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Program Description: The program goal is the development of mathematical methods for the optimization of large and complex models that will address future decision problems of interest to the U.S. Air Force. Areas of fundamental interest include resource allocation, planning, logistics, engineering design and scheduling. Increasingly, the decision models will address problems that arise in the design, management and defense of complex networks, in robust decision making, in performance, operational efficiency, and optimal control of dynamical systems, and in artificial intelligence and information technology applications.
Basic Research Objectives: There will be a focus on the development of new nonlinear, integer and combinatorial optimization algorithms, including those with stochastic components. Techniques designed to handle data that are uncertain, evolving, incomplete, conflicting, or overlapping are particularly important.
As basic research aimed at having the broadest possible impact, the development of new computational methods will include an emphasis on theoretical underpinnings, on rigorous convergence analysis, and on establishing provable bounds for (meta-) heuristics and other approximation methods.