Dear Colleagues,
We would like to invite you to participate in a
Workshop on

Novel Approaches to Hard Discrete Optimization


Thursday to Saturday April 26-28, 2001
Supported by the Faculty of Mathematics at The University of Waterloo and CRM, and The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Toronto, Ontario , and PIMS

To be held at

The University of Waterloo,
Department of Combinatorics and Optimization,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1


(Funding for up to 4 nights accomodations may be available. ( See the accomodation information for an application form.)

Please inform us as soon as possible whether you can attend.
Please send us a tentative title/abstract if you would like to give a talk.
Please pass this information on to colleagues who may be interested.

Organizers:
  • Kurt Anstreicher, The University of Iowa.
  • Panos Pardalos, University of Florida.
  • Franz Rendl, Universitaet Klagenfurt.
  • Tony Vannelli, University of Waterloo.
  • Henry Wolkowicz, University of Waterloo.

    The breathtaking progress in algorithmic nonlinear optimization, but also in computer hardware has thrown new light on the analysis of NP-hard problems. Recently, a major break-through was achieved to solve QAP of sizes (n=30) unthinkable by conventional methods. This progress was due in part to a new nonlinear relaxation for QAP, but also to new computing facilities, allowing for massive parallel computation. Similar progress is also made in other areas, such as clique and coloring on massive graphs.

    The aim of the workshop is therefore to bring together researchers from several communities, such as:

  • algorithmic nonlinear optimization
  • combinatorial optimization, dealing with computational methods for NP-hard problems
  • computer scientists interested in scientific parallel computing,
    who share a common interest to do computations on (large-scale) hard combinatorial optimization problems.

    Topics to be covered include:

  • Semidefinite programming and reformulation schemes
  • Quadratic and multi-dimensional assignment problems
  • Boolean quadratic programming
  • Massive graph problems
  • Massively parallel distributed processing
  • VLSI design

    Please see the workshop web page for more updated information.
    A proceedings of refereed invited papers is planned.


    HOPE to see you in Waterloo in April 2001.
    , by Henry Wolkowicz