International Webinar on ‘Advances in Optimization Techniques’ Organized by KIIT School of Applied Sciences
The Department of Mathematics, under the School of Applied Sciences, KIIT Deemed to be University organized a three-day “International Webinar on Advances in Optimization Techniques (IWAOT, 2020)”. The webinar was inaugurated by the Organizing Chair, Prof. Sudarshan Nanda, Professor Eminence & Research Chair, KIIT; and presided by Prof. Pramod Kumar Das, Professor Eminence, Department of Mathematics and Prof. Satya Kumar Mishra, Coordinator.
Delivering the first talk on the inaugural day, Dr. Xin-She Yang, Associate Professor, Department of Design Engineering and Mathematics, Middlesex University, London, UK, explained nature inspired optimization algorithms and introduction with open problems. He introduced some recent nature-inspired algorithms, their main characteristics and highlighted some open problems and discussed its future scope of research.
Dr. Jagdish Chand Bansal, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, South Asian University, New Delhi talked on ant colony optimization algorithm for solving combinatorial optimization problem. Prof. Bansal explained that the algorithm was inspired by the foraging behavior of ants of a colony. He described the computational intelligence algorithm which has numerous applications in solving real life problems.
Speaking on the second day, Professor V. Vetrivel, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras introduced the process of finding robust solutions to set valued optimization problems. Dr. Pitam Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Prayagraj talked on fuzzy sets and its applications in optimization to solve real life problems. Prof. Singh discussed basic fuzzy concepts, various fuzzy optimization problems including single and multi-objective types and explained a number of solution approaches. Professor Geetanjali Panda, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, discussed the numerical approximation techniques for solving vector optimization problems and their convergence analysis.
On the concluding day, Dr. Kedar Nath Das, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology Silchar delivered a talk on advanced evolutionary optimization techniques for solving sudoku puzzles. Prof. Das discussed the designing of evolutionary optimization algorithms and briefed about advances in it. In his talk, he explained how he applied the retrievable Genetic Algorithm (GA) for solving Sudoku puzzles of various levels of difficulty. At the end of the first talk, a short video about Journey of KIIT was shown to the participants.
Subsequently, Dr. Akshay Kumar Ojha, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar introduced portfolio optimization to the participants and explained the Markowitz portfolio model, variance of portfolio return which can be transformed into a constrained optimization problem and solved using Lagrange’s method.
Prof. Chandal Nahak, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, spoke on regularized gap function as a penalty term for constrained minimization problems. Prof. Nahak introduced the properties of the objective function that can be extended from the feasible set to the whole n-dimensional space. Moreover, he explained the characterization for the invexity of a new penalty function.
The welcome address with introduction and vote of thanks to speakers were proposed by the convener, co-conveners, organizing committee member, Dr. B. P. Padhy and organizing chairs. Faculties, research scholars, students from different countries participated in the webinar, which was completed successfully with the concluding remarks by Prof. Pramod Kumar Das.
Dr. Suvasis Nayak was the Convener of IWAOT-2020, while Dr. Narmada Behera and Dr. Rajashree Mishra were the Co-conveners.