November 14, 2014 Andreas Lundell Events, News

The Center of Excellence in Optimization and Systems Engineering at Åbo Akademi University held a one-day seminar on Friday November 14th in Forum Marinum, Auditorium Ruuma, Linnankatu 72, Turku, Finland. .
Plenary speaker was Professor Montaz Ali from Witwatersrand University, South Africa, who gave two lectures connected to mixed-integer nonlinear programming
Prof. Ali held two keynote presentations:

• Transformation-based and differential equation-based approaches for MINLP
• Algorithms for solving MINLPs under partial differentiability and non-differentiability assumptions

Professor Montaz Ali received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in mathematics from Dhaka University, Bangladesh in 1982 and 1983 respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in stochastic global optimization from Loughborough University, U.K., in 1994. During 1995 and 1996, he held Research Fellow positions at Plymouth University, U.K., and Åbo Akademi University. From January 1997 to 2012 he was with School of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently Professor Ali is a research professor in the Transnet Center for Systems Engineering since 2013 at the same university. His research interests include stochastic methods for global optimization, nonlinear optimization, optimal control and mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problems. Professor Ali is the author or coauthor of more than 60 scientific papers in refereed international journals.

Seminar program

Morning session, chairman Professor Tapio Westerlund:

• Tapio Westerlund – Opening statement
• Montaz Ali – Transformation-based and differential equation-based approaches for MINLP
• Montaz Ali – Algorithms for solving MINLPs under partial differentiability and non-differentiability assumptions

Afternoon session, chairman Dr. Andreas Lundell:

• Ray Pörn, Novia University of Applied Sciences – Quadratic reformulation techniques for 0-1 quadratic programs
• Jan Kronqvist, Åbo Akademi University – An extended supporting hyperplane algorithm for generally convex MINLP
• Vladimir Korotkov, University of Turku – Stability in the problem of selecting project portfolios with multiple criteria
• Kaisa Joki, University of Turku – A Proximal Bundle Method for Nonsmooth DC Optimization
• Seppo Pulkkinen, University of Turku – Ridge-based methods and applications to spatiotemporal data