Several of our staff members come from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) [中国科学技术大学], so it is no wonder that we have strong research ties and collaborations to this university. Prof. Dr. Thomas Weise was a PostDoc and subsequently Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Technology [计算机科学与技术学院] of USTC, where Dr. Zhize Wu obtained his PhD. But there are also several active ongoing collaborations with USTC researchers.
With Assoc. Prof. Jinlong LI [李金龙] of the School of Computer Science and Technology [计算机科学与技术学院] of USTC, we have worked on a wide variety of classical optimization problems, including the Cutting Stock Problem and the Set Covering Problem as well as in the field of Evolutionary Algorithms. Jinlong is also member of the program committee of both our DD-BBOB workshops in 2018, BB-DOB@GECCO and BB-DOB@PPSN.
With Prof. Bin LI [李斌] of the School of Information Science and Technology [信息科学技术学院] of USTC, we have worked on a set of applied numerical optimization tasks and, most recently, on the benchmarking of optimization algorithms. Prof. Bin LI also co-chairs our Workshop on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms in 2018 and is co-guest editor of our Special Issue on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms in the Computational Intelligence Journal as well as member of the program committee of both our DD-BBOB workshops in 2018, BB-DOB@GECCO and BB-DOB@PPSN. He also hosts our supervised Master's student Ms. Qi Qi.
Finally, Prof. Thomas Weise is a team member of the project NSFC-funded research project "Operations Management in Compact Storage System Supply Chains in the Environment of Internet of Things," led by principal investigator Prof. Yugang YU [余玉刚] of the Department of Management Science [管理科学系] of USTC.
The collaboration between our institute and the Enterprise Application Development (EAD) group of Prof. Dr. Jörg Lässig at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz (HZG, Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz) in Görlitz, Germany has a long tradition. Together, we have analyzed several classical optimization problems from logistics and scheduling, including scheduling against due dates and windows as well as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). We also jointly contributed works on Evolutionary Computational in general. An important aspect of our work always the benchmarking of optimization algorithms. We work together on the TSP Suite, a framework for implementing and comparing algorithms for the TSP.
Delegations from the EAD have visited us in China in 2013 (Prof. Dr. Jörg Lässig), 2015 (Prof. Dr. Jörg Lässig, Dr. Abhishek Awasti), and 2017 (Prof. Dr. Jörg Lässig, Mr. Markus Ullrich). During their 2017 visit, Prof. Lässig and Mr. Ullrich gave two interesting guest lectures on "Understanding Quantum Computing - Computing Model and Algorithms" and "An Application Meta-Model to Support the Execution and Benchmarking of Scientific Applications in Multi-Cloud Environments," in our faculty, respectively. In turn, and Prof. Weise has visited the EAD in 2016 and 2017, both times giving research talks as well.
Prof. Lässig is a co-chair of our International Workshop on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms (BOCIA 2018) and a co-editor of our Special Issue on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms. Mr. Ullrich has joined the program committees of both of our 2018 Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking Workshops, namely BB-DOB@GECCO and BB-DOB@PPSN.
Complexica is an Australia-based Artificial Intelligence software company that helps large organizations sell more products and services, and reduce their labor costs and headcount through the use of automated analytics. Complexica is a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimizing sales & marketing activities, ranging from promotional planning, pricing, and product mix optimization, through to sales force automation, CRM, and multi-channel quoting and order processing. Since its inception, Prof. Dr. Thomas Weise, the director of our institute, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Complexica. This is very natural, since this enterprise follows very similar goals as our institute.