Award for Chemnitz Mathematician

Dr. David Müller of the Professorship of Business Mathematics was honored with a Best Paper Award at the renowned international Summer School

Dr. David Müller, research assistant at the Professorship of Economathematics (Head: Prof. Dr. Vladimir Shikhman) at Chemnitz University of Technology, was awarded the Best Paper Award at the 3rd Summer School on Optimization, Big Data and Applications, which took place from July 3 to 9, 2022, in Veroli (Italy). The award is endowed with 500 euros. "For me, this award was the crowning glory of an interesting, productive and great week. I see the award as a nice and motivating confirmation of our research work," says award winner David Müller.

Müller convinced the jury with his presentation on "A trend-setting game with influencer based on an inexact alternating minimization algorithm". The jury was international and of high caliber. It consisted of: Laura Palagi (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy), Peter Frazier (Cornell University/Uber, USA), Andrew Wilson (New York University/Amazon, USA), Fabio Schoen (University of Florence, Italy) and Guido Cocchi (founder of Intuendi).

The Summer School on Optimization, Big Data and Applications takes place every two years in the small Italian town of Veroli. During the conference, renowned researchers speak on topics and challenges that are currently in demand. For example, on so-called "Generative Adversarial Networks", which are causing a stir in the form of automated image programs such as DALL-E.

The award-winning presentation from Chemnitz is based on a joint research work with Prof. Dr. Vladimir Shikhman. The work entitled "Network manipulation algorithm based on inexact alternating minimization" has already been accepted by the Journal of Computational Management Science. "I am glad that my colleague David Müller was awarded the Best Paper Award in Veroli. His research activity in the border area of mathematics and economics has thus attracted considerable attention in the interdisciplinary environment," says Vladimir Shikhman delightedly.

In their work, the two researchers investigate how so-called "economic agents" can manipulate the short-term dynamics in a network with the help of organizations. A concrete example of this is companies that want to influence trends in the truest sense with the help of influencers.

In their study, the researchers found, among other things, that the behavior of agents and organizations naturally leads to a so-called alternating minimization process. In terms of the influencer example, this would mean that companies divide up their budgets, and influencers then select their posts based on the revenue they receive.

Results and ideas from the award-winning publication have also been incorporated into Dr. David Müller's dissertation on "Algorithmic aspects of discrete choice in convex optimization", which was recently successfully defended at the Faculty of Mathematics at Chemnitz University of Technology.

For further information, please contact Dr. David Müller, Professorship of Business Mathematics, Tel. +49 371 531-31268, e-mail david.mueller@mathematik.tu-chemnitz.de.

(Translation: Brent Benofsky)

Matthias Fejes
26.07.2022

All "University News" articles