Dutch Seminar on Optimization

Welcome to the website of the Dutch Seminar on Optimization.

The Dutch Seminar on Optimization is an initiative to bring together researchers from the Netherlands and beyond. The objective is to establish a new forum for the Dutch optimization community to come together, to help provide a spotlight for up and coming local talent, and to bring in high quality international speakers.

The topics of the seminar are centered around Optimization in a broad sense, but with a focus on (though not limited to) the theoretical foundations of discrete and continuous optimization. We would like to invite all researchers, especially also PhD students, who are working on related topics to join the events.

The next talk will be given by Alireza Yazdani and Jesse van Rhijn on *Tuesday* 26 March 2024.

If you want to be subscribed to the mailing list of the seminar to receive regular announcements, please contact Cedric Koh (Zhuan.Koh@cwi.nl).

Dutch Day on Optimization

The Dutch Day on Optimization is the yearly in-person event related to the Dutch Seminar on Optimization. The main purpose of the event is to bring together the Dutch optimization community across the areas of operations research, computer science and discrete mathematics. The event highlights the research of both national and international speakers. It was most recently held in Maastricht University on 9 November 2023. The 1st edition took place on 13 October 2022 in the Amsterdam Science Park Congress Center.

Dutch Intercity Optimization Seminar

On Thursday, 4 May 2023, the 1st Dutch Intercity Optimization Seminar took place at CWI; see this webpage for details. Together with the Dutch Day on Optimization, the intercity seminars are our in-person events, which will rotate between participating institutions.

Schedule

The seminar will be organized online (for now) and take place once a month. The default policy is to have the seminar on Thursday of the last week of the month. The talks will be announced through this website and by email using the seminar's mailing list.

The video recordings and pdfs of the slides of the lectures can be found in the events section (links below).

Upcoming Seminars

26 March 2024,
16:00
Alireza Yazdani (TU Eindhoven)  A Clustering-based Uncertainty Set for Robust Optimization Link
26 March 2024, 16:30 Jesse van Rhijn (University of Twente) Complexity of Local Search for Euclidean Clustering Problems Link

 

Previous Seminars

29 February 2024, 16:00 Sami Davies (Simons Institute & UC Berkeley)  Combinatorial LP-norm Correlation Clustering  Video and slides  
25 January 2024, 16:00 Frank Vallentin (University of Cologne) Extremal lattice problems (not in the bible) Video and slides
7 December 2023,
16:00
Hilde Verbeek (CWI)  Sparse Suffix and LCP Array: Simple, Direct, Small, and Fast Video and slides
7 December 2023,
16:30
Bram Bekker (TU Delft) SDP hierarchies for distance-avoiding sets on compact spaces Video and slides
9 November 2023 Rebecca Reiffenhäuser (University of Amsterdam), 
Clara Stegehuis
(University of Twente),
Jean Cardinal (Université libre de Bruxelles)
2nd Dutch Day of Optimization, Maastricht University Link
19 October 2023, 16:00 Stefanie Jegelka (MIT) Machine Learning for discrete optimization: Graph Neural Networks, generalization under shifts, and loss functions Video and slides
28 September 2023, 16:00 Pedro Zattoni Scroccaro (TU Delft) Learning Drivers’ Preferences: an Inverse Optimization Approach Video and slides
28 September 2023, 16:30  Luis Vargas (CWI) Complexity Results About the Exactness of Sum-of-Squares Approximations for Polynomial Optimization Video and slides 
31 August 2023, 16:00 Leo van Iersel (TU Delft) Embedding phylogenetic trees in networks of low treewidth Slides
29 June 2023, 16:00 Danish Kashaev (CWI) Round and Bipartize for Vertex Cover Approximation Video and slides
29 June 2023, 16:30 Arash Pourdamghani (TU Berlin) SeedTree: A Dynamically Optimal and Local Self-Adjusting Tree Video and slides
23 May 2023, 16:00 Anupam Gupta (Carnegie Mellon University) Two (More) Algorithms for Set Cover Video and slides
4 May 2023, 14:30
Room L017 @ CWI
Yasamin Nazari (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Distributed, Parallel and Dynamic Graph Algorithms Video and slides
4 May 2023, 16:00
Room L017 @ CWI
William Cook (University of Waterloo) An approximate solution to a 2,079,471-point
traveling salesman problem
Video 
30 March 2023, 16:00 Harold Nieuwboer (University of Amsterdam and Ruhr University Bochum) Interior point methods on manifolds Video and slides
30 March 2023, 16:30 Lucy Verberk (TU Eindhoven) Stabilization of capacitated matching games Video and slides
23 February 2023, 16:00 Christopher Hojny (TU Eindhoven) Relaxation Complexity: Algorithmic Possibilities and Limitations Video and slides
26 January 2023, 16:00 Jannik Matuschke (KU Leuven) Decomposition of Probability Marginals for Security Games in Abstract Networks Video and slides
8 December 2022, 16:00 Jack Mayo (University of Amsterdam) Scale-free Unconstrained Online Learning for Curved Losses Video and slides
8 December 2022, 16:30 Isja Mannens (Utrecht University) The parameterized complexity of the Tutte polynomial Video and slides
22 November, 2022, 16:00 Carla Groenland (Utrecht University) List Colouring Trees in Logspace Video and slides
13 October, 2022 Several speakers 1st Dutch Day of Optimization, CWI Link
29 September, 2022, 16:00 Jesse van Rhijn (Universiteit Twente) Towards a Lower Bound for the Average Case Runtime of Simulated Annealing on TSP Video and slides
29 September, 2022, 16:30 Sander Borst (CWI Amsterdam) Selection in explorable heaps Video and slides
25 August, 2022, 16:00 Ilker Birbil (Universiteit van Amsterdam) Counterfactual Explanations Using Optimization With Constraint Learning Video and slides
June 30, 2022, 15:00 Vera Traub (ETH Zürich) Better-Than-2 Approximations for Weighted Tree Augmentation and Forest Augmentation Video and slides
May 24, 2022, 16:00 Jasper van Doornmalen (TU/e) Symmetry handling in binary programs through propagation Video and slides
May 24, 2022, 16:30 Daniel Brosch (Tilburg University) The Symmetries of Flag-Algebras
Video and slides
April 28, 2022, 16:00 Krzysztof Postek (TU Delft) An Adaptive Robust Optimization Model for Parallel Machine Scheduling Video and slides
March 31, 2022, 16:00 Esteban Gabory (CWI) On Strings Having the Same Length-k Substrings Video and slides
March 31, 2022, 16:30 Donato Maragno (UvA) Mixed-Integer Optimization with Constraint Learning Video and slides
March 03, 2022, 16:00 Friedrich Eisenbrand (EPFL Lausanne) Algorithms for Integer Programming Video and slides
February 10, 2022, 16:00
Several speakers Lightning talks Link
January 27, 2022, 16:00
Andreas Wiese (VU University) A PTAS for the Unsplittable Flow on a Path problem Video and slides
December 9, 2021, 16:00 Hadi Abbaszadehpeivasti (Tilburg University) On the convergence rate of DCA Video and slides
December 9, 2021, 16:30 Utku Karaca (Erasmus University) Differentially Private Resource Sharing Video and slides
November 23, 2021, 16:00
Britta Peis (RWTH Aachen) Primal-dual approximation framework for weighted integer covering problems Video and slides
October 28, 2021, 16:00 Lucas Slot (CWI Amsterdam) Degree bounds for positivity certificates and the polynomial kernel method Video and slides
October 28, 2021, 16:30 Juan José Maulén (RU Groningen) Acceleration of fixed point algorithms via inertia Video and slides
September 30, 2021, 16:00 Martin Skutella (TU Berlin) A Faster Algorithm for Quickest Transshipments via an Extended Discrete Newton Method Video and slides
August 26, 2021, 16:00 Samuel Fiorini (Bruxelles) Integer programs with bounded subdeterminants and two nonzeros per row Video and slides
June 24, 2021, 16:00 Several speakers Lightning talks Link
May 27, 2021, 16:00 Céline Swennenhuis (TU/E) A Faster Exponential Time Algorithm for Bin Packing With a Constant Number of Bins Video and slides
May 27, 2021, 16:30 Sophie Huiberts (CWI) Combinatorial Diameter of Random Polytopes Video and slides
April 29, 2021, 16:00 Juan Peypouquet (Groningen) Function Curvature and Algorithm Complexity in Convex Optimization Video and slides
March 25, 2021, 16:00 Moritz Buchem (Maastricht) Additive Approximation Schemes for Load Balancing problems Video and slides
March 25, 2021, 16:30 Michelle Sweering (CWI) On Breaking k-Trusses Video and slides
February 25, 2021, 16:00 Santanu Dey (Georgia Tech) Sparse PSD approximation of the PSD cone Video and slides
January 28, 2021, 16:00 David de Laat (TU Delft) Sphere packing and semidefinite programming Video and slides
December 16, 2020, 16:00 Laura Sanita (TU Eindhoven) On the diameter and the circuit-diameter of polytopes Video and slides

 

The kick-off of the seminar took place on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 16:00, with a lecture by Laura Sanita (TU Eindhoven).

Organization

This seminar series is initiated by the CWI Networks and Optimization group (Nikhil Bansal, Daniel Dadush, Monique Laurent, Guido Schäfer), jointly with other Dutch research groups in Optimization.

There is an organization committee in place that is in charge of reaching out to speakers. The committee consists of the following members: Tim Oosterwijk (VU), Daniel Dadush (CWI), Steven Kelk (Maastricht University), Pieter Kleer (Tilburg University), Yuki Murakami (TU Delft),  Ward Romeijnders (RU Groningen), Christopher Hojny (TU Eindhoven), Leen Stougie (CWI), Marc Uetz (University of Twente), Tjark Vredeveld (Maastricht University).

Contact

If you have any suggestions for speakers (or want to give a talk yourself), please feel free to contact any of the committee members. If you have any general suggestions or questions related to the seminar, please get in touch with Daniel Dadush (dadush@cwi.nl).