Closing of the 2026 Institutional Seminar Series

Guided by the premise that "knowledge attains its true value when it is shared, transcends borders, and fosters collective growth," the seminar brought together researchers, educators, and students from the region to discuss recent advances in applied mathematics and optimization.

Advances in Nonlinear Optimization

In his presentation, titled "Smoothed Sharp Augmented Lagrangian for Problems with General Constraints," Dr. Romero introduced an extension of the smoothed sharp augmented Lagrangian method, designed for nonlinear optimization problems involving equality, inequality, and box constraints.

The presentation detailed two algorithmic approaches: one in which the smoothing parameter remains fixed—calculated beforehand using a semismooth Newton method—and another in which this parameter is updated dynamically at each iteration. The subproblems were solved using a variant of the BFGS algorithm, adapted to the method's internal structure. Furthermore, numerical experiments conducted using the CUTEst test set were presented, demonstrating highly competitive performance—in terms of both robustness and computational efficiency—when compared to established benchmarks such as ALGENCAN.

About the Speaker

Dr. José Luis Romero holds a PhD in Mathematics from the Faculty of Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, and Computing at the National University of Córdoba (FAMAF-UNC, 2024), as well as degrees in Mathematics (Licenciatura and teaching qualification) from FaCENA-UNNE (2014 and 2018). He currently serves as a CONICET postdoctoral fellow at IMIT and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics (Applied Mathematics division) at FaCENA-UNNE. He is a member of research projects focused on optimization and numerical analysis, has published work in prominent scientific journals—such as the *Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications* (JOTA) and *MACI*—and has been an active participant in both national and international academic conferences. Institutional Review and Closing

This presentation marks the conclusion of another annual cycle of seminars at IMIT. The institute’s leadership and coordination team express their gratitude for the steadfast commitment, active participation, and valuable scientific exchange contributed by the academic community throughout these sessions.