News
Networks and Optimization group news
CWI researcher Monique Laurent elected as KNAW member
Researcher and MT member Monique Laurent from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) was elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The KNAW announced this on 19 April 2018. KNAW members are prominent scientists who are nominated by fellow researchers within and outside the Academy.
Vici grants for Nikhil Bansal and Roeland Merks
CWI researchers Nikhil Bansal and Roeland Merks have been awarded Vici grants from NWO. With the 1.5 million euro grant, Bansal and Merks can develop their own research lines in the next five years.
CWI and ProRail predict railway incidents
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and ProRail recently started a research collaboration in the area of the handling of incidents at the Dutch railways. It concerns a public private partnership between CWI and ProRail striking up a four year period. The research is aimed at prevention and handling of a broad spectrum of railway incidents, like disturbance of the railway infrastructure, people walking on the tracks and collisions.
Large H2020 grant for optimisation research project ‘MINOA’
Recently, the EU granted the Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Optimisation Applications (MINOA) project, as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. The project is a collaborative European Training Network, with 12 research partners, CWI being one of them.
Monique Laurent elected as Fellow of SIAM
CWI researcher Monique Laurent is elected as a Fellow of the international Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics – SIAM. This prestigious Fellowship honours SIAM members who have made outstanding contributions to these fields. Laurent, who is a member of the management team of CWI and a professor at Tilburg University, receives the fellowship for her contributions to discrete and polynomial optimization and revealing interactions between them.
Rubicon grants for David de Laat and Alessandro Zocca
CWI researchers David de Laat and Alessandro Zocca both received an NWO Rubicon grant. De Laat will study new techniques to compute optimal packings at MIT for one year, and Zocca will study renewables and uncertainty in future power systems at Caltech for two years. NWO granted these subsidies to 22 young, highly promising research talents to gain international research experience at foreign top institutes.
Better ranking for big data using seriation solution
The recent availability of large data sets leads to the challenge of identifying patterns and structures in them. These patterns can be deployed to improve the user experience
Quantum entanglement can make communications more efficient
Entanglement – a quantum mechanical correlation between particles that can exist even over long distances – might be used for future ways of communication.
Veni grants for Daniel Dadush and Hannes Mühleisen
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni grants to Daniel Dadush and Hannes Mühleisen of CWI. The funding allows these researchers, who have recently obtained their PhD, to conduct independent research and develop their ideas for a period of three years.
Daniel Dadush receives A.W. Tucker Prize 2015
Daniel Dadush of CWI's Networks & Optimization group has been awarded the A. W. Tucker Prize 2015. He received the prize for his doctoral thesis that he completed at Georgia Tech in 2012.
Lex Schrijver receives EURO Gold Medal 2015
Researcher Lex Schrijver of CWI has been awarded the EURO Gold Medal 2015. This prize is considered the highest European distinction in Operational Research (OR) and is awarded by the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO).
Cooperative behaviour is not instinctive, but learnt
Cooperative behaviour is not an instinctive impulse or deliberate choice, but a learning process. Researchers of CWI and LUISS Guido Carli in Rome showed in an experiment that people living in a low-trust society intuitively choose non-cooperation in games. However, after playing several times their intuitive choices become more cooperative.
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.
CWI researchers in research consortium Gravity programme
Six research consortia in which prominent scientists from various Dutch universities work together are receiving a combined sum of 153 million euros for long-term and large-scale research.
CWI awarded two NWO TOP Grants
Conditions for optimal solutions to semidefinite problems found
Most optimization problems in real-life are hard to solve optimally. However, for practical purposes it is usually sufficient to settle for near-optimal solutions that can be found quickly. Fast and more accurate approximations can be computed using semidefinite programming, a novel powerful optimization tool
Connection between graph theory and algebra deepened
PhD student Guus Regts from Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) investigated mathematical connections between graph theory and algebra.
Nikhil Bansal receives ERC Consolidator Grant for research on algorithms
Mathematician Nikhil Bansal received an ERC consolidator grant in November. The researcher is affiliated with Eindhoven University of Technology and part-time seconded at CWI, in the Networks & Optimization research group.
MINO project on business decisions starts at CWI in October 2013
The Networks & Optimization research group at CWI in Amsterdam participates in the recently funded EU Initial Training Network MINO for Mixed Integer Nonlinear Optimization. It has eleven academic partners(such as CWI and project coordinator Bologna University) and three commercial partners (IBM, MAIOR and ORTEC).
CWI researcher proves famous Rota’s Conjecture
Mathematician Bert Gerards of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam and his colleagues Jim Geelen (University of Waterloo, Canada) and Geoff Whittle (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) have proved the famous 40-year old Rota’s Conjecture. The team has been working for more than 15 years on solving this mathematical problem posed by Gian-Carlo Rota in 1970.
ERC Advanced Grant for CWI Fellow Lex Schrijver
Neil Olver receives Veni grant for network research
The Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Neil Olver a Veni grant for his project 'Designing better, faster networks'. Olver, who is currently affiliated with the Mathematics department of MIT, will carry out his research at the Operations Research group at VU University Amsterdam and the Networks and Optimization group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica.
CWI Lectures organized in honour of Lex Schrijver
To honour mathematician and Spinoza Award winner Lex Schrijver, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) organized the CWI Lectures 2013 – the 'CWI Lexures' – on Thursday 25 April in Amsterdam.
Lex Schrijver elected AMS Fellow
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) chose its first AMS Fellows, and among them is Lex Schrijver from the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and the University of Amsterdam. Other Dutch members of the 2013 inaugural class are Frank den Hollander (Leiden University and CWI Governing Board), Robbert Dijkgraaf (Institute of Advanced Study and UvA), Jacob Korevaar (em.
Lex Schrijver speaker at Nemo Wakker Worden Kinderlezing
On 13 Januari 2013 CWI researcher Lex Schrijver spoke at the Nemo Wakker Worden Kinderlezing 'What is the shortest way home?' (Wat is de kortste weg naar huis?) on optimal combinations in daily life. Read Nemo's report here (in Dutch).
CWI researcher Floor Sietsma (20) youngest PhD in the Netherlands
Researcher Floor Sietsma of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam is the youngest PhD in the recent academic history of the Netherlands.
Floor Sietsma awarded 'Nerd van het Jaar 2012'
Researcher at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam Floor Sietsma is awarded by Quest readers as Nerd of the Year 2012. In the race she left her main competitors Diederik Jekel, known from ‘De Wereld Draait Door’ and medical biologist Elza van Deel behind, who finished in second and third place.