The recent progress in network technologies and availability of large distributed computer systems has increased the need for efficient algorithms for solving the diverse optimization problems that arise in the management and usage of communication networks. Technological developments in communication networks, like broad-band, all-optical, and ATM networks have made this area very interesting and important in recent years. They have also created new research directions and projects. The objectives of this seminar are of both theoretical and practical significance. The seminar aims to contribute to the theory of approximation, randomized, and on-line algorithms for problems arising in communication networks. It also has as a goal to explore the use of this theory in the solution of real world applications and in the development of practical algorithmic tools, thus fostering the cooperation among theoretical and practical researchers in this field.

The topics of the seminar include: routing and communication in networks, design of high performance networks, wavelength routing in optical networks, ATM network problems, quality of service, robustness issues, frequency assignment in radio networks, time and resource constrained scheduling, scheduling with communication delays, load balancing, and resource allocation.

The seminar is intended to bring together researchers from different areas in combinatorial optimization and from applications. It will support the collaboration between researchers in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and related areas.

The seminar has the following goals:

• pose new optimization problems arising from applications in communication networks,
• design improved approximation algorithms for optimization problems in communication networks,
• study new algorithmic methods using randomization, linear, and nonlinear programming,
• discuss the practical implementation of different techniques and methods proposed for solving network communication problems,
• exchange information on recent research and stimulate further research in this area.