Inaugural Lecture: Professor Montaz Ali

Prof. Montaz Ali from the Wits School of Computational and Applied Mathematics will be presenting his Inaugural Lecture, entitled Global optimization in action: quest for the best in industries.

Abstract:

Whether we realize it or not, the theory of global optimization drives our every day's desires and actions. For example, we want to do things better, to achieve our goals faster, to make our investments or other actions risk-free. Industries want to improve quality of products for bigger market shares or to make strategic decisions for better profit margins. Mathematical theory of global optimization is used to achieve these desired goals in the best possible way. As we live and operate in today's competitive global village the need for the global optimization is becoming abysmal. Indeed, the global optimization is making impacts in all aspects of our technological world in which we are privileged to live. This talk briefly states various optimization problems and some related algorithms for the solutions to these problems. The concept of global optimization and the complexity in the solution process will then be discussed. A number of practical problems of industrial background will be presented.