Submodular Functions, Optimization, and Applications

4 credits

Submodularity and supermodularity. Definitions, properties, operations that preserve submodularity, variants, certain special submodular functions, computational properties, matroids and lattices, polyhedral properties, semidifferentials, convex/concave extensions, constrained and unconstrained minimization and maximization, and generalizations of submodularity and uses in machine learning. Prerequisite: E E 510/A A 510/CHEM E 510/M E 510. Offered: even years.