Date: 
             Fri, 16 Aug 2002 11:34:09 -0400
    From: 
             Jim Parker <parker@siam.org>
        To: 
             opt@turing.siam.org




forwarded for Etienne de Klerk <e.deklerk@its.tudelft.nl>

Announcing a  2-year post-doc  position in  the Optimization
group of the  Delft University of Technology.

Requirements:
The  successful  candidate  will  have  completed  a  PhD in
(Applied)     Mathematics,    Operations    Research,     or
(Theoretical) Computer Science. Candidates from EU countries
will be considered first.

Salary:
Salary will  depend on  the candidate's  qualifications. The
maximum salary  (before tax) will be in the range Euro  3000
- 3500 (Scale 10 in the CAO of  Dutch Universities).

Starting date:
Within one year from September 1st, 2002

Project   title:

Semidefinite   Programming, Nonnegative Polynomials,  and
Approximation Theory

Summary:
Nonnegative polynomials are  of fundamental theoretical  and
practical   importance  in   mathematics.  The   theoretical
research on this topic dates back to the classical work
of Hilbert and Artin.

A  relatively  new  --- and  at  first  glance unrelated   -
-  -   branch   of   (applied)   mathematics   is   that  of
Semidefinite Programming  (SDP),  where  a linear   function
of  a matrix variable is optimized over the intersection  of
the   positive  semidefinite matrices  with  a given  affine
space.

SDP has received much attention due to its tractability  and
its   many     applications   in    control,   combinatorial
optimization,  engineering  design,   etc.  The  link   with
nonnegative polynomials is as  follows: SDP can be  used  to
determine whether or not  a given polynomial can  be written
as a sum  of  squares of  polynomials, by a  method known to
algebraic geometers as the  Gram matrix method. This  simple
observation has many  implications in  approximation  theory
and combinatorial optimization. Moreover, the   availability
of interior point  algorithms for SDP  allows us to  compute
various decompositions of polynomials efficiently.

The aim of this project is to do theoretical and computation
research along  these lines.

More information/ Applying for this position

For more information please contact Etienne de Klerk
(E.deKlerk@its.tudelft.nl). 
In particular, a detailed description of the
project is available.
To apply, please send a CV, cover letter, 
and the names of three references to:
    Dr. E. de Klerk,
    Delft University of Technology
    Faculty of Information Technology and Systems
    Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands

or via e-mail: E.deKlerk@ITS.TUDelft.nl