Research in the mathematical field of “improvement” receives award from the Chilean Academy of Sciences – Radio Nuevo Mundo

Anton Svensson, an academic from O’Higgins State University (UOH), will receive the award for best doctoral dissertation in exact sciences 2021, on August 3. The award for the best doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences and the prize for scientific excellence will also be awarded to the young researcher “Adelina Gutiérrez” at this event.

Imagine designing an airplane that flies as fast as possible or choosing a car route that takes the least amount of time or uses the least amount of fuel. From a mathematical perspective, these problems can be addressed through “optimization”, which is the subject of a doctoral thesis conducted by researcher at the University of O’Higgins’ Institute of Engineering Sciences, Anton Svensson, which will be awarded by the Chilean Academy of Sciences.

“Classical optimization develops a series of mathematical techniques, such as calculus, to analyze aspects of optimization problems ranging from the existence of optima to the development of algorithms to find or approximate the optimum. However, these techniques assume that the functions describing the problem are smooth (or differentiable), i.e. A particular athlete, the researcher explains.

However, he adds that many application problems are more adequately described with functions that are not necessarily seamless. “The first part of my dissertation deals with this kind of problem through what is called sub-calculus, which is less restrictive in assumptions about functions. The contribution to this part was to suggest new formulas for sub-calculus,” says Svenson.

In the second part of my PhD thesis, a particular paradigm is considered – important – called binary optimization aka Stackelberg games. Between them there are two “players” who jointly make decisions, but at the same time do not cooperate. The player called the “subordinate” behaves only passively in reaction to the decisions of the other player, the leader. Instead, the leader considers the reaction of the follower a “curve” in a process their decision making Although these models are very useful when there is some hierarchy in decision making, they present great difficulties for their mathematical analysis and for calculating their solutions, so the progress made in the thesis is a valuable step among many others that remains to be taken,” explains a civil engineer-mathematician and PhD in engineering sciences.

The third and final part of the thesis deals with the theory of equilibrium problems. “This is a little more independent than its predecessors, in terms of research questions, but it is essential for the correct definition of each level of Stackelberg games, when there are many leaders and many followers,” notes the researcher out.

Academy Award

As a result of the work carried out and described above, Anton Svensson and his thesis will be awarded by the Chilean Academy of Sciences next Wednesday, August 3, as the best doctoral dissertation in exact sciences 2021. They will also receive the award for the best doctorate. A thesis in Natural Sciences 2021, a Young Researcher Scientific Excellence Award “Adelina Gutiérrez” 2021 and diplomas for researchers in the Frontier Sciences Program 2022-2024 will be awarded.

About this award, Anton Svensson says he is happy and surprised. “It is gratifying to know that the work and dedication, of myself and those supporting me with my thesis, results in a positive evaluation by the scientific community. It was very good to start last Friday with the news so early in the day. In fact, I saw the email notification Thursday evening, when I was already in bed, but decided to see the content the day after bed without thinking about it, ”says the researcher.

And about the reason for the award, he says that he cannot attribute the value of the letter alone. It was a collaborative effort. The initial topics were suggested to me by my existing teachers, but then together we started directing them. I believe that the thesis work led to this award because it has breadth and depth. Various topics were covered and it was possible to search deep enough to find interesting things from a theoretical and applied point of view,” he concludes.

Anton Svensson, an academic at O’Higgins University’s Institute of Engineering Sciences, developed his Ph.D. in engineering sciences between 2015 and 2020.