On July 20, 2017, I have given the research talk "Automating Scientific Research in Optimization" at the Mathematical Optimization group of Prof. Dr. Ingo Althöfer and Prof. Dr. Andreas Löhne at the Department of Mathematics of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena) in Jena, Germany.
The group of Prof. Löhne is well-known for their research on vector optimization and multi-objective linear programming. They provide an open source software, Bensolve, for multi-objective / vector linear programming written in C as well as the Multi-Objective Problem LIBrary (MOPLIB) of instances of multi-objective linear, multi-objective (mixed) integer and vector linear programs. The visit to the Mathematical Optimization posed a very interesting chance for discussion, as linear programming and metaheuristics (our field) are two entirely different approaches to optimization, having different advantages and disadvantages.
The talk went well and I am very thankful to Prof. Löhne for the hospitality he showed to me. For me, it is always very inspiring to learn about a topic area with which I am not very familiar yet. The vector optimization of Prof. Löhne is such a field, and I think the exchange of thoughts that we had regarding both of our research areas (both belonging to the domain of optimization) was very inspiring.
