Welcome to the course homepage for TMA947/MMG621: Nonlinear Optimisation!

This page contains the information regarding lectures and exercise sessions, as well as teachers, literature, examination, and links to other useful parts.

Make sure to also look at THIS PAGE for a more detailed program of the course and some more detailed information.

The course syllabus can be found HERE, and the TimeEdit schedule can be found HERE.

Teachers

Axel Ringh
Lecturer and examiner
Assistant professor, Mathematical Sciences
Email: axelri@chalmers.se

Eric Lindström
Teaching assistant
PhD student, Mathematical Sciences
Email: erilinds@chalmers.se

Jan Gundelach
Teaching assistant
PhD student, Mathematical Sciences
Email: jangund@chalmers.se

Mykola Pochekai
Teaching assistant
PhD student, Mathematical Sciences
Email: pochekai@chalmers.se

Sunney Fotedar
Teaching assistant
PhD student, Mathematical Sciences
Email: sunney@chalmers.se

Ziming Wang
Teaching assistant
Postdoc, Mathematical Sciences
Email: zimingwa@chalmers.se

Course literature

An Introduction to Continuous Optimization, 3rd Edition
N. Andréasson, A. Evgrafov, E. Gustavsson, Z. Nedělková, M. Patriksson, K.C. Sou, and M. Önnheim
Published by Studentlitteratur in 2016, and found in the Cremona book store
Also published by Dover in 2020.

Teaching

Lectures

Lectures will be held on campus. Generally, there are two lectures per week: Mondays 8-10, and Tuesdays 15-17.
(One the first, the second, and the last week of the course, the schedule is unfortunately not as regular - please see TimeEdit).

A detailed plan for the lectures can be found on the Program page HERE. Please also see the TimeEdit schedule above.

The first lecture is Monday 28/8 at 8:00-9:45 in lecture hall HB4.

Exercise

The exercises will be held both on campus (3 groups) and online in Zoom (2 groups). Links to the Zoom-meetings can be found here below.

Generally, there are two sessions per week: Mondays 10-12, and Fridays 8-10 (except week six of the course).

A detailed plan for the exercise sessions can be found on the Program page HERE. Please also see the TimeEdit schedule above.

Monday on-campus sessions:
Euler: Eric
FL41: Jan
MVH12: Ziming

Friday on-campus sessions:
MVF26: Eric
MVF31: Jan
MVF33: Ziming

Online session WITHOUT Assignment exercises:
Zoom link (password: opt) : Mykola
Zoom link (password: opt2023SF) : Sunney

Online session WITH Assignment exercises:
Zoom link (password: opt2023_) : Mykola & Sunney

Notes from exercises

Mykola's notes: sharepoint link

Examination

The examination in the course consist of three mandatory parts, and one voluntary part that gives bonus points to the exam. These are described in more detail below.

Exam (mandatory)

The exam will be held on campus. So in order to take the exam you need to physically attend at the Chalmers campus. To attend the exam, you also need to register for it: general instructions for Chalmers students can be found here and general instructions for GU students can be found here.

Information about the exam:

The date of the exam is the same for both TMA947 and MMG621 and should be in TimeEdit. For Chalmers students, you can also see this link; for GU students, you can also see this link.

Assignment exercises (voluntary)

For the exercise sessions on Fridays for reading weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5, as well as the exercise sessions on Mondays reading weeks 7 and 8, there are a number of assignment exercises (see the Program page here). Completing such exercises gives bonus points to the final exam.

How it works:

You prepare the exercises at home.
You attend the corresponding session and mark which exercises you have prepared.
The teacher will then randomly select a student to present each assignment exercise. If you are selected to present, you should present your solution on the blackboard (on Zoom you should show your solution. Make sure you have prepared your solutions digitally so that you can share your screen. Scanned handwritten solutions are OK).

You do not need to submit your solutions. You only need to mark on the lists that you have prepared the exercises and then be ready to present them if you are selected.
When solving the exercises, it is ok to discuss with other students. However, the Assignment exercises are an individual task, and should not be seen as a group work. You should solve the exercises and prepare the solution for the presentation yourself.
Do not cheat - cheating will result in disqualification of all bonus points. Examples of cheating are: copying someone else solution; marking that you have prepared an exercises that you have not.
If you have prepared a solution for an exercise, but the solution turns out to be wrong when you present it, you will not get bonus points for that question. However, you do get the bonus points for the other questions that you marked that week.

There will be in total 24 assignment exercises (4 exercises for each of the 6 sessions) .

20 marks (that are correct) gives 2 bonus points on the exam
12 marks (that are correct) gives 1 bonus point on the exam

A list of all the assignment exercises corresponding to each exercise session can be found on the Program page HERE.

Computer exercises (mandatory)

There are two computer exercises in the course, and they are performed in Matlab. The exercises should be performed at home (or in the computer rooms at Chalmers) before the presentations sessions, in groups of 1 - 3 students.

Examination will be performed both on campus and in Zoom meetings (see link below). For for the first computer exercise, there are two different days available for presentation, and for the second computer exercise there are three different days available for presentation. For each computer exercise, the group should sign up to ONE time slot on ONE of the days.

Links to the choodles where the groups can sign up will be posted below (and in an announcement) in due time.

Computer exercise 1: sign up via choodle link https://choodle.portal.chalmers.se/RrrhQLfhN7HWkSdb
Computer exercise 2: sign up via choodle link https://choodle.portal.chalmers.se/8q8M9ef6arWcU9xj

Link for digital presentations: Zoom link (password: opt2023_)

The computer exercises are only graded as pass/fail.

Project (mandatory)

The project is carried out in groups of 2 - 3 students. You create groups yourself, and instructions for doing so can be found here: Create project group

The aim of this part is to introduce you to mathematical modelling, and for you to implement and solve the optimization problem (using julia or AMPL). You also have to analyze the results and write a report on the model and the numerical results. Instructions for the project can be found HERE (under Files). The report should be submitted through this Canvas assignment, will be made available after the deadline for forming groups. The deadline for submitting the report is 13/10.

More details can be found on the Program page HERE.

The project is only graded as pass/fail.

Student representatives and course evaluation

At the beginning of the course, at least two student representatives should have been appointed to carry out the course evaluation together with the teachers. The evaluation takes place through conversations between teachers and student representatives during the course and at a meeting after the end of the course when the survey result is discussed and a report is written.

Guidelines for Course evaluation in Chalmers student portal.

The student representatives for the course are:

Chalmers TKGBS: Elsa Arte, elsaxarte@gmail.com

Chalmers MPENM: Emil Babayev, babayev@student.chalmers.se

GU Master Math: Yusi He gusheyuz@student.gu.se

GU Bachelor Math: Rasmus Grönlund, rasmus.gronlund@gmail.com

Other information

Old exams in the course can be found on this Page. They are also available under Files.
There are some known errors in the course book. An errata can be found Errors in the course book (3rd Edition).
There is also a lot of support available at both Chalmers and GU. Some of it is collected in this module and in this module, respectively.

Changes compared to the last occasion

The following are changes since last course round: the topic of integer programming and modelling has been removed from the course content; the schedule of lectures and exercises sessions has been updated; a new exercises session with repetition has been introduced; new project; new assignment exercises; the list of theorems have been revised; more detailed reading instructions has been added.

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