ALIGARH  : The three-day G20-themed international conference on “Variational Analysis and Optimization with Applications”, organized by the Department of Mathematics, Aligarh Muslim University began here today with a galaxy of eminent mathematicians from all over the world participating in the event.

In his inaugural address, the chief guest, AMU Vice Chancellor Prof Mohammad Gulrez said that with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the significance of variational analysis and optimization, especially in computing, has increased multiple times and this conference will greatly help our researchers, faculty members and students in getting acquainted with the advanced applications of these techniques.

He said that the Department of Mathematics has a glorious history and it has always held a place among the flag bearing departments in the university. He expressed happiness on it becoming the best in the country among all departments of mathematics, ranked by the reputed US News and World Report global universities’ ranking, 2023.

“It reflects the recognition of the hard work put into by the faculty members and research scholars who published research papers and earned citations for their noteworthy studies. I hope this achievement will inspire other departments of studies and their ranking will also increase with time”, he added.

The guest of honour, Prof Tamas Terlaky (RCEAS Lehigh University, USA) stressed that the importance of our area of research is confined by the wide spread use of variational analysis and optimization in every segment of the economy. It covers a wide range of areas across multi-dimensional industry applications, including the product design, shape and trajectory design, logistics and production optimization, robotics and autonomous vehicles, mobile phones, data classification, machine and deep learning, etc.

He stated that the importance of these research areas is highlighted by the fact that they are highly represented in academia across the colleges and many departments in top universities. The significance of variational analysis and optimization lies in the fact that it is being used at a large scale in the fields from Mathematics to Computer Science, engineering, business management and beyond.

Earlier, welcoming the guests, Prof M Ashraf, Chairperson, Department of Mathematics shed light on the glorious history of the department, attracting extraordinary scholars as its faculty right from its inception as a part of the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College. Prof. Harold Cox joined the department in 1884 and the author of the legendary text-book on Arithmetics, Jadav Chand Chakarvarti joined the department in 1887 and remained on its staff throughout his life. In 1895, a very talented young man Ziauddin Ahmad joined the department as an Assistant Lecturer who achieved many distinctions such as the first Indian awardee of the coveted Isaac Newton Scholarship of Cambridge University and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and London Mathematical Society, besides earning the title of ‘Sir” which became the part of his name. He also served the Aligarh Muslim University as its Vice-Chancellor twice.

The greatest French Mathematician of the last century, Andre Weil started his career from this department in 1931 and during his stay of about two years, he remodeled the syllabi, set up a seminar library and established a research group with Prof. D.D. Kausambi and Prof. T.K. Vijayraghvan as its member. Dr. Hans Lascheim from Berlin took over the charge of the department in 1933 after Andre Weil and guided its multifarious activities for three years.

He said that the department has produced 59 PhD’s and published more than 800 Research papers in SCI/Scopus indexed Journals over the last 5 years. Currently 93 research scholars are working in the department in various Pure and Applied branches of Mathematics.

“This conference presents a rare opportunity to the participants to come together, share their knowledge, exchange ideas, and foster collaborations that have the potential to drive innovation and progress in their field”, he added.

Prof Q.H. Ansari, Convener of the conference and Dean, Faculty of Science said that a number of programmes were organized to celebrate India’s presidency of the G20 summit and this conference is also based on the theme of the G20 summit, “One earth, one family, one future”.

He said we have a galaxy of renowned speakers, including Prof. Tamas Terlaky (USA), Prof. Suliman Al-Homidan (Saudi Arabia), Prof. Adil Baghirov (Australia), Prof. Orizon Pereira Ferreira (Brazil), Prof. Mohamed Amine Khamsi (UAE), Prof. Alexandru Kristaly (Romania), Prof. G.M. Lee (Korea) and Prof. Jinlu Li (USA). We also have several speakers from IITs and universities from India and we expect that more than 60 papers will be presented during the conference.

He pointed out that the Variational Analysis and Optimization lie at the heart of modern science and technology and several talks will be devoted to the applications of variational analysis and optimization in real world problems, like railways and public transport systems.

One of the main objectives of this conference is to provide a platform to the young and dynamic research scholars and faculty members to interact with the experts from different areas of variational analysis and optimization. The stimulating deliberations in the conference are likely to lead to collaborations and advances in these areas.

AMU Vice Chancellor, Prof Mohammad Gulrez gave away ‘Prof J. C. Yao Lifetime Research Excellence Award’ to Prof. Tamas Terlaky, USA, ‘Sir Ziauddin Outstanding Research Award’ to Prof. Suliman Homidan, KFUPM, Saudi Arabia and ‘Prof. Abul Hasan Siddiqi Brilliant Research Award’ to Prof. Amine Khamsi, UAE.

Prof Rais Ahmad, Co-Convener conducted the programme and Prof Kaleem Raza Kazmi proposed the vote of thanks.