ORB Issue 4, December 2001

Jinyun Yuan
Liqun Qi
Noel Barton
Siegfried Schaible
Emma Hunt
John Martindale
J. B. Rosen
Hanif Sherali
Naum Shor
V.F. Demyanov
Dimitri Bertsekas
H. Konno
Jean-Philippe Vial
Ding-Zhu Du
Anna Nagurney
Xin Min Yang
Xiaojun Chen
Xiaoqi Yang
Vladimir Demyanov
Alex Rubinov
Vladimir Demeyanov
Franco Giannessi
Nadya Soukhoroukova
D. Pallaschke
Houyuan Jiang
Liqun Qi

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The Curitiba, Brazil Workshop in August 2001 --- Jinyun Yuan

The International workshop on Numerical Linear Algebra, Numerical Methods for PDE and Optimization was realized in Curitiba, Brazil from Aug. 20-23, 2001. Jose Mario Martinez (Brazil), Alfredo N. Iusem (Brazil), Ana Friedlander (Brazil),
Clovis Gonzaga (Brazil), Hugo Scolnik (Argentina), Roberto Cominetti (Chile), Nelson Maculan Filho (Brazil), Zhongzhi Bai (China), Yuhong Dai (China), Wenyu Sun (China), Bob Plemmons (USA), Anne Greenbaum (USA), Apostolos Hadjidiom (Greece), Owe Axelsson (Hetherlands), Bob Russell (Canada), Justin Wan (Canada), Jie Shen (USA), David Kincaid (USA) and others gave very nice talks in the workshop. The workshop was great successful. The workshop was supported by IMACS, and CAPES, CNPq, Araucaria Fundation and Federal University of Parana, PUC-PR, Brazil. There were 91 participants from world. The proceeding of the wprkshop will be published as special issue of Applied Numerical Mathematics or Numerical Algorithms. Jose Mario Martinez and Jin Yun Yuan are Guest Editor. The deadline of submission is Dec. 31, 2001.

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New Co-Chairs of the Steering Committee of JSOM --- Liqun Qi

The Steering Committee of the Japan-Sino Optimization Meeting (JSOM) decided that Professor Hiroshi Konno and Professor Xiangsun Zhang will be its Co-Chairs for 2002-2003. Its Co-Chairs for 2000-2001 are Professor Masao Fukushima and Kok Lay Teo. The other members of the committee are Xiaoqiang Cai, Xiaojun Chen, Satoru Fujishige, Jiye Han, Toshihide Ibaraki, Masakazu Kojima, Shinji Mizuno, Kazuo Murota, Liqun Qi, Jie Sun, Kunio Tanabe, Tetsuzo Tanino, Soon-yi Wu, Wenci Yu, Ya-xiang Yuan and Jianzhong Zhang.

The second Japan-Sino Optimization Meeting (JSOM 2002) will be held in Kyoto in September 2002. Professor Masao Fukushima and Professor Masakazu Kojima are the Co-Chairs of its Organizing Committee.

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The Fifth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, ICIAM 2003 --- Noel Barton

The 5th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, ICIAM 2003, will be held in Sydney, Australia during 7-11 July 2003.

This Congress will have a broad scope and truly international participation. As the first global Congress on this theme in the 21st Century, ICIAM 2003 provides a magnificent opportunity to focus on the future role of applied mathematics - in its own right and as a contributor to other fields of endeavour. The Congress will emphasise both research and industrial applications.

The International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics is held every four years and is the most important general meeting, worldwide, for applied mathematicians. The Congress covers the full spectrum of research topics in applied mathematics and its industrial applications. The Congress celebrates and describes the contributions of applied mathematics - as an intellectual creation in its own right, as a foundation stone of technological development, and as an indispensable collaborative partner for other scientific disciplines. These aspects of applied mathematics have held true since the dawn of civilisation. They will remain just as important in the new millennium.

The Congress is held under the auspices of the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, an international body consisting of approximately 20 professional applied mathematical societies. Previous meetings were held in Paris (1987), Washington (1991), Hamburg (1995) and Edinburgh (1999).

ICIAM 2003 will be hosted by ANZIAM (Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics), the main professional body for applied mathematicians in the region. ANZIAM, which is a division of the Australian Mathematical Society, has approximately 500 members. Our planning is based on attracting 2000 delegates to ICIAM 2003. Of these, perhaps 500-600 will be from Australia and New Zealand, the rest from around the world. We are particularly keen to attract delegates from the Pacific Rim and South-East Asia.

ICIAM 2003 has as an embedding meeting the 17th National Congress of the
Australian Society of Operations Research.

Scientific program
The program for ICIAM 2003 will feature: invited lecturers, minisymposia, sessions for contributed papers posters, plus some special sessions on topical themes. The 27 invited speakers have been announced and can be viewed at www.iciam.org.

With previous Congresses as a guide, we expect there will be more than 300 minisymposia. All up, more than half of the delegates will make some form of presentation. Our intention is that papers by invited speakers will be published and distributed to delegates.

Exhibition
The Congress will have an associated exhibition. Exhibition stalls of publishers are always popular, and we also expect to attract displays from research agencies, service providers (especially those developing or distributing software products) and hardware vendors.

Social Program
Electronic surveys of delegates at ICIAM 99 showed that applied mathematicians are rather price-sensitive. Most indicated preference for a low registration fee with major social events offered as optional extras. Although we are mindful of the voice of the majority, we feel an obligation to offer some social activities as part of the registration fee. Details have not yet been decided, but we would be remiss not to offer delegates some Australian wines, local cuisine and indigenous culture. Beyond those items offered as part of the registration fee, we will assemble a rich program for accompanying persons. Sydney is a beautiful city and there is much for visitors to do and see in the city and its environs. The native flora and fauna should not be missed. We would also recommend that you take the opportunity on this trip to Australia to visit other parts, especially treasured national sites such as Kakadu, Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.

Venue
The main venue for ICIAM 2003 is the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre (www.scec.com.au). This is a magnificent site, located at Darling Harbour on the fringes of the Central Business District.

On behalf of the applied mathematicians of Australia and New Zealand, plus our many sponsors who will be strongly featured throughout the Congress, I extend a warm invitation to visit Australia in 2003. You, and your accompanying person(s), are invited to participate in a Congress that you will never forget.

Dr Noel Barton
Congress Director

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The (almost) new international journal JNCA --- Siegfried Schaible

Have you heard about JNCA? It is the 1.75 year old (young) international Journal on Nonlinear and Convex Analysis, published by Yokohama Publishers, Yokohama, Japan. The editors of JNCA are

An international editorial board supports the editors.

JNCA is an international journal accepting original research papers in nonlinear analysis and convexity theory. The journal will also publish suitable survey articles of high quality. Expository clarity and good literary style are expected. Carefully selected articles appear in one of the three issues per year (volume).

The scope of the journal includes papers on various aspects of nonlinear analysis, fixed point theory, game theory, optimization, analysis of set-valued mappings, partial differential equations, various aspects of convexity theory as well as applications to economics, finance and engineering.

The web site of JNCA is found at http://www.ybook.co.jp/jnca/table.htm. It contains all relevant information such as addresses of the editors and editorial board members, table of contents of already published issues including that of the two special issues for Professor Ky Fan on the occasion of his 85th birthday, and order form and prices. Check out JNCA for yourself.

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The National ASOR Conference – 2001 --- Emma Hunt

The 16th National ASOR conference was held from September 23-26th at McLarens on the Lake in McLaren Vale, South Australia.

The leadup to the conference was less than optimal – the terrorist attacks in New York took place roughly two weeks before the conference was scheduled to start and with only a week to go, Ansett collapsed and with it went the tickets of many of our conference delegates, including invited speakers.

Floods of emails came in daily from delegates who had booked on Ansett and were unable to get to Adelaide or who were overseas and found themselves no longer able to get to Australia on account of the American situation. One Canadian delegate found himself speaking on a daily basis with the Canadian minister of foreign affairs and international trade as to the safety of his proposed flights!

Many Australian delegates drove from interstate when they couldn’t get replacement flight tickets – their efforts went a long way towards ensuring the success of the conference.

Despite the surrounding drama however the conference kicked off on schedule with a cocktail party at the conference venue at 6 pm on Sunday September 24th.

In the end, 96 delegates from 5 countries attended the conference.
These figures could be broken down as follows:

Australia:
Australian Army 1
Boeing Australia 2
CSIRO Mathematics & Information Sciences 10
Curtin University of Technology 1
DSTO 36
Monash University 1
Peninsula Health 1
PriceWaterhouseCoopers 1
RMIT 3
Stats Solutions P/L 1
Swinburne University 1
Queensland University of Technology 2
University of Adelaide 5
University of Ballarat 3
University of Melbourne 7
University of NSW, ADFA Campus 2
University of South Australia 9
University of Sydney 1
University of Queensland 2
Victoria University of Technology 1

Denmark:
Technical University of Denmark 1

Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Polytechnic University 1

Japan:
University of the Ryukyus 2
Hokkaido University 1

Norway:
Norwegian University of Science & Technology 1.

Unfortunately several registrants from Canada, the USA and New Zealand were not able to attend.

There were 75 papers presented at the conference, many of which appeared in full on the conference cd. Session topics included Business and Management, Decision Theory, Military OR, Search Algorithms, Mathematical Programming and Networks, Manufacturing, Optimization, OR at the University of South Australia, Health Care, Stochastic Modelling, Software Tools and Simulation, Education and Transportation. Refereed versions of conference papers will also appear next year in a special issue of The Supplement of the ANZIAM Journal.

We were fortunate to have three very good keynote speakers: Mohan Krishnamoorthy from CSIRO who spoke on “Consulting in and Commercialising OR: Challenges and Opportunities in the Australian Context”. The best quote of the conference perhaps came from Natashia Boland’s response to Mohan’s “Armani line” terminology! Charles Newton (from ADFA, who to the committee’s great relief managed to replace his Ansett ticket at the last minute) spoke eloquently on “Modern Optimization Techniques at the Cutting Edge of Defence OR” and Kok Lay Teo from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University gave an extremely interesting talk on “The Control Parametrization Enhancing Technique for Optimal Impulsive Control and Optimal Discrete-valued Control Problems”.

No conference is complete without a conference dinner and after dinner entertainment – this was provided by the bellydancer Shamira. Shamira coaxed (some might say bullied) several delegates out of their seats and got them bellydancing alongside her, Harry Burley being the star performer of the evening!

The conference ended with a Brownlow Medal-style countdown of the votes for the best paper: the Phils were the winners of the day with Phil Kilby from CSIRO taking out the best paper award (an engraved medal and a magnum of the magnificent award-winning JSM kindly donated by Fox Creek), Andre Costa the runner up (receiving a magnum of Fox Creek Vixen) and it was bronze (and a bottle of Fox Creek Vixen) for Phil Pollett. Another Phil, Phil Howlett, received 3 votes for best presentation without actually giving a talk! Irina Dumitrescu won the student prize (an engraved ASOR medal and a cheque generously donated by CSIRO) in a close fought contest and Kylie Bryant (still an Honours student) was awarded an Honourable Mention (also a cheque from CSIRO) for her efforts.

Thanks must go to our sponsors – DSTO, CIAM, The Department of Applied Mathematics of the University of Adelaide, Hugin, Fox Creek, CSIRO and Fennell Allen & Co Chartered Accountants for their generous support. My thanks go also to all the conference organizers whose hard work helped to make this conference possible – Charles Pearce (the conference director), Andrew Gill (the conference treasurer), Fred Bowden, Liz Cousins, Jadranka Sunde and Peter Williams and also to Alvin Goh, Fran Pearce and Rowland Dickinson for their invaluable help behind the scenes.

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New Volumes: Encyclopedia of Optimization --- John Martindale

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OPTIMIZATION

Editors : C.A. FLOUDAS AND P.M. PARDALOS

Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001


Some 400 experts have contributed to the 3,200 page ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OPTIMIZATION (ISBN 0-7923-6932-7) edited by C.A. Floudas and P.M. Pardalos, which was published by Kluwer this past summer. The work consists of five volumes of articles presented in alphabetical order and a sixth volume, which consists of a detailed subject index and a name index (entries for each scientist explicitly mentioned in the text of an article). For more information about the encyclopedia check Kluwer online at http://www.wkap.nl.

The following are reactions to this important reference work from leading experts from around the world:

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A Major Resource --- J. B. Rosen

"The five volumes, plus an Index, of the Encyclopedia of Optimization are a major resource for anyone interested in optimization and its many applications;... these volumes will enable the user to quickly understand and make use of specific methods of optimization, and to apply them to applications of interest.; ... The articles included in this Encyclopedia represent an invaluable source of information for anyone interested in optimization and its applications."

Professor J.B. Rosen
Computer Science Department
University of California at San Diego

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An Extensively Comprehensive Piece of Work --- Hanif Sherali

"This is an extensively comprehensive piece of work that has been compiled by experts in a wide variety of areas throughout the world.;... this collection promises to be a valuable initial source of reference for many years to come"

Professor Hanif D. Sherali
Thomas Rice Chaired Professor of Engineering
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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An Outstanding Event of Scientific Life --- Naum Shor

"Without any doubt the publishing of Encyclopedia of Optimization is an outstanding event of scientific life. Scientists can only thank and congratulate the Editors Prof. Floudas and Prof. Pardalos, Advisory Board and more than 400 contributors for perfect realization of this well-timed idea.; .... It will be of interest to researchers, students and managers in a variety of disciplines where the study of optimization and its application is relevant: operations research and management science,
economics and finance, control and modeling, logistics and many others. Even historians can find here biographies of selected outstanding researchers in the field of optimization and historical reviews in some articles.;... like a bridge to get to the heart of optimization and serving to disseminate ideas of optimization being an integral part of modern mathematics."

Professor Naum Shor
Ukranian Academy of Sciences
Ukraine

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A Very Successful Publication --- V.F. Demyanov

"The encyclopedia of optimization covers practically all existing areas of optimization. It is essential that modern and recent results are presented by experts and the reader can get the information directly from the "horse's mouth". This is an essential advantage of the Encyclopedia..... it is a very successful publication which can be used by everybody who is involved in research and applications of optimization... it can be recommended for university libraries and industrial research institutes."

Professor V.F. Demyanov
St. Petersburg State University
Russia

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A Rich and Comprehensive Source --- Dimitri Bertsekas

"The Encyclopedia of Optimization is a rich and comprehensive source of information on the many areas of its subject matter. It includes material on discrete, continuous, deterministic, and stochastic optimization problems, and it provides a convenient starting point for further research and exploration of the literature. This should be a very valuable reference work for researchers and practitioners of optimization alike."

Prof. Dimitri P. Bertsekas
Department of Electrical Engineering
M.I.T.

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An Important Reference --- H. Konno

"I was really overwhelmed when I received this six volume encyclopedia of optimization.; ... covers many new fields of optimization in addition to complete discussions about standard topics by active researchers in each field.;... it should serve as an important reference for all who are involved in the field of optimization, which after more than half a century from its birth, is being applied to more and more difficult, important and practical problems."

Professor H. Konno
Tokyo Institute of Technology
Japan

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Not Only Useful, But Also Enjoyable --- Jean-Philippe Vial

"In a world of excessive scientific specialization, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay informed of the many developments
in areas related to one's field of expertise. To close this gap, the Encyclopedia of Optimization aims to provide researchers with simple, clear and up to the state-of-the-art presentations of various aspects in optimization. The five volumes of short papers on all possible topics in optimization, from theory, models and algorithms seem to cover the needs of most researchers. The articles are written by known specialists, and those that I have read met my expectation. I learned the main idea, and get clues to pursue my investigations for deepening my understanding. I am sure that many others will find the collection as useful as I do. .... the authors were obliged to convey their expertise in two or three pages made each contribution a challenge, and often
results in sharp, up-to-the-point papers. Not only useful, but also enjoyable!"

Professor Jean-Philippe Vial
University of Geneva
Switzerland

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The Standard Most Important Reference --- Ding-Zhu Du

"There is no doubt that the Encyclopedia of Optimization will become the standard most important reference in this very dynamic research field.; ... it is a great tool for searching, forming and validating initial ideas, browsing and brainstorming."

Professor Dingzhu Du
Computer Science Department
University of Minnesota
and
Chinese Academy of Sciences

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A Valuable Resource --- Anna Nagurney

"... to let you know what a valuable resource I am finding the Encyclopedia of Optimization to be for my students as well as myself.;...an outstanding job and the topics selected are incredibly timely.;... the citations at the end of each subject are very helpful and time saving."

Professor Anna Nagurney
Department of Finance and Operations Management
School of Management
University of Massachusetts

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Yang Le's Visit to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University--- Xin Min Yang

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is very honoured to invite Professor Yang Le, a mathematician celebrated both at home and abroad, as a member of "Distingushed Chinese Visiting Scholars Scheme" in 2001. Professor Yang Le was elected as Member of the Chinese Academy Sciences in 1980. He was the Director of the Institute of Mathematics (1987-1995), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and President of the Chinese Mathematics Society (1992-1995). He is now in a number of leading positions, serving as the President of the Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences of CAS; Member of the Chairman Group of CAS; Deputy Director of the Division of Mathematics and Physics; Member of the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council and Member of the Chinese Award Committee of Science and Technology.

As a Distinguished Chinese Visiting Scholar of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Professor Yang Le visited the university from October 17--23. During his visiting, he gave a public lecture on "Mathematics and Technology" and a seminar on "Some results and problems on complex analysis".

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Special Issue of Computing dedicated to Prof. Yamamoto --- Xiaojun Chen

The Special Issue "Topics in Numerical Analysis -- With Special Emphasis on Nonlinear Problems" Computing Supplement 15 (2001) edited by Goetz Alefeld and Xiaojun Chen contains eighteen papers submitted in celebration of the sixty-fifth birthday of Professor Tetsuro Yamamoto of Ehime University. Professor Yamamoto was born in Tottori, Japan on January 4,1937. He
obtained his B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from Hiroshima University in 1959 and 1961, respectively. In 1966, he took a
lecturer position in Department of Mathematics, Faculty of General Education, Hiroshima University and obtained his Ph.D. degree from Hiroshima University two years later. In 1969, he moved to the Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Engineering, Ehime University as an associate professor and has been a full professor of Department of Mathematics (now Department of Mathematical Sciences), Faculty of Science, since 1975.

At the early stage of his study, he was interested in algebraic eigenvalue problems and linear iterative methods. He published some papers on these topics in high level international journals. After moving to Ehime University, he started his research on Newton's method and Newton-like methods to nonlinear operator equations. He published many papers on error estimates of the methods. He established the remarkable result that all the known error bounds for Newton's method under the Kantorovich assumptions follow from the Newton-Kantorovich theorem, which put a period to the race of finding sharper error bounds for Newton's method. This paper was written while he was visiting Mathematics Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March-October 1985, where Professor Rall had asserted the necessity of interval computation through his seminar and papers. Professor Yamamoto had also recognized the importance of verified computation in the late 1970's. Recently he has been interested in superconvergence and related properties of finite difference methods for Dirichlet problems.

Professor Yamamoto has been a member of the editorial boards of four international journals. In particular, he was a principal editor of the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics during 1992-2000. He organized a number of domestic and international conferences on computational and applied mathematics. Among others, the meeting "International Symposium on Computational Mathematics" held in Matsuyama in 1990 was the first international meeting having more than 40 overseas participators on computational mathematics held in Japan. This year, he successfully organized the International Conference on RECENT ADVANCES IN COMPUTATIONAL MATHEMATICS http://icracm.math.sci.ehime-u.ac.jp. He was also elected as the dean of Faculty of Science, Ehime University, during 1991-1995 and as a vice president of Japan SIAM in 1997.

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New Book -- Optimization Methods and Applications,
edited by Xiaoqi Yang, Kok Lay Teo and Luo Caccetta

This edited book is dedicated to Professor N.U. Ahmed, a leading scholar and renowned researcher in optimal control and optimization on the occasion of his retirement from the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Ottawa in 1999.

The contributions of this volume are in the areas of optimal control, nonlinear optimization and optimization applications. They are mainly the improved and expanded versions of the papers selected from those presented in two special sessions of two international conferences. The first special session is Optimization Methods, which was organized by K.L. Teo and X.Q. Yang for the International Conference on Optimization and Variational Inequality, the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1998. The other one is Optimal Control, which was organized by K.L. Teo and L. Caccetta for the Dynamic Control Congress, Ottawa, 1999.

See the titles of the chapters in the book.
Link to the Order Page.

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Personal Interview --- Vladimir Demyanov

**********************************
Interviewee: Vladimir Demyanov
Interviewer: Alex Rubinov
Interview Date: November 2001
**********************************

1. Your full name, address and e-mail address:

Vladimir Fedorovich Demyanov,
Applied Mathematics Department
St.Petersburg State University
Staryi Peterhof, Bibliotechnaya pl. 2,
St.Petersburg, 198904
RUSSIA

E-mail address: vladimir.demyanov@pobox.spbu.ru

2. Your highest degree, awarding institution and year:

Ph.D. in Mathematics, Leningrad State University, Leningrad, 1964.

Doctor of Science, Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1972.

3. How many research papers have you published (including papers accepted for publication) in optimization?

More than 150.

4. Your research interests:

Calculus of Variations, Optimal Control, Mathematical Programming, Nonsmooth Analysis, Nondifferentiable Optimization,
Minimax Problems

5. Some of your most representative papers or books

1. Demyanov, V.F. (1974), Minimax: Directional differentiability.
Leningrad: Leningrad University Press. (in Russian)

2. Demyanov, V. F. (1995), Fixed Point Theorem in Nonsmooth Analysis and its Applications,
Numerical Functional Analysis and Applications, v. 16, pp. 53-109.

3. Demyanov, V.F. and Malozemov, V.N. (1972), Introduction to Minimax.
Moscow: Nauka.(English translation by J.Wiley, 1974, 2nd edition, 1990).

4. Demyanov, V.F. and Rubinov, A.M.(1970), Approximate methods in extremal problems.
N.Y.: Elsevier (Russian Edition: Leningrad 1968).

5. Demyanov, V.F. and Rubinov, A.M.(1986), Quasidifferential Calculus.
N.Y.: Optimization Software.

6. Demyanov, V.F. and Rubinov, A.M.(1990), Foundations of Nonsmooth Analysis. Quasidifferential Calculus.
Moscow: Nauka. (English revised version: Demyanov V.F. and Rubinov A.M.(1995),
Constructive Nonsmooth Analysis. Frankfurt a/M: Verlag Peter Lang).

7. Demyanov V.F. and Vasiliev L.V. (1985), Nondifferentiable Optimization.
New York: Springer-Optimization Software.

8. Demyanov V.F.(2000), Exhausters and convexificators - new tools in Nonsmooth Analysis.
In "Quasidifferentiability and related topics" (Eds. V.Demyanov, A.Rubinov).
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000, pp.85-137.

6. Please describe your major contributions in optimization.

Main results in Minimax theory: the directional differentiability of maximum functions, maximin functions, minimaximin
functions was established; numerical methods for solving minimax problems, mathematical programming problems, for
finding saddle points and for solving nonsmooth optimal control problems were suggested. These results were summarized in
monographs [1] and [3]. The second book was translated into English (two editions), German and Polish.

Main results in Control theory: bundle maximum principle for nonsmooth optimal control problems (generalizing the
classical Pontryagin maximum principle).

Main results in Nonsmooth Analysis: The notion of quasidifferential was introduced and Quasidifferential Calculus was
constructed (jointly with A.M.Rubinov). The quasidifferential is a generalization of the notion of gradient. Quasidifferential
Calculus allows one to solve many classical problems of Mathematical Analysis in the absence of differentiability, e.g., to
formulate necessary and sufficient optimality conditions, to get implicit and inverse function theorems, to solve systems of
nonsmooth equations and inequalities (see [5,7]).

The notions of codifferential (and associated with it the notions of hypo- and hyperdifferentials), convexificator, exhauster
were also introduced. Making use of the notion of codifferential one is able to "restore" the "smoothness" of many
nonsmooth functions (in the sense that codifferential mapping of many nonsmooth functions is Hausdorff continuous, and
therefore has many nice properties of the gradient).

The concept of the second and higher order codifferentials is introduced thus allowing one to construct second and higher
order approximations of nonsmooth functions and mappings. The Calculus of quasidifferential and codifferentials is a
generalization of the classical differential Calculus.

As a result of the above studies a Constructive Nonsmooth Analysis was developed (see [6]).

7. Names of your Ph.D. students.
Ph.D. students, the titles of the theses, the place and year of defence.

1. Pevnyi Alexander B. Some problems of minimax theory and saddle points.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1973.

2. Vinogradova Tatyana K. Some minimax problems of optimal control theory.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1975.

3. Timoshina Irina R. Numerical methods for solving minimax optimal control problems.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1977.

4. Vasiliev Leonid V. Some algorithms for minimizing nondifferentiable functions.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1977.

5. Kulagin Victor V. Optimal synthesis problems in the presence of constraints (co-advisor Sanel'nikov V.S.).
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1978.

6. Tarasov Vladimir N. Acceleration of convergence in optimization problems.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1979.

7. Shomesova Valentina K. Some problems of nonsmooth optimization.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1979.

8. Polyakova Lyudmila N. Some generalizations of the notion of subdifferential and applications.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1979.

9. Khenkin Mark Z. Numerical methods of nonlinear programming.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1980.

10. Pecherskaya Natal'ya A. Differentiability of multivalued mappings and its applications in optimization.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1982.

11. Malozemova Lyudmila K. A study of optimization problems connected with synthesis of sharply pointed antennae.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1983.

12. Popova Nina K. A study of some modifications of the Kelley method and the extremal basis method in nonsmooth
optimization problems.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1983.

13. Sivtsova Vera K. Solution of some minimax optimal control problems based on the integral minimax principle.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1983.

14. Shablinskaya Irina R. Nonsmooth optimal control problems.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1983.

15. Kurbanov Vugar G. Approximate methods for finding saddle points of nonsmooth convexo-concave functions.
Baku, Institute of Cybernetics of Azerbaidjan Academy of Sciences. 1983.

16. Lupikov Igor M. Multivalued mappings, their description and application in optimization.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1985.

17. Paizerova Faina A. Accelaration of convergency in nonsmooth problems of nonlinear programming.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1985.

18. Lizunova Nina A. Some problems of synthesis of optimal control (co-advisor Vinogradova T.K.).
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1985.

19. Ulitskaya Tatyana I. Numerical methods of minimization of one class of nonsmooth functions.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1986.

20. Nikulina Valentina N. A study of some nonsmooth problems of programmed control and parametric synthesis.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1987.

21. Smirnov Andrei N. Construction and study of mathematical models of calendar volume planning.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1987.

22. Prourzin Vladimir A. Some synthesis problems of amortization, optimal on one class of external actions
(co-advisor Kulagin V.V.).
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1988.

23. Tograshova Nataliya E. Theorems on implicit and inverse functions in quasidifferential and codifferential Calculus.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1989.

24. Shein Anatolii A. A mathematical problem of sample processing. (co-advisor Tkachev Yu.A.).
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1989.

25. Dzhalilova Zari A. Models of economic dynamics on graphs.
Leningrad, Leningrad University, 1990.

26. Lazareva Irina M. Approximation of a function of several variables via affine transformation of its sections.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1993.

27. Zabrodin Igor S. Numerical methods for minimizating nonsmooth functions based on continuous approximations.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1993.

28. Shcherbatyuk Sergey F. Nonsmooth problems of Calculus of Variations.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1993.

29. Aban'kin Alexander E. Some problems of nonsmooth optimization.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1996.

30. Tarashnin Mikhail G. Application of the theory of quasidifferential to solving approximation problems.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1996.

31. Murzabekova Gul'den E. Implicit functions for sub-definite systems.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1997.

32. Kokurin Mikhail Yu. A study of incorrect monotone problems on the base of operator regularizations.
Doctor of Science degree.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1997.

33. Polyakova Lyudmila N. Contributions to mathematical theory and numerical methods for solving certain classes of
nonsmooth optimization problems. Doctor of Science degree.
St.Petersburg, St.Petersburg University, 1998.

8. What are the most important recent development in the optimization branch you are working on? Please specify the name of
the branch.

In the field of Nonsmooth Analysis, in my view, the most important development in the recent years is the rise of
Constructive Nonsmooth Analysis.

At present I am involved in application of Exact Penalization Technique to solving constrained Optimal Control problems
and problems of Calculus of Variations.

A very promising and important development is the usage of techniques of Nonsmooth Analysis to solving problems of
Mathematical Diagnostics (this is a new area of research involving mathematical models of identification, classification,
medical and engineering diagnostics, pattern recognition etc).

9. What are the most interesting unsolved problem in the optimization branch you are working on?

In my view, the results and tools of Nonsmooth Analysis and Nondifferentiable Optimization should be widely applied to
solving modern industrial, ecological, engineering, technological and economic problems. Nonsmooth models can better
describe a real process, at the same time the present state of NSA and NDO is such that it is possible to provide proper
tools, techniques and methods. In return, new challenging mathematical problems will be stated and, hopefully, solved.

10. You are commonly known as a photographer. Can you tell us about your exibition "Faces and Places"? How many
faces and places do you have?

I do not know exactly. Probably, I took several thousand pictures. I hope to prepare a collection of pictures "Optimization
Faces and Places".

11. What about the acknowledgements in the book by Demyanov and Malozemov (I know that they were with *).

A.: In 1970 V.N.Malozemov and myself prepared a manuscript on minimax problems. We delivered a lecture at the
seminar of Prof. N.N. Moiseev in the Computing Centre of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. We wanted to
have this book published in the series "Optimization and Operations Research" edited by N.N. Moiseev and published by
the Nauka publishers. After the lecture I was invited to NNM's office and he signed his recommendation to publish the
book but commented: "V.Malozemov looks too serious, possibly he does not understand jokes". Of course, during the
lecture VN was quite serious, but in general he wrote a lot of jokes, students' operas and ballets. When I told VN on
NN's opinion, he was a little bit disappointed.

The book "Introduction to Minimax" was published in Russian in 1972. When I visited NNM to present him a copy of the
book, I told him: in the Preface there is a joke related to you. He looked through but found nothing. Then I showed him
the exact place. In subsection 4 of the Preface it was written: "Starred sections and subsections may be skipped in a
first reading". The next page was as follows:

5*. Now when our work on the book is completed, we express our gratitude to all those who helped and supported
us. First and foremost, we thank N.N.Moiseev, who supported the idea of writing the book, manifested
exceptional interest in our work...

N.N.Moiseev laughed, stood up, shacked my hand and said: One zero in your favor!.

The book was translated (without permission, of course) by John Wiley and Sons and later published by Dover in 1990.
(The USSR joined the Copyright agreement only in 1973. The authors of the books published before had no Copyright
protection, and everybody could publish any book without any permission. The Russians translated foreign books, the
same did Americans and others with Russian books.) Unfortunately, they omitted the asterisk. The Polish edition (also
without permission) was with the asterisk. Only East Germans signed a contract, sent one of the translators (Prof.
K.Vetters from Dresden) to Leningrad to discuss the translation. He was very careful in reading the text, he checked the
proofs, found many misprints. The first misprint he indicated was the asterisk in subsection 5 of the Preface: I am sure you
had no intention to address such a thing to these respected persons. However, I convinced him to preserve the
asterisk.

12. How we bought the term "quasidifferential"?

A.: In February 1979 A. Rubinov and myself discovered the class of functions known now as "quasidifferentiable
functions". The term qusidifferentiable function} was used by B.N.Pschenichnyi for functions which are directionally
differentiable and whose directional derivative is of the form

f '(x;g)=max { (v,g): v M(x)}


where M(x) is a convex compact set. (At present such functions are called subdifferentiable}. Just sometime in the end of
March 1979 Boris Pschenichnyi was in Tallinn serving as an official opponent. On his way back to Kiev, due to bad
weather, he decided to spend a night in Leningrad instead of waiting in the Tallinn airport. So, he arrived early in the
morning (at 2 a.m.) and we spent a day in Leningrad. Of course, we told him of our new functions and I asked him the
permission to call this new class of functions "quasidifferentiable". B.N.Pschenichnyi agreed, and we paid him one bottle of
Pschenichnaya} vodka (Pschenichnaya in Russian means "made of wheat"). The next year this agreement was adjusted,
and the new condition was that we pay one bootle of Pschenichnaya vodka every year in which in our publications we
use this term.

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Vladimir Demyanov: A Friend of More Than 40 years ---
Alex Rubinov

Prof. Jie Sun, a member of the POP Board has suggested to conduct an ORB personal interview with Professor Vladimir F. Demyanov. Prof. Liqun Qi, the chair of the POP Working Committee, asked me to be an interviewer for Vladimir and I agreed. Vladimir is an internationally recognized expert in the area of applied non-smooth analysis and non-smooth optimization. He proposed some approaches to the theoretical study and numerical solution of non-smooth optimization problems, which are well-known and widely used by many researches over the world. I only mention here such notions as Danskin-Demyanov multipliers in max-min optimization and Demyanov difference of convex compact sets and also the book INTRODUCTION TO MINIMAX by V.F. Demyanov and V.N. Malozemov, which was published in Russian and translated into English two times (one of them as "Classic" by Dover Publications), German and Polish.

Vladimir is a friend of mine for more than 40 years. First time I met him in 1958 and our first joint paper was published in 1964. I do not share some Vladimir's views and sometimes we have many hot discussions, however these very helpful discussions are not an obstacle to our friendship.

I do not like to consider a mathematician only as a machine for manufacturing some mathematical results, this is why I tried to conduct this interview so that reflect not only mathematical achievements of Vladimir but also some interesting stories related to him. There is a lot of such stories, I ask him only about two of them. I hope it will be enough to have these samples in order to understand that Vladimir is not only a very good mathematician but also a very nice person.

I would like also mention one very important Vladimir's feature. Many Vladimir's colleagues and his students are very thankful him for his help. A lot of people ask him to help with mathematics or with some real-world situations and he always makes his best in order to help people. Very often he helps without any special requests.

It was the first international meeting out of the Soviet Union, which Vasilyi Malozemov and I were able to attend. It is impossible to overestimate the role of Vladimir in organizing our first trip abroad.

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The Photo of Malozemov, Demeyanov and Rubinov ---
Vladimir Demeyanov

The picture was made in Erice (Sicily, Italy) in 1991.

Left to right: V.N. Malozemov, V. F. Demyanov, A. M. Rubinov.

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Few words about Vladimir Demyanov ---Franco Giannessi

When I met Professor Dem'yanov the first time, I felt like I knew him since many years. Indeed, his exceptional communicativeness and enthusiasm are equal to his love for Mathematics. I have greatly gained from both. Even if I do not like to be the subject of a photograpy, it has been impossible to escape to his camera, which has been and is more than a recording instrument: it has become a sort of connective tissue of the Optimization Community. The fundamental contributions he has done to the Nonsmooth Analysis and Nonsmooth Optimization have been very important for me and I have much benefited.

Franco Giannessi
University of Pisa,
Italy

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V.F. Demyanov, my supervisor --- Nadya Soukhoroukova

Vladimir Fedorovich Demyanov was my supervisor. First time I met him five years ago, when I began to attend his seminars. VF is a very good supervisor with very deep and interesting ideas. He always ready to help and give some advice. He often discovers some interesting and unusual links between very different issues, which lead to deep understanding the problem under consideration. I like very much Demyanov’s seminars, which are always really interesting and not only because of mathematics. He attended a great number of conferences in different countries, met a lot of really interesting people, so he always had a shot interesting story just for a minute we needed a rest. His life is full of memorial events. It is quite impossible to keep them in memory only so he is always with his camera. I can't remember a day he came to University without smile or he was busy and couldn't help his students. He remembers birthdays and other memorial days of all his students. I was very lucky to have such a supervisor.

Nadya SOUKHOROUKOVA

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Some words on Vladimir Demyanov --- D. Pallaschke

At the International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Operations Research'' Sofia, 24.-29.October 1983 which was organized by Asen Dontchev and Petar Kenderov, I attended for the first time an excellent lecture of Vladimir F. Demyanov about his common work with Alex M. Rubinov on Quasidifferentiable Functions''. I was so much fascinated by this lecture that I invited Vladimir F. Demyanov to the Oberwolfach Conference on ``Operations-Research'' from February 26 - March 03, 1984 which was organized by my collegue Klaus Neumann from Karlsruhe and me. In Oberwolfach, a beautiful place in the Black Forest in Germany, which is about 100 km southern of Karlsruhe, is the Mathematical Research Institute of the German Society of Mathematicians. Directly after this conference in Oberwolfach, Vladimir F. Demyanov gave a further lecture on ``Quasidifferential Calculus and Nonsmooth Analysis" at the University of Karlsruhe and directed also the attention of our students to this new area of nonsmooth optimization.

This was the beginning of a deep and warm friendship with Vladimir F. Demyanov. He is a very gentle person, gives excellent lectures, likes to work with students and is full of humor. A further reason for our successful scientific cooperation was the long research stay of Vladimir F. Demyanov at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxemburg, Austria. During many years we meet at Laxemburg and also at other places in Europe for instance in Pisa, Erice and Sopron to discuss our common problems.Our common research work started with investigations about the set covering problem, which is a typical quasidifferentiable optimization problem. Further investigations with Vladimir Demyanov and Alex Rubinov leaded to problems in abstract convexity particularly to the characterization of inclusion minimal representatives of the quasidifferential. This common work created a further interesting research area about Minimal Pairs of Compact Convex Sets'' which was initiated by Vladimir F. Demyanov and Alex M. Rubinov. With Ryszard Urban’ski from the University of Poznan’ I will publish a book about this topic.

D. Pallaschke
University of Karlsruhe Germany

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Call for Papers: Staff Scheduling and Rostering: Theory and Applications, A Special Issue of Annals of Operations Research --- Houyuan Jiang

CALL FOR PAPERS

Staff Scheduling and Rostering: Theory and Applications

A special issue of Annals of Operations Research
http://www.baltzer.nl/journalhome.htm/0254-5330

AIM

The principal aim of this issue is to report recent advances of theory and applications and to provide comprehensive reviews in
the area of staff scheduling and rostering.

A NOTE ON NOMENCLATURE

The terms staff scheduling and rostering are both used in the literature to refer to the processes involved in linking staff to duties. Which term is used can depend on the application area or perhaps the country of origin of the authors. It may be possible to draw a fine distinction between the terms -- a roster being a list of people who have been assigned to certain duties, and a
staff schedule being a list of actions or tasks to which certain people have been assigned -- however the degree of overlap in
meaning is substantial. For the purpose of this call for papers we shall take the terms to be synonymous.

SCOPE

This special issue will be devoted to recent advances in the area of staff scheduling. We also aim to carry high quality reviews on a few topics related to staff scheduling. Original research papers of theoretical and computational orientation will be greatly
appreciated. Articles dealing with real-world practice will be particularly encouraged.

TOPICS

Possible topics for papers submitted to this special issue include but are not limited to:
* Crew scheduling in airlines, railways, mass transit systems, and buses.
* Nurse, clinician and ancilliary staff rostering in health systems.
* Call centre operator scheduling.
* Rostering in emergency services such as police, ambulance and fire brigade.
* Scheduling of retail staff in department stores, supermarkets, franchise chains, and others.
* Rostering security guards.
* General personnel rostering such as post offices, ground staff at airports, hotel staff, and maintenance staff.
* Days-off, shift, and tour scheduling.
* Stochastic staff scheduling.
* Forecasting of demand for services (such as in call centres).
* Determination of staff requirements.
* Leave planning.
* Software survey (for a number of products).
* The application of different solution techniques such as heuristics, meta-heuristics, column generation, mathematical
modelling and simulation to crew scheduling applications.
* Other relevant applications and techniques.

REVIEW PROCESS

All papers will be subject to a thorough and stringent refereeing process, in accordance with the usual high standards of the Annals of Operations Research.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Authors of original manuscripts are invited to submit their papers electronically by email to any or all of the Guest Editors listed
below, in either postscript or pdf format. Alternatively, 4 hard copies may be mailed to any one of the Guest Editors.

To be considered for this publication, papers must be received by

Wednesday 31 July 2002

All papers must be written in English, and should not be simultaneously submitted to any other refereed publication.

GUEST EDITORS

Houyuan Jiang
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
Building 108, North Road
ANU Campus, Acton, ACT 2601
GPO Box 664, Canberra, ACT 2601
Australia
Tel: +61-2-6216-7116
Fax: +61-2-6216-7111
Email: Houyuan.Jiang@csiro.au

Mohan Krishnamoorthy
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
Private Bag 10, South Clayton MDC
Clayton, VIC 3169
Australia
Tel: +61-3-9545-8042
Fax: +61-3-9545-8080
Email: Mohan.Krishnamoorthy@csiro.au

David Sier
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
Private Bag 10, South Clayton MDC
Clayton, VIC 3169
Australia
Tel: +61-3-9545-8043
Fax: +61-3-9545-8080
Email: David.Sier@csiro.au

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ICOTA 2001 Was Held in Hong Kong --- Liqun Qi

The 5th International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA 2001) was held in Hong Kong during December 15-17, 2001. It was jointly organized by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the City University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is a continuation of the ICOTA series, which has had its first four conferences in Singapore (1989 and 1992), Chendu, China (1995) and Perth, Australia (1998). Professor Xiaoqiang Cai in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and I are the General Conference Co-Chairs of ICOTA 2001.

ICOTA 2001 has eight plenary speakers. They are:

Shu-Cherng Fang (USA)
Masao Fukushima (Japan)
Toshihide Ibaraki (Japan)
David Luenberger (USA)
Angelo Miele (USA)
Panos Pardalos (USA)
Terry Rockafellar (USA)
Yinyu Ye (USA)

ICOTA 2001 had three mini-symposia, 21 invited sessions, 10 contributed sessions. About 250 papers were presented in ICOTA 2001, with authors in nearly 30 different countries/regions.

ICOTA 2001 had three awards: ICOTA Theory Paper Award, ICOTA Application Paper Award, and ICOTA Student Paper Award. The award winners are as follows:

A. ICOTA Theory Paper Award:

A. Ben-Tal, A. Nemirovski and C. Roos: "Robust Version of Convex Quadratic and Conic-Quadratic Problems"

B. ICOTA Application Paper Award:

Zhi-Quan Luo: "Optimal Transceiver Design via Convex Programming"

C. ICOTA Student Paper Award:

Wen-Qiang Xiao: "Approximation Algorithms for Common Due Date Assignment and Job Scheduling on
Parallel Machine"

The 6th International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA 2004) will be held in Victoria, Australia. It will be organized by Professors Alex Rubinov and Moshe Sniedovich.

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Last updated on 5 March 2002