Wednesday, April 13, 2016

[DMANET] MINO Mathematical Challenge Announcement

The Marie Curie Initial Training Network on Mixed Integer Nonlinear Optimization (MINO, http://www.mino-itn.unibo.it) is a prestigious program funded by the European Commission. It addresses challenging research topics in the field of Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization, with a primary mission of training the next generation of highly qualified researchers and managers in the field of Optimization in general, and in Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization in particular.

As part of this training program and outreach activity, MINO is organizing an industrial challenge to bring together practitioners and researchers from different fields who are interested in finding better solutions to complex real-world problems. The objective of the challenge is to compare different modeling and search approaches for a specific real-world problem, it being the total waste water network design and operation optimization. All information about the challenge are at http://www.mino-itn.unibo.it/challenge-2016.

The competitors are free to model the problem in any way they please, and design a search algorithm suitable for their models, such that they obtain high quality solutions while satisfying the problem's constraints, and within the allowed time limit. The combination of a model and an algorithm will be referred to as a "Solver".

As a reference, a mathematical model of the problem is made available to the competitors to help them better understand the problem's characteristics, constraints, and objective. The mathematical model can be used, or modified, in any way, yet the participants are encouraged to build their own models, not necessarily a mathematical one, and design algorithms accordingly.

The top three competitors will be invited (with expenses covered) to present their work at the MINO project's final meeting taking place at the University of Bologna around mid-October 2016. More details will follow on the exact date and venue of the meeting. The current prize fund is 2500 Euros, that is to be split between the first (1300), second (800) and third (300) place competitors. Finally, a special issue of an international journal will be edited to publish the best contributions to the competition.

The competition is organized together with ORTEC and Royal Dutch Shell.
______________________
Prof. Andrea Lodi
DEI, University of Bologna
Viale Risorgimento 2
40136 Bologna, Italy
phone: +39 051 2093029
fax: +39 051 2093073
e-mail: andrea.lodi@unibo.it


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