- Written by: Thomas Weise
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.
- Written by: Thomas Weise
I am currently attending the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'17), taking place from July 15 to 19, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. GECCO is the primary event in the world on Evolutionary Computation. I have attended it before in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2016 and always enjoyed this conference very much. Our group has two papers there this year, namely:
- Weichen Liu, Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, and Qi Qi. Combining Two Local Searches with Crossover: An Efficient Hybrid Algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'17), July 15-19, 2017, Berlin, Germany, New York, NY, USA: ACM Press, pages 298-305, ISBN: 978-1-4503-4920-8.
doi:10.1145/3071178.3071201 / paper / slides - Qi Qi, Thomas Weise, and Bin Li. Modeling Optimization Algorithm Runtime Behavior and its Applications. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'17) Companion, July 15-19, 2017, Berlin, Germany, New York, NY, USA: ACM Press, pages 115-116, ISBN: 978-1-4503-4939-0.
doi:10.1145/3067695.3076042 / paper / poster
Read more: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) 2017
- Written by: Thomas Weise
Today I attended the PhD thesis defense of Mr. Stefan Niemczyk of the Distributed Systems Group, Fachbereich 16: Elektrotechnik/Informatik of my old university, the University of Kassel, in Germany as the second reviewer and referee. First of all, congratulations to Mr. Niemczyk for the successful defense of his thesis, rated with "very good". The title the thesis is "Dynamische Konfiguration verteilter Informationsverarbeitung in Gruppen heterogener Agenten," which translates to "Dynamic Configuration of the Distributed Information Processing in Groups of Heterogeneous Agents". I can only recommend reading this excellent work to everyone working with teams of (autonomous) robots.
I think this research is not just relevant in the search-and-rescue scenarios in which it was tested, but may also be helpful when designing robots for, e.g., home service robots, the internet of things applications, automated logistics, warehouse management, or for constructing buildings. This technology could thus become an important asset in a later phase of an Industry 4.0 or Made in China 2025 concept, when intelligent production environments are highly automated and exchange goods and material via automated logistic processes and, thus, need to be able to configure their "interface robots" dynamically to each other.
Read more: PhD Defense of Mr. Stefan Niemczyk at the University of Kassel in Kassel, Germany
- Written by: Thomas Weise
Today, I attended the LogiMAT China 2017 exhibition in Nanjing, an international trade fair for distribution, materials handling, and information flow. This year, I already visited three exhibitions on logistics and transportation: The fresh logistics and Intertraffic exhibitions were mainly concerned "hardware," either indoor or outdoor, and Intermodal focused mainly on container-based, well, intermodal, logistics. (All three, however, also had exhibits and presentations on IT solutions.) LogiMAT puts the logistics inside a factory or warehouse into the center of its attention, but is different in one more aspect: a large percentage of the exhibitions supported aspects of automation and self-organization, i.e., the trending topic of intelligent storage and logistics systems. This is emphasized with forums such as "Industry 4.0 Meets Made in China 2025 – The Benefits of Intelligent Warehousing and Production."
- Written by: Thomas Weise
Yesterday I had the honor to attend the Chinese-German Future Forum on the Collaboration in Vocational Education [Deutsch-Chinesisches Zukunftsforum zur Zusammenarbeit in der Berufsbildung, 中德职业教育合作研讨会寄语中德职教未来发展] which was one of the parallel sessions of the [Ersten Sitzung des Hochrangigen Deutsch-Chinesischen Dialogs für den gesellschaftlich-kulturellen Austausch, 中德高级别人文交流对话机制首次会议] held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse [钓鱼台国宾馆] in Beijing as part of the delegation of our Hefei University [合肥学院]. The meeting was co-organized by the Central Institute for Vocational and Technical Education (CIVTE) of the Ministry of Education of China [中国教育部职业技术教育中心研究所], the China Education Association For International Exchange [中国教育国际交流协会], and the Hans-Seidel Foundation [德国汉斯·赛德尔基金会]. Hefei University can look back on a history of more than thirty years of highly successful collaboration with German institutes on vocational education, so this meeting was an important venue for us. Here you can find the conference programme in Chinese and German language.
Read more: Chinese-German Future Forum on the Collaboration in Vocational Education