ROUGH SETS APPLIED TO THE DISCOVERY OF MATERIALS KNOWLEDGE

The functional mapping of material structure to properties, processing , and use is the principal driver for all scientific and engineering e ndeavors. Given the high cost of experimentation and the computational intractability of ab initio materials research, more efficient and ac curate predictions of yet-to-be-made materials is an equally prominent endeavor, if not a preeminent materials research frontier. Because of the vast amounts of information to be considered in the pursuit of ei ther, the automation of search-based methods for augmenting more analy tic approaches is receiving increasing attention. Given the computatio nal challenges to automation and to retrieving data from complex datab ases, search-based methods offer an expeditious approach to providing a researcher both insight and perspective. Rough sets is discussed rel ative to these objectives, as is current research to address its limit ations and difficulties in application. Several materials related exam ples are offered to illustrate the application of the method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.