The purpose of this project is to provide travel and living expenses for some students and faculty to participatein the 17th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP 2000) to be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology, August 7 - August 11, 2000. The support will be provided only to those who otherwise could not afford to attend. The project is split funded by the Division of Mathematical Sciences, the Division of International Programs and the Division of Design, Manufacturing and Industrial Innovation and will fund participants in two categories: 1.Domestic 2.International scientists from Eastern Europe. In the first category, preference will be given to students, junior collegues, women and minorities. The term mathematical programming is synonymous with optimization. In a mathematical programming or optimization problem, one seeks to maximize or minimize an objective function, subject to constraints on the variables. Research in the field covers a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the theoretical analysis of the structural properties of optimization problems and the development and implementation of algorithms for their solution, to practical work in areas such as telecommunications, logistics, manufacturing, structural engineering, economics, finance, biology and even pure mathematics. Recent successful applications include the design of survivable telecommunication networks, crew scheduling, vehicle routing, production and inventory control, VLSI layout, the design of lightweight, durable engineering structures, portfolio planning and DNA string matching. The symposium covers the latest research results in the field with plenary presentations given by leading international experts and many other talks (more than 1000) given by scientists from more than 40 countries. The symposium is held every three years and is considered to be the major event in the field.
