On October 25, 2018, I gave my research talk Automating Scientific Research in Optimization at the CSLog research group of Prof. Dr. Nicole Megow at the Fachbereich 3: Mathematik/Informatik, University of Bremen in Bremen, Germany.
The research of the CSLog group is centered on combinatorial optimization, often on the interface between logistics, mathematics, and computer science. They analyze the structure of discrete problems and design efficient algorithms with provable performance guarantees for solving them. Another strand of research is on solving combinatorial problems under incomplete information, as well as the development online, stochastic or robust algorithms. They contribute theoretic results and also apply them in complex real-world environments. The typical application areas are scheduling, production planning, logistics, network design, communication and routing in networks, and health care.
The application areas interesting for CSLog are very similar to those interesting to our team, which made the visit even more interesting for me. The audience of my talk was interested in the presented concepts and we had a nice discussion afterwards. I was very happy to meet Prof. Megow and her group and found the outstanding rigor and quality of their work very impressing. From our discussion, I could take home several new ideas, so the exchange the thoughts was definitely helpful for me.
