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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Chris Bail @chrisbail.bsky.social · 1d

Junior and senior faculty positions in computational social scientists at Bocconi, one of the world's best universiites: Assistant Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=841
Associate/Full Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=843

Job Market - Bocconi University

Recruiting, Faculty, Post-doc Grant, Collaboration Contracts

jobmarket.unibocconi.eu

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Jukka Suomela @jukkasuomela.fi · 1d

The elections for new members of the EATCS General Assembly have started. All EATCS members (which includes everyone who has recently taken part in ICALP, ESA, MFCS, or DISC) can vote, log on at www.eatcs.org and follow the instructions there!

European Association for Theoretical Computer Science

www.eatcs.org

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Tom Gur @tomgur.bsky.social · 1d

Cambridge is recruiting Assistant/Associate Professors in Theoretical Computer Science. #TCS #AcademicJobs

Application deadline: 15 December 2025. Contact me for informal inquiries. See more details and apply here:
www.cst.cam.ac.uk/assistantass...

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 2d

Some extra info: (1) Priority areas are listed, but those working in *any* area relevant to the School of CS are welcome to apply; (2) the due time of the application (Dec 1) is 🇦🇺 Sydney time (keep in mind!); (3) we welcome applications at *all* levels.

usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/USYD_E...

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Ola Svensson @algosvensson.bsky.social · 9d

The Swiss Winter School in TCS 2026 will take place January 25-30, featuring amazing speakers Ankur Moitra (MIT), Avishay Tal (UC Berkeley), and Vera Traub (ETHZ).

Application deadline: October 24

More information: theory.epfl.ch/WinterSchool...

Swiss Winter School on Theoretical Computer Science

theory.epfl.ch

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 11d

Happy Birthday Google

For many of your 27 years you were called a lazy vice. Finally you have attained the status of a thoughtful virtue of the good old days.

🥂 🥳

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

TCS+ @tcsplus.bsky.social · 12d

A foretold, the new season of TCS+ is coming! If you cannot wait for the official announcement,* you can already sign up to attend the first talk on October 8, by Janani Sundaresan, from U Waterloo (@uwcheritoncs.bsky.social)!

www.tcsplus.org/welcome/next...

* Soon on an Internet near you!

TCS+ - Next TCS+ talk

Our first TCS+ talk of the season will take place on October 8 (10:00am Pacific Time, 1:00 pm Eastern Time, 19:00 Central European Summer Time, 17:00 UTC — check yours here). Janani Sundaresan, from t...

www.tcsplus.org

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Sophie Huiberts @sophie.huiberts.me · 15d

Gurobi published their 2025 State of Mathematical Optimization report. Always a nice read!

www.gurobi.com/resources/re...

Infographic with some stock images.
Nearly 7 in 10 organizations now rely on optimization for
daily or real-time decisions

What business problems are you currently solving with optimization?*
Planning 56%
Logistics 45%
Supply Chain Planning 45%
Production Planning 40%
Energy Grid/Load Balancing 22%
Pricing 15%
*Respondents could select multiple options.

Horizontal bar chart with 7 items.

Which types of problems do you solve most often with mathematical optimization?*
No. 1: Mixed-Integer Programming 91%
No. 2: Linear Programming 59%
No. 3: Multi-Ojbective Problems 32%
No. 4: Convex (MI)QP/(MI)QCP 28%
No. 5: Nonlinear (Integer or Non-Integer, Convex or Non-Convex) 15%
No. 6: Non-Convex QCP/MIQCP 14%
No. 7: Uncertainty Problems (e.g., Stochastic, Robust, Multi-Scenario) 13%

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 23d

If you work on theory in responsible computing and are looking for a job, fill out this form before September 28!

Responsible computing includes private data analysis, fairness, robustness, mathematical approaches bridging computer science, law, ethics, etc.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Sijing Tu @sijingtu.bsky.social · 26d

A very nice summary by Stefan of our recent publication "Optirefine: densest subgraphs and maximum cuts with k refinements". With @stefanresearch.bsky.social, Aleksa Stankovic, and @aris-gionis.bsky.social

Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

Suppose you are given a non-optimal solution to an algorithmic problem and you want to make a small number of changes to improve its objective function.

We give nearly-optimal approximation algorithms for this problem for Max-Cut and for Densest Subgraph.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Optirefine: densest subgraphs and maximum cuts with k refinements - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Data-analysis tasks often involve an iterative process, which requires refining previous solutions. For instance, when analyzing social networks, we may obtain initial communities based on noisy metad...

link.springer.com

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

I really like this setting of "given a suboptimal solution, improve it". It feels natural since data scientists often start with good solutions & then refine them.

Led by the great @sijingtu.bsky.social and joint with Aleksa Stankovic and @aris-gionis.bsky.social.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Optirefine: densest subgraphs and maximum cuts with k refinements - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Data-analysis tasks often involve an iterative process, which requires refining previous solutions. For instance, when analyzing social networks, we may obtain initial communities based on noisy metad...

link.springer.com

Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

Further, we give approximation algorithms for this problem, based on semidefinite programming and the sum-of-squares hierarchy.

We also prove lower bounds showing that our approximation ratios are close to what one can hope for.

Besides MaxCut we provide similar results for Densest Subgraph.

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

Interestingly, we show that there are close relationships of this problem to cardinality-constrained versions of the problem.

We show that even black-box reductions are possible and that they work surprisingly well in experiments.

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

Concretely, suppose you are given a cut in a graph. This cut partitions the graph's nodes into two sides.

Now you are allowed to move k nodes from one side of the partition to the other.

Which k nodes should you use to increase the cut as much as possible?

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 26d

Suppose you are given a non-optimal solution to an algorithmic problem and you want to make a small number of changes to improve its objective function.

We give nearly-optimal approximation algorithms for this problem for Max-Cut and for Densest Subgraph.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Optirefine: densest subgraphs and maximum cuts with k refinements - Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Data-analysis tasks often involve an iterative process, which requires refining previous solutions. For instance, when analyzing social networks, we may obtain initial communities based on noisy metad...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

TCS+ @tcsplus.bsky.social · Sep 8

With September (already!) underway, the next season of TCS+ will start soon. As we are planning for it, a reminder that you can—and are encouraged to!—submit suggestions for talks and speakers on our website: sites.google.com/view/tcsplus...

TCS+ - Suggest a talk

Suggest a talk

sites.google.com

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · 29d

TU Wien is hiring for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Information and Communication Technologies in Automation.

This is your chance to join a wonderful Top-13 computer science department in Europe (based on CSRankings).

Contact me if you want to chat.

informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2967

Assistant Professor of Information and Communication Technologies in Automation

We invite applications for a full-time assistant professorship with tenure track in Information and Communication Technologies in Automation until Nov 13, 2025.

informatics.tuwien.ac.at

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Sep 4

You just need a European host university to apply. Of course then you have to move to Europe if you get the grant and want to accept it. But I guess that many people are considering to do this right now.

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Sep 4

I thought about it and here is my conjecture: LLMs have made grant writing a lot more efficient, so there are just a lot more people submitting.

That would also explain why there was a significant increase already two years ago and not just this year (which the US situation could not explain).

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Sep 2

Wow. I wonder what triggered the rise in submissions in the past two years?

“The ERC received 3 329 proposals — 31% more than last year and 82% more than the year before that.”

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Sep 2

This triggered a lot of follow-up research in the theory community (see link below), under the name of "algorithms with predictions". However, my impression is that few of the algorithms are practical, due to unrealistic assumptions on oracles (&other reasons).

algorithms-with-predictions.github.io

ALPS

algorithms-with-predictions.github.io

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Reposted by Stefan Neumann

Paper Skygest Team @paper-feed.bsky.social · Aug 19

**Please repost** If you're enjoying Paper Skygest -- our personalized feed of academic content on Bluesky -- we'd appreciate you reposting this! We’ve found that the most effective way for us to reach new users and communities is through users sharing it with their network

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Aug 15

It depends a lot on what „understands“ means here. One could make a similar point about optimization problems: Simple heuristics (like greedy algorithms) work very well in practice, but the underlying problems are often hard to approximate and we typically have no formal explanation for this gap.

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Aug 12

We all want to make the review process as fair and thorough as possible. But I don't think that adding more pressure on reviewers and generating even more text is the way.

(Also, my personal impression is that the review quality at NeurIPS/ICML is a lot better than its reputation.)

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Stefan Neumann @neumannstefan.com · Aug 12

By now it's just too much information (reviews, rebuttal back-and-forth, final reviewer justification, final author remark).

On average, for each paper I'm reviewing there is a discussion of ~10 pages.

It's almost impossible to keep track of everything.

Rémi Flamary @rflamary.bsky.social · Aug 11

Why #NeurIPS PC? Why? We already have days of reading to do including reviews, responses, responses to responses and confidential comments to AC. Do you really think a "Final Remark" that tells me to accept the paper will help? Let me just do my AC job during august while everyone is on vacation!

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