Robert R. Meyer

Professor of Computer Sciences

Computer Sciences Department
University of Wisconsin
1210 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53706-1685

telephone: (608) 262-1204
fax: (608) 262-9777
email: rrm@cs.wisc.edu
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rrm/rrm.html
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1968
Interests: Linear and nonlinear network optimization, combinatorial optimization, parallel algorithms for large-scale optimization


Research Summary

Most large-scale optimization problems exhibit substructures that make possible solutions via algorithms with a high degree of parallelism. Such substructures include quasi-independent blocks of constraints and variables for different commodities or time periods or scenarios, and geographically-disjoint regions. In the case of network optimization, decomposition into approximating linear network subproblems is particularly attractive because of the corresponding very fast solution techniques. The emphases of my research have been the development of new parallel optimization algorithms that utilize these features and heuristic techniques such as genetic algorithms to take advantage of parallel or distributed computing environments in order to efficiently solve linear and nonlinear network optimization problems containing millions or billions of variables.

Sample Recent Publications

Minimum perimeter domain assignment (with I. Christou and J. Yackel), Mathematical Programming B, vol. 78, pp. 283-303, 1997.

Genetic algorithms as multi-coordinators in large-scale optimization (with I. Christou and W. Martin), in Proceedings of the IMA Workshop on Evolutionary Algorithms, Springer-Verlag, 1998.

Multi-coordination methods for the solution of convex block-angular programs (with G. Zakeri), SIAM Journal on Optimization, 1999.


This page was automatically created December 30, 1998.
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