at the Polytechnic School of USP (EPUSP), was honored by the Brazilian National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN) with the Felippe Carneiro Medal, aimed at distinguishing personalities who stood out in the development of peaceful nuclear energy applications. The award was held on October 10, during the ceremony of the 62nd Anniversary of CNEN, at the headquarters of the entity, located in Rio de Janeiro. Padilha was president of CNEN from 2011 to 2015.
In 2000, Padilha participated in the committee that founded B-MRS.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Participants
Presentations
Awards
