Bayesian inference of discrete component states in civil infrastructures using PGMs and GNNs.
problem Inferring discrete states of civil infrastructure components from measurable responses is an ill-posed inverse problem.
method The study proposes a novel Bayesian inversion paradigm based on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGMs) and Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). PGMs are used to model the problem, with parameters learned from data and structural topology prior. Inference is accomplished by GNNs, and a graph property-based training strategy is developed.
result The proposed framework effectively solves the challenges of inferring the posterior PDF for discrete variables in high-dimensional problems.
This article derives prognostic expressions for the evolution of globally aggregated economic wealth, productivity, inflation, technological change, innovation and growth. The approach is to treat civilization as an open, non-equilibrium thermodynamic system that dissipates energy and diffuses matter in order to sustai…
An increasing amount of civil engineering applications are utilising data acquired from infrastructure instrumented with sensing devices. This data has an important role in monitoring the response of these structures to excitation, and evaluating structural health. In this paper we seek to monitor pedestrian-events (su…
Territorial control is a key aspect shaping the dynamics of civil war. Despite its importance, we lack data on territorial control that are fine-grained enough to account for subnational spatio-temporal variation and that cover a large set of conflicts. To resolve this issue, we propose a theoretical model of the relat…
Many post-disaster and -conflict regions do not have sufficient data on their transportation infrastructure assets, hindering both mobility and reconstruction. In particular, as the number of aging and deteriorating bridges increase, it is necessary to quantify their load characteristics in order to inform maintenance …
Long-range climate forecasts use integrated assessment models to link the global economy to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper evaluates an alternative economic framework outlined in part 1 of this study (Garrett, 2014) that approaches the global economy using purely physical principles rather than explicitly resolve…
This paper reviews traditional and modern methods for detecting structural damage using vibrations.
problem Early warning of structural damage to maintain civil structures.
method Vibration-based methods and ML/DL algorithms.
result ML and DL algorithms show superior performance in detecting structural damage.
DeepONets enhance spatial-temporal surrogates for structural dynamics.
problem Creating full spatial-temporal surrogates for dynamical systems under uncertainty.
method Proposed Full-Field Extended DeepONet (FExD) to learn full solution operator across multiple degrees of freedom.
result FExD achieves superior accuracy and computational efficiency compared to other models.
The inequality of wealth distribution is a universal phenomenon in the civilized nations, and it is often imputed to the Matthew effect, that is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Some philosophers unjustified this phenomenon and tried to put the human civilization upon the evenness of wealth. Noticing the f…
The prevalent view in the economics literature is that a high level of infrastructure investment is a precursor to economic growth. China is especially held up as a model to emulate. Based on the largest dataset of its kind, this paper punctures the twin myths that, first, infrastructure creates economic value, and, se…
Research identifies risks in selecting project managers for civil engineering projects.
problem Lack of awareness of project manager selection criteria and associated risks.
method Combined ANP-FMEA approach for risk analysis.
result ANP-FMEA model identifies more significant risks than traditional FMEA.
VTrackIt creates a synthetic dataset with infrastructure and vehicle info for AVs.
problem Lack of infrastructure and pooled vehicle info in existing AV datasets.
method Developed VTrackIt, a synthetic dataset with intelligent infrastructure and pooled vehicle info, and introduced InfraGAN for trajectory predictions.
result VTrackIt reduces high-risk edge cases in AV trajectory predictions.
The paper develops a method to discover causal relations and predict material laws with uncertainty quantification.
problem Discovering causal relations and predicting material laws with uncertainty in civil engineering applications.
method The paper develops a causal discovery algorithm to infer causal relations among time-history data. It uses a deep neural network with dropout layers for uncertainty quantification and propagates predictions through a causal graph.
result The method accurately predicts material laws and quantifies uncertainty, as demonstrated in two numerical examples.
Generative Adversarial Networks create synthetic data for structural damage detection.
problem Data scarcity in structural damage detection.
method 1-D Wasserstein Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks (1-D WDCGAN-GP) for synthetic data generation.
result Generated synthetic data improves damage detection accuracy in 1-D Deep Convolutional Neural Networks.
The Economist recently reported that infrastructure spending is the largest it is ever been as a share of world GDP. With $22 trillion in projected investments over the next ten years in emerging economies alone, the magazine calls it the "biggest investment boom in history." The efficiency of infrastructure planning a…
The UN Sustainable Development Goals allude to the importance of infrastructure quality in three of its seventeen goals. However, monitoring infrastructure quality in developing regions remains prohibitively expensive and impedes efforts to measure progress toward these goals. To this end, we investigate the use of wid…
The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequence is cost overruns, benefi…
Paper proposes a holistic optimization for civil structures considering uncertainties.
problem Designing civil structures requires integration of material and structural design.
method Holistic optimization combining concrete mixture design and structural simulations.
result Inverted workflow allows consideration of new mixtures and uncertainties.
Cryptocurrency markets show similar returns but different volatility responses to infrastructure and regulatory shocks.
problem Understanding how cryptocurrency markets differentiate between infrastructure and regulatory shocks.
method Event-level block bootstrap inference on 31 cryptocurrency events across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano (2019-2025).
result No statistically significant difference in cumulative abnormal returns between infrastructure failures and regulatory enforcement.
Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) play an important role in the decarbonization of the transportation sector. For a wider adoption of ZEVs, providing a reliable infrastructure is critical. We present a machine learning approach that uses unsupervised temporal clustering algorithm along with survey analysis to determine infr…
A novel outlier score detects new road infrastructure images.
problem Detecting newly observed road infrastructure images.
method Entropy-based outlier score using directed nearest neighbor graphs.
result High potential of the proposed technique in identifying outliers.
We combine Bayesian networks (BNs) and structural reliability methods (SRMs) to create a new computational framework, termed enhanced Bayesian network (eBN), for reliability and risk analysis of engineering structures and infrastructure. BNs are efficient in representing and evaluating complex probabilistic dependence …
Natural disasters can have catastrophic impacts on the functionality of infrastructure systems and cause severe physical and socio-economic losses. Given budget constraints, it is crucial to optimize decisions regarding mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery practices for these systems. This requires accurate…
Hybrid framework predicts Arctic permafrost decline, risks infrastructure, and provides tools.
problem Tackles permafrost decline and infrastructure risk assessment in Arctic territories.
method Hybrid physics-machine learning framework integrating 2.9 million observations.
result Projects mean permafrost fraction decline of -20.3 pp under RCP8.5 forcing, with high-risk zones identified.
This study analyzes dynamic connectedness in global supply chain infrastructure portfolios, identifying key risk factors and extreme events.
problem Understanding dynamic connectedness in global supply chain infrastructure portfolios under various risk factors and extreme events.
method Time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model to study spillover and interconnectedness of risk factors.
result Risk shocks influence dynamic connectedness between portfolios and risk factors, and extreme events affect investment outcomes.
IntraLayer connects digital finance platforms efficiently.
problem Inefficient interconnectivity in digital finance.
method Core infrastructure and adaptive fiscal policy.
result Optimised transactional efficiency for various agents.
This paper argues, first, that a major problem in the planning of large infrastructure projects is the high level of misinformation about costs and benefits that decision makers face in deciding whether to build, and the high risks such misinformation generates. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and risk…
Research quantifies financial exclusion risks in UK, focusing on cash infrastructure and socio-economic factors.
problem Localised financial exclusion in the UK as cash infrastructure declines.
method Developed a composite indicator using various input variables.
result Financial exclusion is more prevalent in deprived communities and affluent areas.
For those concerned with the long-term value of their accounts, it can be a challenge to plan in the present for inflation-adjusted economic growth over coming decades. Here, I argue that there exists an economic constant that carries through time, and that this can help us to anticipate the more distant future: global…
Infrastructure monitors AI/ML radiology models across multiple sites.
problem Monitoring and improving AI/ML radiology models across multiple sites.
method Interactive radiology reporting, centralized cloud system, post-marketing surveillance.
result Efficient monitoring and iterative development of AI/ML models without radiologist burden.
Automated road infrastructure mapping using connected vehicle data and deep learning.
problem Manual identification of intersections is laborious and time-consuming.
method Geohashing, YOLOv5 algorithm for classification of road segments and intersections.
result Overall classification accuracy of 95%, with high F1 scores for straight roads and intersections.
Methodology measures financial impacts using existing credit loss infrastructure.
problem Measuring the impact of financial scenarios on expected credit losses.
method Captures scenario effects through changes in default probabilities; uses existing provisioning infrastructure.
result Methodology validated through standardized climate scenario exercise in Canada and Quebec.
Study assesses 'big data' in materials science, highlighting challenges.
problem Understanding what constitutes 'big data' in materials science.
method Selected examples of machine learning models, data quality, and infrastructure requirements.
result Big data presents unique challenges in materials science.
Smart grid is an alternative solution of the conventional power grid which harnesses the power of the information technology to save the energy and meet today's environment requirements. Due to the inherent vulnerabilities in the information technology, the smart grid is exposed to a wide variety of threats that could …
Distributed securities exchanges may become de facto fragmented if they span geographical regions with asymmetric computer infrastructure. First, we build an economic model of a decentralized exchange with two miner clusters, standing in for compact areas of economic activity (e.g., cities). "Local" miners in the area …
This paper ranks Latin American countries based on AI potential.
problem Identifying emerging AI powers in Latin America.
method Ranking based on infrastructure, education, and finance.
result Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Ecuador are new emerging powers in AI.
Proposes a multi-objective variational autoencoder for smart infrastructure damage detection.
problem Detecting and diagnosing damage in smart infrastructure using multi-way data.
method Multi-objective variational autoencoder (MVA) method for smart infrastructure damage detection and diagnosis.
result The method accurately detects structural damage, estimates severity, and captures damage locations.
Optimizes electric aircraft deployment for Canadian aviation to reduce emissions.
problem Limited fleet capacity and operational structure hinder electric aircraft transition.
method Multi-period mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) framework.
result Electric aircraft can reduce emissions by over 70% within five years.
First-best climate policy is a uniform carbon tax which gradually rises over time. Civil servants have complicated climate policy to expand bureaucracies, politicians to create rents. Environmentalists have exaggerated climate change to gain influence, other activists have joined the climate bandwagon. Opponents to cli…
Study predicts social relationships using triadic influence from social networks.
problem Difficulty in quantifying social relationships and their dynamics.
method Real social networks of 13 schools, neural networks, high-dimensional embedding.
result Triadic influence achieves highest accuracy in predicting student relationships.
Despite incredible recent advances in machine learning, building machine learning applications remains prohibitively time-consuming and expensive for all but the best-trained, best-funded engineering organizations. This expense comes not from a need for new and improved statistical models but instead from a lack of sys…
To be prepared against cyberattacks, most organizations resort to security information and event management systems to monitor their infrastructures. These systems depend on the timeliness and relevance of the latest updates, patches and threats provided by cyberthreat intelligence feeds. Open source intelligence platf…
When machine learning systems fail because of adversarial manipulation, how should society expect the law to respond? Through scenarios grounded in adversarial ML literature, we explore how some aspects of computer crime, copyright, and tort law interface with perturbation, poisoning, model stealing and model inversion…
We collect and analyze the data for working time, life expectancy, and the pair output and infrastructure of industrializing nations. During S-functional recovery from disaster the pair's time shifts yield 25 years for the infrastructure's physical lifetime. At G7 level the per capita outputs converge and the time shif…
This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is fou…
Open-source Vizier optimizes complex systems for Google and beyond.
problem Optimizing large-scale systems with multiple objectives and constraints.
method Distributed, fault-tolerant, flexible API for blackbox optimization.
result OSS Vizier supports a wide range of optimization problems and is available as open-source.
Proposes efficient algorithm for system-level I&M decisions under uncertainty.
problem Optimal management strategies for deteriorating civil engineering systems.
method Factored partially observable Markov decision process with Bayesian networks and DDMAC reinforcement learning.
result DDMAC policies offer substantial benefits over heuristic approaches in system-level cost optimization.
Study finds macroeconomic indicators predict health workforce and infrastructure measures.
problem Evaluating the predictive value of macroeconomic indicators for public health targets.
method Examined multiple forecasting approaches including neural networks, generalized additive models, random forests, and time series models with exogenous indicators.
result Macroeconomic indicators provide consistent and reproducible predictive signals for health workforce and infrastructure measures, but less so for other targets.