Description
Leader of the group Networks and Optimization: Guido Schäfer.
In today’s society, complex systems surround us. From transport and traffic, to behavioral economics and operations management, real-world applications often demand that we identify simple, optimal solutions among a huge set of possibilities. Our research group Networks and Optimization (N&O) does fundamental research to tackle such challenging optimization problems.
We develop algorithmic methods to solve complex optimization problems efficiently. Our research provides efficient algorithms to some of the most challenging problems, for example, in planning, scheduling and routing. To come up with the best optimization algorithms, we combine and extend techniques from different disciplines in mathematics and computer science.
N&O covers a broad spectrum of optimization aspects. Our expertise ranges from discrete to continuous optimization and applies to centralized and decentralized settings. We focus on both problem-specific methods and universal toolkits to solve different types of optimization problems. The key in our investigations is to understand and exploit combinatorial structures, such as graphs, networks, lattices and matroids. Our research is of high scientific impact and contributes to various fields.
In several cooperations with industry partners, the algorithmic techniques that we develop in our group have proven useful to solve complex real-world problems. We are always interested in new algorithmic challenges arising in real-world applications and are open to new cooperations.
Watch our group video to get a glimpse of our activities.
Video about our collaboration with ProRail (in Dutch)
Vacancies
Postdoc on the subject of Towards a Quantitative Theory of Integer Programming.
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) has a vacancy in the Networks & Optimization research group for a talented Postdoc, on the subject of Towards a Quantitative Theory of Integer Programming.
News
Network analysis reveals new information on tax treaties
Mathematical analysis of a data set collected by Centraal Planbureau (CPB), the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, revealed new information on how bilateral tax treaties can be exploited to form ‘tax routes’ that minimize profit taxes.
Invited lecture Monique Laurent at ICM 2014
Monique Laurent will give an invited lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2014 on Wednesday 20 August in Seoul, Korea. It is a great honour to speak at ICM, the most important conference for mathematicians in the world, with thousands of participants and the award of the Fields Medals.
Bert Gerards on Solving Rota’s Conjecture in AMS Notices
Bert Gerards (CWI), Jim Geelen (University of Waterloo, Canada) and Geoff Whittle (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) have published an article on Solving Rota’s Conjecture in the August issue of AMS Notices. The authors recently announced that they solved Rota's Conjecture after 15 years of work.
CWI-mathematician proves: altruism does not necessarily lead to better outcomes in game theory
New mathematical research shows that consideration for others does not always lead to the best outcome - that is, when it’s applied in game theory.
Members
Associated Members
Publications
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van Apeldoorn, J.T.S. (2020, February 6). A quantum view on convex optimization. ILLC Dissertation Series.
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van Apeldoorn, J.T.S, Gilyén, A.P, Gribling, S.J, & de Wolf, R.M. (2020). Convex optimization using quantum oracles. Quantum, 4. doi:10.22331/q-2020-01-13-220
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Bansal, N, & Meka, R. (2020). On the discrepancy of random low degree set systems. In Proceedings of the Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms. doi:10.1137/1.9781611975482.157
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Kleer, P.S, & Schäfer, G. (2019). Topological Price of Anarchy bounds for clustering games on networks. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Web and Internet Economics (pp. 241–255). doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35389-6_18
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Sinha, M, & de Wolf, R.M. (2019). Exponential separation between quantum communication and logarithm of approximate rank. In Proceedings of FOCS 2019 - 60th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science.
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de Klerk, E, & Laurent, M. (2019). Worst-case Examples for Lasserre’s Measure–Based Hierarchy for Polynomial Optimization on the Hypercube. Mathematics of Operations Research, 2019(November 5), 1–13. doi:10.1287/moor.2018.0983
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Amanatidis, G, Kleer, P.S, & Schäfer, G. (2019). Budget-feasible mechanism design for non-monotone submodular objectives: Offline and online. In ACM EC 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (pp. 901–919). doi:10.1145/3328526.3329622
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Bansal, N, Eliéš, M, Jeż, Ł, & Koumoutsos, G. (2019). The (h,k)-Server Problem on Bounded Depth Trees. ACM Transactions on Algorithms, 15(2). doi:10.1145/3301314
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Chen, J.-J, Bansal, N, Chakraborty, S, & von der Brüggen, G. (2018). Packing sporadic real-time tasks on identical multiprocessor systems. In 29th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (pp. 71:1–71:14). doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2018.71
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Dadush, D.N, Nikolov, A, Talwar, K, & Tomczak-Jaegermann, N. (2018). Balancing vectors in any norm. In Proceedings - Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS (pp. 1–10). doi:10.1109/FOCS.2018.00010
Current projects with external funding
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Continuous Methods in Discrete Optimization ()
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Wiskundecluster DIAMANT ()
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Smart Heuristic Problem Optimization
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Approximation Algorithms, Quantum Information and Semidefinite Optimization (AQSO)
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Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Optimisation Applications (MINOA)
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Polynomial Optimization, Efficiency through Moments and Algebra (POEMA)
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Vóórkomen en voorkómen van incidenten op het spoor (PPS Prorail)
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Towards a Quantitative Theory of Integer Programming (QIP)
Related partners
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Alma Mater Studiorum-Universita di Bologna
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Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt
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CNR Pisa
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CNRS
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Dassault Systèmes B.V.
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IBM
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INRIA
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Prorail
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Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelmus Universitaet Bonn
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Technische Universität Dortmund
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Tilburg University
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Tromsø, Norway
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Universita degli Studi di Firenze
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Universität Konstanz
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University of Birmingham