Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering

From nonlinear optimization to clustering and machine learning passing through game theory: my personal research journey

 

In this talk I will briefly describe the research activity I have conducted during my career, including methodological and applicative contributions in nonlinear optimization, game theory, and machine learning. I will then focus on a very recent line of research, which aims at defining an exact algorithm for the solution of the Minimum Sum of Squares clustering problem, both in the unconstrained and constrained setting. This contribution is representative of my research journey since it combines recent machine learning competencies and well-established ones like the branch and bound technique and semidefinite programming. The resulting algorithm is the new state of the art since it allows a significant increase in the size of exactly solvable instances.