Mathematics for Vast Digital Resources

British society, economy and government are becoming digital at staggering speeds. Individuals use the Internet to shop for books, houses and employment, search for information, share resources and group into social networks. Government wants to provide better and faster services to citizens and companies, cut costs and identify tax evaders. Much of business has moved online in the form of digital stores, service portals and targeted advertisements, breaking the physical barrier of distance between parties interested in a particular kind of interchange. Entering a future digital era provides many opportunities which, if seized properly, have a strong potential to boost economic growth and improve the quality of life. Researchers are facing the challenge of developing the tools necessary to make the best use of these opportunities. In this project we will develop new methodologies addressing the challenges and utilizing the opportunities arising from increasing vastness -in size and accessibility -of digital resources . We will analyze mathematical properties of these problems, design novel techniques to exploit their structure, implement them into efficient algorithms, and collaborate with industrial partners and digital economy hubs to ensure impact. Size: Technological breakthroughs in mankind's ability to produce and store huge amounts of data create an unprecedented challenge: a new science is needed for organizing, optimizing and interpreting data coming from new sources like the Internet, commercial databases, scientific experiments and government records. Hospitals, research labs, transportation companies, retailers and businesses produce more raw data than current technology is able to utilize effectively. Moreover, it seems that this trend will continue at an exponential rate. For the problems in this category we will develop new ground-breaking operational research techniques requiring us to reach the depths of several disciplines, merging insights from numerical optimization, machine learning and software development.Accessibility: Due to the vast accessibility of digital resources, portals connecting suppliers of a certain service with potential customers are becoming extremely popular. There are websites specializing in employment (Jobs.ac.uk), housing (Lettingweb.com), as well as contact points facilitating general exchange (Gumtree.com, Craigslist.org). The need to manage the customer portfolios of these portals for optimal user experience uncovers many fundamental mathematical challenges. Since the existing literature does not address these new problems appropriately, a careful study of these systems has the potential to improve user experience substantially. We will construct and analyze mathematical models of such systems using techniques at the interface of modern queueing theory and optimization.In summary, we will develop new operational research techniques which: (i) are capable of dealing with the unprecedented scale of modern digital resources, and (ii) will upgrade the access management to these new resources. Our goal is to gain new mathematical insights into the underlying problems in digital economy and provide the industry and the society with new tools to address these problems appropriately to meet public's expectations over the next decade.

Due to obvious advantages, the Internet has become a natural new medium for doing business and communicating with customers. This new digital market environment facilitates competitiveness in an unprecedented way, making it essential for companies to be able to: (i) fully utilize its hidden resources, and (ii) increase the quality of service provided. In the first line of research, we will develop new optimization-based methodologies which address the management and analysis of vast digital resources. The Internet has already become an overwhelming source of information and the speed of accumulating new information still seems to increase. Government agencies, retailers, businesses have their huge databases of information but are not always able to make good use of them. Hence, our goal in this proposal is to develop new methods that will enable organizations to handle huge amounts of data efficiently, which means it will be possible to extract more useful information from existing data to address the needs and preferences of people, using the techniques developed in this research. In the second line of research, we will analyze different ways to manage the accessibility of systems where users impose positive externalities on each other. These systems are commonly observed in portals operating over the Internet, as the Internet serves as a common access point for customers and suppliers. The techniques developed in this research will be aimed to improve the quality of service offered by portals which is used by significant portion of the society. As stated in the attached letters of support, several major companies realize the challenge and are keen on getting involved in the research suggested in this proposal. These companies will be in regular contact with our team throughout the project, help us define relevant problems, provide us with real-world data related to their problems, and assist us in the analysis of results obtained with our new techniques. Hence, these companies will be obvious first beneficiaries of our research. In a more general setting, our research will be beneficial to organizations which need to manipulate vast amount of data or price the access to services, such as hospitals, government agencies as well as most businesses. To facilitate the dissemination of the outcomes of the project beyond our immediate industry collaborators, we plan to organize two workshops. The first workshop will take place in the second year and will address Numerical Optimization Techniques on Vast Datasets . The second workshop will address Managing the Accessibility of Digital Resources and will be held in the third year of the project. We plan to invite guests from industry and academia to attend these workshops and we hope to achieve two objectives: (i) spread the word about novel techniques to industry and public sector, (ii) help the academics (and ourselves) to learn more about real industry needs. Working in close collaboration with industry will also benefit the project team and help the team learn new professional skills. This aspect of the project will also be an added value in the career development of the two PDRAs. Through our collaborations with industrial partners and workshops organized as a part of our research, we believe that School of Mathematics at Edinburgh University will discover new ways for facilitating knowledge exchange. We are also planning to deliver lectures to secondary school students on the practical aspects of our research and encourage them to think about how mathematics can help to improve the quality of life.