Combinatorial Reconfiguration (22w5090)

The Banff International Research Station will host the "Combinatorial Reconfiguration" workshop in Banff from May 8 - 13, 2022.

Combinatorial reconfiguration is a young and dynamic research area that studies the relationships among multiple solutions to a problem by considering the step-by-step transformation from one solution into another. In contrast to traditional problems in mathematics, which usually entail finding a single solution, reconfiguration can either be easier (because the solutions are provided as part of the input to the problem) or more difficult (because figuring out how to change one solution into another may be more difficult than simply constructing a solution).

As a concrete example of reconfiguration, we consider the assignment of customers to power stations such that each customer obtains as much power as is required without exceeding the capacity of what each station can produce. Each such assignment can be viewed as a solution. When a station needs to be repaired, it may be necessary to change to another assignment, moving customers one-by-one to minimize disruptions. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers in this new field, helping us to develop general approaches to reconfiguration problems as well as establish links to other fields in mathematics and computer science.

The Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is a collaborative Canada-US-Mexico venture that provides an environment for creative interaction as well as the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and methods within the Mathematical Sciences, with related disciplines and with industry. The research station is located at The Banff Centre in Alberta and is supported by Canada's Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Alberta's Advanced Education and Technology, and Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT).