[Colloquium] TTIC Talks: Stephen Wright, University of Wisconsin-Madison

[Liv Leader]

REMINDER:

When:     Monday, February 13 @ 11 a.m.

Where:   TTIC Conference Room #526, 6045 S. Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor

Who:      Stephen Wright, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Title:       Packing ellipsoids with overlap

Abstract:

Problems of packing shapes with maximal density, possibly into a container
of restricted size, are classical in discrete mathematics. We describe here
the problem of packing ellipsoids of given (and varying) dimensions into
a finite container of given size, allowing overlap between adjacent
ellipsoids but requiring some measure of total overlap to be as small as
possible. A bilevel optimization algorithm is described for finding local
solutions of this problem - both the general case and the easier special
case in which the ellipsoids are in fact spheres. Tools from conic
optimization, especially semidefinite programming, are central to the
algorithm. Theoretical and computational results will be summarized. Our
work is motivated by a problem in structural biology - chromosome
arrangement in cell nuclei - for which some preliminary results are given.

This talk represents joint work with Caroline Uhler (IST Vienna)

Host: Nati Srebro, nati at ttic.edu

-- 
Liv Leader
Human Resources Coordinator

Toyota Technological Institute Chicago
6045 S Kenwood Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone- (773) 702-5033
Fax-     (773) 834-9881
Email-  lleader at ttic.edu <jam at ttic.edu>
Web-   www.ttic.edu
<http://www.ttic.edu/>
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