Multilevel Optimization Methods for Engineering Design and PDE-Constrained Optimization
Staff - Faculty of Informatics
Start date: 13 May 2011
End date: 14 May 2011
The Faculty of Informatics is pleased to announce a seminar given by Stephen Nash
DATE: Friday, May 13th 2011
PLACE: USI Università della Svizzera italiana, room A34, Red building (Via G. Buffi 13)
TIME: 13.30
ABSTRACT:
Many large nonlinear optimization problems are based upon a hierarchy of models, corresponding to levels of discretization or detail in the problem. This is true for many engineering design problems, as well as for optimization problems that include partial differential equations as constraints. Optimization-based multilevel methods - that is, multilevel methods based on solving coarser approximations of an optimization problem - are designed to solve such multilevel problems efficiently by taking explicit advantage of the hierarchy of models. The methods are generalizations of more traditional multigrid methods for solving partial differential equations. However, the optimization approach admits a richer class of models and has better guarantees of convergence. The optimization-based multilivel methods also generalize model-management approaches for solving engineering design problems.
These multilevel methods are a powerful tool, and can dramatically out-perform traditional optimization algorithms.
BIO:
Stephen Nash received a B.Sc. (Honours) degree in mathematics in 1977 from the University of Alberta, Canada; and a Ph.D. in computer science in 1982 from Stanford University. He is a Professor of Systems Engineering and Operations Research in the School of Information Technology and Engineering. Prior to coming to George Mason University, he taught at The Johns Hopkins University. From 2005-2008 he served as a program officer at the National Science Foundation. He has also had professional associations with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Argonne National Laboratory. His research activities are centered in scientific computing, especially nonlinear optimization.
He has been a member of the editorial boards of Operations Research, Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Computers in Science& Engineering, the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and the Journal of the American Statistical Association.
HOST: Prof. Rolf Krause
