Artificial intelligence, machine learning and convex optimisation
"Cutting plane" methods converge on the optimal values of a mathematical function by repeatedly cutting out regions of a much larger set of possibilities (gold sphere). Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT Optimisation is everywhere Source: Phys.org 23 October 2015 Optimisation problems are everywhere in engineering: Balancing design trade-offs is an optimisation problem, as are scheduling and logistical planning. The theory—and sometimes the implementation—of control systems relies heavily on optimisation, and so does machine learning, which has been the basis of most recent advances in artificial intelligence. Last October, at the IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, a trio of present and past MIT graduate students won a best-student-paper award for a new "cutting-plane" algorithm, a general-purpose algorithm for solving optimisation problems. The algorithm improves on the running time of its most efficient predecessor, and the researcher...
