Activities of EUROPT EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization

Activities of EUROPT EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization in 2004 and 2005 1 Introduction EUROPT, Continuous Optimization Working Group of EURO EUROPT WG, has been fou

Activities of

EUROPT

EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization

in 2004 and 2005

1 Introduction

EUROPT, Continuous Optimization Working Group of EURO (EUROPT WG), has been

founded at IPM2000 Workshop in Budapest, Hungary, July 2000 That workshop was a satellite event of the EURO-XVII Conference At these days, there we about 50 founding members In the sequel of our first workshop, EUROPT had three further workshops: workshop Smooth and Nonsmooth Optimization, Theory and Applications, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 2001, before EURO XVIII, then Workshop on Advances in Continuous Optimization, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 2003, before the 5th EUROPT/INFORMS Joint International Meeting 2003, and Workshop on Challenges of Continuous Optimization in Theory and Applications, July 2004, before EURO XX A bit later, still in July 2004, we celebrated EURO Summer Institute Optimization and Data Mining in Ankara As it will be described in the following, that previous workshop and ESI 2004 were the main scientific events of our previous EUROPT year 2004 At the moment, in early April 2005, our group

EUROPT has 240 members Please find many interesting data, information and invitations at our EUROPT homepage http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/ We note that with a

number of other scientific groups we have exchanged and mutually published our links

2 Activities in 2004

In 2004, there were two highlight events which EUROPT organized:

(a) EUROPT “Workshop on Challenges of Continuous Optimization

in Theory and Applications”,

(b) EURO Summer Institute “Optimization and Data Mining”,

we gave contributions to

(c) EURO XX Conference.

and finalized a

(d) Feature Cluster in European Journal of Operational Research.

2.a EUROPT Workshop in 2004

As it became a very good tradition, also in 2004 the workshop of EUROPT, July 2-3, took

place before and in the same city as EURO XX Conference (July 4-7): in that year, in Rhodes City, Greece This Workshop on Challenges of Continuous Optimization in Theory and

Applications (please see http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/contopt04/index.html) was the fourth

annual meeting of our working group- and again it was wonderful: from the viewpoint of both high scientific quality and experienced community

In the present year 2004, not only Olympic Games are ‘‘ are coming home“ (in terms of the

refrain of a pop song) into the country of their origin Also optimization, especially, Continuous Optimization, has come back to a country of its roots, of its old masters, to Greece A nicer and worthier framework can hardly be imagined than the one represented by the beauty and the historical richness of Rhodes

EUROPT workshop and EURO together: this has a tradition but tradition also characterizes

the support by all partners of EUROPT in the workshop project: EURO (Association of European Operational Research Societies), GOR (Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V; German OR Society), IAM (Institute of Applied Mathematics) of METU (Middle East Technical University), Ankara, Turkey, and University of the Aegean, Greece

Furthermore, two more groups and organizations were well-represented at our meeting with

its 33 workshop participants Namely, by the various contributions of our friends Prof Dr.

Alexander Rubinov (University of Ballarat, Australia) from POP (Pacific Optimization

Research Activity Group) and Prof Dr Moshe Sniedovich (University of Melbourne, Australia) from IFORS (International Federation of Operational Research Societies), our

workshop got a special international character, the one of a bridge between Europe, Pacific region and other continents With these friends and institutions, EUROPT will continue to work together closely and on different levels We remark that at the workshop besides of the Pacific also the Aegean (Greek-Turkish), the Ibero - Latin American (Portugese - Spanish-Brasilian - Mexican), the Baltic (Lithuanian), the Hungarian and the German groups were strong in number, and there were numerous and warm contacts over all frontiers

The workshop took place in the pleasant and hospitable atmosphere of Best Western Plaza

Hotel in the center of Rhodes City So, in those days, we were quite close to the ‘‘pulse“ of

Greek people with their excitement and Mediterranean celebration of European football nations cup which ended so successfully for the Hellenians A sincere congratulation by EUROPT!

Organization Committee consisted of

• N Ampazis (University of the Aegean, Greece),

• E Avgerinos (University of the Aegean, Greece),

• M Dür (TU Darmstadt, Germany),

• A Hayfavi (METU, Ankara, Turkey),

• K Klamroth (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany),

• D Konstandinidis (University of the Aegean, Greece),

• G.-W Weber (METU, Ankara, Turkey)

Homepage and data administration of both workshop and of ESI 2004 likewise, were in the good hands of A Dogan, A.G Sagdicoglu, A Tezel and C Vakifahmetoglu, respectively

The members of Scientific Committee of our workshop were

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• J.-L Goffin (McGill University, Montreal, Canada),

• T Illes (Eötös University, Budapest, Hungary),

• F Jarre (University of Düsseldorf, Germany),

• B Karasözen (METU, Ankara, Turkey),

• J Kolumban (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania),

• M Pınar (Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey),

• B Polyak (Institute of Control Science, Moscow, Russia),

• K Roos (Deft University of Technology, The Netherlands),

• A Rubinov (School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences,

Ballarat, Australia),

• K Scheinberg (Columbia University, IBM, New York, USA),

• O Stein (RWTH Aachen, Germany),

• M Teboulle (Tel-Aviv University, Israel),

• T Terlaky (McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada),

• M Todorov (Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico),

• T Trafalis (University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA),

• M Türkay (Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey)

At the evening before the workshop, there was a first informal meeting, a seeing again and learning each other in the entrance hall of the hotel From there we went to maritime specialities right from the sea into a restaurant at the harbour of Rhodes City In the morning

of July 2, the workshop was opened by Prof Dr Bülent Karasözen (METU, Ankara, Turkey) The invited speakers of our workshop and their lectures were (in chronological order):

• Prof Dr Moshe Sniedovich (University of Melbourne, Australia):

• Prof Dr Marco A López (University of Alicante, Spain):

‘‘Metric Regularity of Semi-Infinite Constraint Systems“,

• Prof Dr Kathrin Klamroth (Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany):

• Prof Dr Arkadi Nemirovski (Technion, Haifa, Israel):

‘‘Tractable Approximations of Semi-Infinite Convex Problems and Applications“,

• Prof Dr Miguel Goberna (University of Alicante, Spain):

• Prof Dr Theodore Trafalis (University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA):

One reason for main topics arising in the content of the workshop program, namely, semi-infinite optimization, global optimization, optimal control and data mining, was lying in the fruitful interplay between EUROPT workshop and EURO, in the organization of EURO sessions by some of the many active members of EUROPT We note a further contribution of

our group(s) to EURO conference given by the semi-plenary lecture held by Prof Dr.

Alexander Rubinov

Highlights: these were our invited lectures, but also each of the other talks was a highlight

and, using our picture from sports, from Olympic Games and European football nations cup:

‘‘The star is: the team!‘‘

This wonderful atmosphere became on the one hand acknowledged at the workshop dinner which took place in a jewel of Rhodean art of cooking and hospitality, an ‘‘insider´s secret“:

in the beautiful garden restaurant Alexis-4-Seasons, where Prof Dr Azize Hayfavi (from

Rhodes, today at METU and Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey) guided us after she gave a sightseeing tour through the Old Town of Rhodes City On the other hand, a number of friendships became deepened, other ones founded and future projects decided about In which fields? Now, about these fields discussions were made twofold at the workshop Firstly, in a concrete way and, secondly, in a general EUROPT concerning way at the occasion of EURO

initiative ‘‘Branding OR“ (see http://www.euro-online.org/ display.php?page=branding_or),

where all friends of EURO and OR are sincerely invited to Based on common reflections

during our workshop, with essential impulses given by Prof Dr Tamas Terlaky (McMaster

University, Hamilton, Canada) and up to some additions by our EUROPT members, our

EUROPT answer on the question of Branding OR about 5 challenges applications of

Continuous Optimization is as follows (please cf

http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/Branding-OR-EUROPT-.pdf):

(i) optimal VLSI- and circuits-design,

ii (ii) optimal integrated structure- und shape-design,

(iii) optimization of biosystems,

(iv) optimization of service and transportation systems and

(v) optimization and control of industrial processes

With all these common impressions and outlooks Prof Dr Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber (METU,

Ankara) concluded the workshop at evening of July 3 But our events went and still go on!

With EURO XX, July 4-7, on Rhodes, with EURO Summer Institute XXII Optimization and

Data Mining, July 9-25, in Ankara, in next year, with EURO Mini Conference Continuous Optimization in the Industry, July 29 – July 1, in Pécs, Hungary (cf Section 3.a), and, again

one year later with our fifth EUROPT Workshop and following EURO XXI in Reykjavik,

Island, and another special EURO event organized by GOR (German OR Society) and EUROPT!

Finally, an EJOR special issue Challenges of Continuous Optimization in Theory and

Applications has been announced during the workshop The four guest editors are Mirjam Dür

(TU Darmstadt, Germany), Bülent Karasözen and Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber (both from METU, Ankara, Turkey) and EUROPT’s deputy at EJOR, Tamas Terlaky (Mc Master University, Hamilton, Canada) This special issue should be published at the end of 2005 Please find closer information about our call for papers and about EJOR’s instructions for authors in

http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/Rhodes%20workshop-EJOR%20special%20i ssue.doc and in

http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/European%20Journal%20of%20Operational

%20Research.htm, respectively

This important EUROPT event on the beautiful and unique island of Rhodes, pearl of nature

and history in blue sea, will additionally be supported IAM of METU, Ankara, Turkey, by

German OR Society (GOR) and by University of the Aegean, Greece.

2.b EURO Summer Institute in 2004

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This is the final report of XXII EURO Summer Institute which took place at Middle East

Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, from July 9-25, 2004, on the subject

“Optimization and Data Mining” ESI XXII has been sponsored by

o Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO),

o Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBITAK)

and supported by

o Institute of Applied Mathematics (IAM) , METU

o Operational Research Society of Turkey (ORST)

The idea of ESI XXII was born and developed during EURO/INFORMS Joint International

Meeting (Istanbul, July 6-10, 2003) and, together with that conference, ESI XXII has become

a key events in the course of European collaboration in the field of Operations Research (OR), supported and surrounded by Turkish hospitality, rich old culture and enthusiasm of its young scientific generation Herewith, we tried to justify the great confidence and sympathy which have been given to us by EURO, by the OR societies

The scientific atmosphere and challenge which could be felt and celebrated by our ESI XXII community during the 2-3 weeks in Ankara, based on the combination of its two parts, of two scientific research fields and traditions within of OR and EURO:

• data mining, being widely accepted and appreciated today as a key application field in

management sciences, natural sciences and engineering,

• optimization, being a modern key technology prepared and offered by

mathematics and related sciences

The computer revolution has paved the way to a search for techniques capable of dealing with the huge amount of data information around us in all branches of sciences, bringing new theoretical and computational challenges to exciting research areas ranging from web page clustering, to computer vision, financial mathematics and bioinformatics, etc., to mention just

a few The perceptron algorithm, support vector machines, margin classifiers, k-means clustering, EM-algorithm, are just few examples of the terminologies we often encounter in classification, clustering and machine learning problems Optimization algorithms and

techniques are often at the heart of such methodologies, and a variety of other properties

leading to interpretation and computation of solutions relies on optimization techniques as well

The scientific aim of this summer institute consisted of seeking solutions to challenging data mining problems within the use and development of advanced / modern mathematical optimization and statistics tools The special structures often encountered in data mining

systems also provide motivation for further investigations on new optimization

methods and algorithms capable of handling very large scale data, and hence this summer meeting advanced both areas.

As Prof Dr Jakob Krarup (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) is his lecture during the ESI opening pointed out, our ESI XXII in Ankara, on the Anatolian part of Turkey, has the first EURO Summer Institute outside of Europe which implies a bridge function The news about ESI XXII spread into all over Turkey; many scientists in the field were attracted and made a short visit of ESI 2004 Herewith, our summer institute in Turkey gave a strong impulse of science and friendship to Europe and the world Furthermore, ESI XXII is embedded into a line of scientific events organized by EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization (EUROPT) and EURO in these years 2003-2005, taking place in the South East and East of

Europe, inviting and supporting the colleagues and youth there, and always having the European and OR perspective of well understanding, participation and collaboration in mind

Organising Committee consisted of

• Bülent Karasözen, METU (Ankara, Turkey), Chairman of ESI 2004

• Mirjam Dür, TU Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany),

• Tibor Illes, Eötvös Lorand University of Sciences (Budapest, Hungary),

• Sinan Kayalığil, METU (Ankara, Turkey),

• Stefan W Pickl, University of Cologne (Cologne, Germany),

• Mustafa Pınar, Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey),

• Leonidas Sakalauskas, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics (Vilnius, Lithuania),

• Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, METU (Ankara, Turkey), Co-Chairman of ESI 2004,

Scientific Programme Committee consisted of

• Aydın Aytuna, METU (Ankara, Turkey),

• Miguel Goberna, University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain),

• Refik Güllü, METU (Ankara, Turkey),

• Florian Jarre, University of Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, Germany),

• Tamas Terlaky, McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada),

• Hayri Körezlioğlu, METU (Ankara, Turkey),

• Katya Scheinberg, IBM (New York, USA),

• Marc Teboulle, Tel-Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel), Chairman,

• Theodore Trafalis, University of Oklahoma (Norman, USA)

The project idea of our ESI 2004 arose during EURO/IFORS Joint International Meeting (Istanbul, July 6-10, 2003) In those days, having just finished EUROPT Workshop on

Advances in Continuous Optimization (Istanbul, July 4-5, 2003) with its likewise exciting

atmosphere and dynamics guaranteed, last but not least, by the enthusiasm of young Turkish participants, some active members of EUROPT and also EURO Working Group on Complex Societal Problems, especially, Dr Dorien DeTombe, became in favour, active in supporting our ESI application Despite the fact, that the deadline for ESI submission had passed already, doors opened and we were still allowed to prepare and to submit our application The authors are very grateful to Prof Dr Zilla Sinuany-Stern and to the other members of EURO Executive Council In the following weeks, we prepared our application for ESI XXII in 2004 with a lot of energy and care It became a common project of EUROPT, ORST (Operational Research Society of Turkey) and IAM (Institute of Applied Mathematics) of METU Our application was accepted during the meeting of EURO Executive Meeting in 2003

We proceeded with our preparations and announcements of ESI XXII in Ankara, Turkey In autumn 2003, we send an invitation and, later on, in April 2004, a reminding invitation to our ESI 2004 via EURO, where ESI 2004 became announced by e-mails to national OR societies,

to IFORS and related continental OR societies, and by registration of ESI 2004 in the

Calendar of the Association of European Operational Research Societies

(http://www.euro-online.org) Furthermore, advertising and information about our ESI was since the end of

since April 2004 done by the EURO (Online) Bulletin under

http://www.euro-online.org/onlineBulletin.php Finally, we gave detailed information and made further announcements about ESI 2004 by ESI homepage

http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/esi04/index.html, by EUROPT working group homepage under http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/ and by the EUROPT link at http://www.euro-online.org/display.php?page=working_groups& on the homepage of EURO By all these

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treatments, by many special e-mails and a number of mailing lists used, many interested people got aware and attracted by our initiative of ESI XXII in Turkey project

By the end of April 2004, 26 applications by young people reached us via national OR

societies, via IFORS, ALIO, and also via professors from the countries Russia and Ukraine,

which are not in EURO, or, by exception, via direct e-mails sent to us if the deadline of application via the national OR society had passed or no local contact person was known Among these submitted applications, there has been one student sent to us via ALIO, namely, Kelly Cristina Poldi (Brasil) and two students sent to us via IFORS, namely, Fernando Alexis Crespo Romero (Chile) and Sethuraman J (India) Based on the recommendation of their societies and teachers, we from ESI XXII Organizing and Scientific Committee finally accepted all our applicants and their requested draft papers

The tentative ESI program became published in June 2004, the final program became completed at the beginning of July 2004 and distributed to all participants of our ESI

The total number of young participants turned out be 23, and the number of invited lecturers was 9, thus the total number of all our guests became 32 Our ESI 2004 participants traveled

to us from 20 different countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, France, India, Italy,

Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and USA

In order to give to all our ESI participants the opportunity to make new scientific and social experiences, to learn and to develop their skills in the fields of optimization and data mining,

to explore a country which is new for most of them, ESI XXII was organized on the wide and

green campus of Middle East Technical University METU combines the advantages of fresh

air and calmness with modern facilities and with the dynamical and vivid young atmosphere

of student life

ESI XXII took place in Exhibition Hall of University Library of METU Teachers and young participants were accommodated in Guesthouse and Students Guest House of METU The

session program including a break at midday of three hours, the accommodation and feeding

of the participants were organized in the neighbourhood of a 10 minutes walking distance

The final programme can be found under http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/esi04/esiprog.pdf

All invited speakers of ESI XXII, namely,

 Prof Dr Alexander Rubinov (School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences, Ballarat, Australia),

 Prof Dr Lorenz T Biegler (Carnegie Mellon University, USA),

 Dr Sebnem Düzgün (METU, Ankara, Turkey),

 Prof Dr Sjur D Flam (Bergen University, Norway),

 Prof Dr Jacob Kogan (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA),

 PD Dr Michael Kohler (University of Stuttgart, Germany),

 Prof Dr Jakob Krarup (University of Copenhagen, Denmark),

 Prof Dr Boris Polyak (Institute of Control Science, Moscow, Russia),

 Prof Dr Georg Still (University of Twente, The Netherlands).

remained for 6-16 days to share common time with our young people: at the lecture time, at the meals and social events, or just in between Their didactically well prepared and presented talks covered a wide range in the fields of optimization and data mining By us organizers,

copies of the teacher’s lectures were distributed in the lecture room and will hopefully become helpful for further reading and learning by the participants All the talks can be found at ESI webpage (http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/esi04/index.html)

At the last day of scientific program, July 23, ESI Diplomas (certificates) are handed out to

all our ESI students

Among the social events and activities which have been organized, we would like to mention:

 welcome party given by Institute of Applied Mathematics

(Friday, July 9)

 trip by bus to Beypazari, a small Anatolian town on the silk road

(Sunday, July 11)

 visit of old city of Old City of Ankara and of famous Museum of

Anatolian Civilizations (Wednesday, July 13)

 reception by Operational Research Society of Turkey

(Friday, July 16)

 trip to Cappadocia with sightseeing of spectacular nature

and heritages of early Christianity (Saturday - Sunday, July 17-18)

 Turkish night in Cappadocia (Saturday, July 17)

 going into the mountains of METU and watching the sunset

(Monday, July 19)

 volleyball and football tournaments (Wednesday, July 21)

 ESI 2004 dinner and farewell-party (Friday, July 23)

The participants spent their further free time for sport activities, especially, swimming and walking, for shopping, dancing, for visiting Atatürk’s Mausoleum and, organized by themselves, for a “European Song Contest”, or just for discussing or resting

By intensive sharing of common time, we also intended to have some continuous feedback from all participants, to hold on being sensitive about their questions (e.g., on computers with internet access which were well provided, on transportation or additional trips), their wishes (e.g., of dancing) and their problems (e.g., in case of illness) Based on this continuous

attention and online exchange, we tried to serve our guests and new friends best possible According to the response given to us, the 23 students from Europe and all over the word, and the 9 experienced invited ESI teachers really enjoyed our summer institute, its scientific and

its social parts and events likewise

The young participants appreciated the high quality of invited lectures, the handouts of their talks prepared, and they accepted their offer of scientific advice and personal exchange with pleasure From our invited speakers we heard how much they are in favour of the young people’s well behaviour and scientific level All of the participants seemed to be satisfied with the balance between organized time and free time The personal exchange we had, the collaboration and friendship founded and the e-mails we later on received show us that your guests enjoyed our ESI in Turkey very much

We have invited the ESI participants to write us more about their further impressions about

our Summer Institute and also by writing short reports and stories in the EURO initiative

Branding OR of EURO Two ESI students, Jutta Gebert and Nicole Radde, prepared a short

report about ESI 2004 (cf http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/BrandingOR.doc) as a contribution to this initiative Another one has been written by F Jarre, T Terlaky and G.-W

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Weber about those about 5 challenging applications of Continuous Optimization (we

mentioned this above)

There have been two more and special ways how the participants’ satisfaction, closeness and identification with ESI XXII and its community manifested itself On the one hand, many

participants became member of our EURO working group EUROPT Today we may state that

about 50-60% of our ESI participants will collaborate within of EUROPT in future

Based on a friendly and warm atmosphere at ESI 2005, the entire group of participants became some kind of a family, and various rich plans for future works and meetings became prepared

Finally, in conversations at evenings of ESI 2004 held by the two IFORS students Fernando Alexis Crespo Romero (Chile) and Sethuraman J (India) with Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, the ideas by Operations Research to serve the citizens of less developed countries; this led to the

foundation of the group Young People for OR in Developing Countries (YORC) This group

has many members now from various countries, an advisory board consisting of experienced and renowned colleagues, and a very good appreciation among the leaders of EURO! In fact, together with the corresponding “DC” group from OR Society of United Kingdom, YORC is

hopefully becoming one the germ for founding EURO Working Group on Development at the

occasion of EURO XXI Conference, July 2-5, 2005, in Reykjavik, Iceland! Of course, you are very welcome to join and work with us!

Also for our ESI 2004, a EJOR special issue Optimization in Data Mining has been

announced during ESI XXII The three guest editors will be Alexander Rubinov (University

of Ballarat, Australia), Bülent Karasözen and Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber (METU, Ankara, Turkey) Corresponding editor-in-chief will be Jacques Teghem (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) This special issue should be published at the end of 2005 Please find closer information about our call for papers and about EJOR’s instructions for authors in http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/ESI%202004-EJOR%20special%20issue.doc and in http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/European%20Journal%20of%20Operational

%20Research.htm, respectively

Once again we would like to express our gratitude to all people and organizations, especially EURO, who by their hard work and great sympathy, by strong devotion, confidence and financial support helped ESI XXII in Turkey to become a great success and service for scientific progress, a better understanding and heartfelt friendship in Europe and the world

2.c EURO Conference in 2004

At EURO XX Conference (http://www.euro-rhodes2004.org/) held at July 4-7, 2004, on Rhodes, Greece, EUROPT contributed by a semi-plenary lecture given by our friend from

EUROPT and POP, Alexander Rubinov (School of Information Technology and

Mathematical Sciences, Ballarat, Australia) and by 4 sessions to three fields modern fields of

modern continuous optimization These are Semi-Infinite Optimization and Related Topics,

organized in a devoted way already by Miguel Goberna, Marco A Lopez (both from University of Alicante, Spain), Maxim Todorov (Universidad de las Americas, Puebla,

Mexico), Optimization of Biosystems (Computational Biology), organized by Stefan W Pickl

(University of Cologne, Germany) and Metin Türkay (Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey), and

a third attractive session about Global Optimization organized by Mirjam Dür (TU Darmstadt,

Germany)

One more reason for us to be very glad is the finalization at the turn from 2004 to 2005 and

and publication in 2005 of another Feature Cluster in European Journal of Operational

Research prepared by us from EUROPT which appeared in 2005 This is a EURO special

issue integrated as a mayor part into an EJOR issue, and it is called Advances in Continuous

Optimization The guest editors are B Karasözen, M Pınar, T Terlaky and G.-W Weber.

Thanks to all who served among the 23 authors and coauthors of the 9 papers and among the

14 referees!

3 Activities Planned in 2005

In 2005, there is one highlight event which EUROPT organizes with its friends:

(a) 17 th EURO Mini Conference “Optimization in Industry”,

but we also give contributions to

(b) The 8 th SIAM Conference on Optimization,

(c) IFORS 2005,

(e) Workshop “Sustainable Living in Rural Areas of Turkey”,

and we finalize

(f) two special issues of European Journal of Operational Research.

3.a 17 th EURO Mini Conference

The 17th EURO Mini Conference is entitled Optimization in Industry and it is organized by

o Hungarian Operational Research Society (HORS),

o University of Pécs,

o EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization (EUROPT) and

o co-sponsor and partner: German Operations Research Society (GOR).

We are very happy that EURO accepted our application without problems, and that among all

the applications for a EURO MC 2005, our one by EUROPT got it became ranked so highly! Furthermore, at the beginning of the year 2005, by GOR becoming our co-sponsor, what is

more, a partnership between HORS and GOR was prepared and signed! This contract and

friendship can prepare and open the way to various collaboration and exchange, e.g., an annual OR conference by both OR societies in Hungary in future!

Aims and Scope of the Conference:

In history, Hungary has been the home of renowned scientists from Operational Research, such as Farkas, von Neumann or Erdös But also in these modern times Hungary enjoys very much to host friends from OR, from EURO and all over the world In 2000, the year of the millenium, Hungary OR Society said a sincere welcome to the participants of XVII Conference in Budapest (July 16-19, 2000), and a few days before, at Second IPM Workshop IPM-2000 (Budapest, July 13-14, 2000), there was the birth town of EUROPT, which from

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