Understanding and Applying Numerical Optimization Techniques
Course info
Course info
Description
Many optimization problems are conceptually similar to software design patterns - they are generally usable techniques that help with commonly recurring problems. In this course, Understanding and Applying Numerical Optimization Techniques, you'll first learn about framing the optimization problem correctly. Correctly framing the problem is the key to finding the right solution, and is also a powerful general tool in business, data analysis, and modeling. Next, you'll explore linear programming. Linear programming is a specific type of optimization used when the problem can be framed purely in terms of linear (straight line) relationships. Finally, you'll wrap up this course learning about integer programming. Integer programming is similar to linear programming, but it involves adding conditions that our variables be integers. This occurs very often in the real world, but the math of solving these problems is quite a bit more involved. By the end of this course, you will have a good understanding of how numerical optimization techniques can be used in data modeling, and how those models can be implemented in Excel, Python, and R.
About the author
An engineer and tinkerer, Vitthal has worked at Google, Credit Suisse, and Flipkart and studied at Stanford and INSEAD. He has worn many hats, each of which has involved writing code and building models. He is passionately devoted to his hobby of laughing at his own jokes.
More from the author
Transcript
Hi everyone, my name is Vitthal Srinivasan and welcome to my course “Understanding andApplying Numerical Optimization Techniques.” I am a Co-Founder at a start up named Loonycorn,and I’ve worked at Google, and studied at Stanford.
Some of the major topics that we will cover include:
- Choices, Trade-offs and Constraints
- Linear Optimization problems - the economics behind them, solving them using Simplex
- Integer Optimization problems - incredibly powerful for modeling business decisions
- Portfolio optimization using linear and quadratic risk
- Implementing linear and integer programming using Excel, R, and Python
I hope you’ll join me on this journey on making smart, data-driven trade-offs with the course “Understanding and Applying Numerical Optimization Techniques”, at Pluralsight.