Applied mathematics
Explore mathematics articles on the theme of applied mathematics.
Optimizing renewable energy use | Tangente
Fossil fuels result from a decomposition process lasting several million years, which concentrates them into a form that can be transported, stored and released when needed. By contrast, the energy carried by sunlight, blowing wind or flowing water must be captured directly where it occurs.
Scheduling: Mathematical planning | Tangente
Deciding when to carry out the tasks needed to achieve a goal sometimes calls for imagination—or abstraction. Yet all such situations can draw on scheduling theory, a field of operations research that has been highly active for over a century.
Metaheuristics: approximate optimization | Tangente
NP-hard problems, combinatorial explosion, models with millions of variables and exponentially many inequalities… What can we do when no optimization method works? Which method should we use when we want to solve a problem quickly?
Integer linear programming | Tangente
Solving optimization problems may require formulating them as mathematical models. Integer linear programming does this using only linear polynomials whose variables must take integer values.
Operations research in healthcare: medical assignment problems | Tangente
Hospitals face many optimization problems that can be solved optimally within a reasonable time using so-called polynomial-time algorithms. Among them, the Hungarian algorithm is used to assign resources, while the Gale–Shapley algorithm is used for matching (or pairing).
Surgical scheduling using operations research | Tangente
Healthcare is a broad field of application for operations research, which provides tools for optimizing the use of limited resources—budgets, beds, healthcare staff, and so on—to meet demand. The hospital network employs thousands of people to treat tens of thousands of patients, using tonnes of medicines and equipment. Managing such a large and varied demand for care has become a scientific challenge.
Electoral redistricting: the mathematics of voting | Tangente
The bill to renew democratic life, as presented to the Council of Ministers in August 2019, includes a major reform of parliamentary elections. How, and to what extent, can the principle of "one person, one vote"—the foundation of the republican ideal that all citizens should have an equal say at the ballot box—be achieved with this new electoral map?
Network flows, transport and cuts | Tangente
Many transport problems can be modelled using "flows". One example is the transmission of electricity discussed in this article. Other classic applications involve transporting fluids (gas, water, oil, etc.) as well as people or goods (by truck, train, ship, etc.).
Combinatorial paths: shortest paths | Tangente
When we choose our route as we go, we must decide between several paths, just as in a maze. The same question arises at every new junction, creating a combinatorial explosion in the number of possible routes. How can we circumvent this explosion?
RO in quarantine: optimizing lockdown life | Tangente
Confined to our homes because of Covid-19, we all suffered from having to restrict our living space, share the household computer, continue our schooling in chaotic conditions and help with chores we had previously managed to avoid.
Great names in operations research: Edmonds and Dantzig | Tangente
A few portraits of mathematicians whose work had a major impact on operational research
ROADEF/EURO challenge: 20 years of OR competitions | Tangente
This challenge is an exemplary model of collaboration between industry and academia in solving operations research problems!
CNRS operational research group | Tangente
In France, research laboratories are often large—sometimes employing several hundred researchers—and span several disciplines. GDRs coordinate research in a particular discipline across laboratories, allowing researchers to exchange ideas directly with other specialists in their field, all of whom are brought together within the GDR.
ROADEF, a learned society for operational research | Tangente
Since its founding in 1998, ROADEF has played an important role in operational research in France.
Operational research in France: a history | Tangente
Operational research (OR) seems to have emerged in the US military, first in radar development and then in inventory management during the First World War.
Deflecting an asteroid with mathematics | Tangente
An international team is tasked with studying the possibility of deflecting the trajectories of asteroids if there is a risk of collision with Earth.
Improving the 200 m record with maths | Tangente
What if speed records could be improved by changing the shape of athletics tracks?
Modélisation des écoulements d'air autour des éoliennes : équations de Navier-Stokes et simulations numériques
The energy sector needs advanced mathematical expertise. In wind energy, modeling airflow means grappling with the formidable Navier–Stokes equations. Numerical simulation draws on a variety of discretization techniques.
Shortest paths: graph algorithms | Tangente
Is the shortest path from A to B always a straight line? Usually, yes. But when we must follow the network of roads and intersections in a city, we need a different perspective. That is where Dijkstra's algorithm comes to the rescue!
Optimal packing of squares in a larger square | Tangente
You'll never arrange your boxes the same way again!