Dr. Kai Helge Becker
Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) Takustraße 7 14195 Berlin (Germany)
Room: 3352 Email: my surname at zib dot de

About me

I am a reseacher at the research group on Energy Network Optimization at Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), where I work on the project Acyclic Network Flows funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Germany´s Excellence Strategy – The Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+. The project aims at developing a better algorithm for optimizing the type of non-linear network flows that occur in water, gas and hydrogen networks.

My academic interests include

• Applications of Mathematical Optimization
• Algorithms on Graphs
• Linear, Non-linear, Mixed Integer Programming
• Optimization under Uncertainty
• Behavioural Operations Research and Organizational Decision-Making

In conjunction with my academic activities I have experience with with various projects where I applied Operations Research methods to problems in different industries, such as optimizing the purchase, transport and storage of natural gas, designing optimal electricity tariffs, public transport planning, managing invasive species and production planning.

Education

1998	Diplom in Business Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, University of Hamburg, Germany.
2005	M.A. in Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Hamburg, Germany.
2010	PhD in Operational Research on Twin-constrained Hamiltonian Paths on Theshold Graphs: an approach to the Minimum Score Separation Problem, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
2016	Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia (Higher education teaching certificate).

Employment

Since 2017	Researcher at the Energy Network Optimization Group at Zuse Institute Berlin
2016-2017	Lecturer in Management Science, University of Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, UK
2011-2016	Lecturer in Operations Research, Department of Mathematics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
2008-2010	LSE Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
2002-2005	Operations Research Consultant for BP Energie GmbH, Hamburg
1998-2002	Research Assistant at the Department of Economics and Business Administration, University of Hamburg, Germany

Current Working Papers

• ASTS Orientations on Undirected Graphs: Structural analysis and enumeration
  Kai Helge Becker, Benjamin Hiller
  ZIB-Report 18-31, July 2018.

• Improving relaxations for potential-driven network flow problems via acyclic flow orientations
  Benjamin Hiller, Kai Helge Becker
  ZIB-Report 18-30, July 2018.

• Global Optimization of Capacity Expansion in Potential-driven Networks – A comparison of modelling approaches
  Ralf Lenz, Kai Helge Becker
  ZIB-Report 18-44, August 2018.
  

• A practice-based framework for understanding the challenges of decision analytic interventions in organisations
  Kai Helge Becker, Gilberto Montibeller, Ana Barcus
  Working Paper School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. Available at SSRN
  

Publications

Papers in refereed journals and refereed conference proceedings

• Two Approximate Dynamic Programming Algorithms for Managing Complete SIS Networks
  Martin Peron, Peter L. Bartlett, Kai Helge Becker, Kate Helmstedt, Iadine Chadès
  COMPASS ´18 Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing und Sustainable Societies, 2018.

• Selecting simultaneous actions of different durations to optimally manage an ecological network
  Martin Peron, Cassie C. Jansen, Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle, Sam Nicol, Nancy A. Schellhorn, Kai Helge Becker, Iadine Chadès
  Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2017.

• Fast-tracking Stationary MOMDPs for Adaptive Management Problems
  Martin Peron, Kai Helge Becker, Peter Bartlett, Iadine Chadès
  Proceedings of the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2017, pp. 4531-4537.
  

• An Outlook on Behavioural OR – Three Tasks, three pitfalls and one definition
  Kai Helge Becker
  European Journal of Operational Research 249(3), 2016, pp. 806–815.
  

• A Heuristic for the Minimum Score Separation Problem, a combinatorial problem associated with the cutting stock problem
  Kai Helge Becker, Gautam Appa
  Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS) 66, 2015, pp. 1297 - 1311.
  

• Optimizing Offsets and Bandwidths in Vehicle Traffic Networks
  Robert Burdett, Bradley Casey, Kai Helge Becker
  Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics Journal 55, 2014, pp. M77 - M108.
  

• Organizations as Distinction Generating and Processing Systems: Niklas Luhmann’s Contribution to Organization Studies
  David Seidl, Kai Helge Becker
  Organization 13(1), 2006, pp. 9 - 35.
  

Further Publications

• A Brief Encounter with Sudoku
  Gautam Appa, Kai Helge Becker, Katerina Papadaki
  LSE Magazine, Vol. 18, No. 1, Summer 2006.

• Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies
  David Seidl, Kai Helge Becker
  Copenhagen Business School Press, 2005 (Editorship with own contributions).
  

• Rationales Entscheiden
  Kai Helge Becker
  in: A. Hanft (2001) (ed.): Grundbegriffe des Hochschul-managements (Neuwied: Luchterhand), pp. 399 – 403.
  

• Grundlegende Gleichungen zur Modellierung komplexer Systeme mit Markov-Prozessen
  Kai Helge Becker
  in: R. Mahnke, G. Röpke (1996) (eds.): Stochastische Prozesse und nichtlineare Phänomene. Referateband der Sommerakademie der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Universitaet Rostock, pp. 52-58.

Conference Presentations and Talks (Selection)

• Acyclicity in Network Flow Problems - Towards a new approach to optimizing potential-based flows.
  Paper presented at the OR2018, Brussels, September 2018 (with Benjamin Hiller).
  

• Exploiting acyclic orientations to solve nonlinear potential-based flow problems.
  Paper presented at the 23rd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISPM), Bordeaux, July 2018 (with Benjamin Hiller).
  

• ASTS-Orientations on Undirected Graphs - A tool for optimizing network flows.
  Paper presented at the 23rd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP), Bordeaux, July 2018 (with Benjamin Hiller).
  

• Fast-tracking Stationary MOMDPs for Adaptive Management Problems.
  Paper presented at the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco, February 2017 (with Martin Peron, Peter Bartlett, and Iadine Chades).
  

• Optimal design of tariff structures with discontinuities.
  Paper presented at the 28th European Conference on Operational Research, Poznan, July 2016 (with Alex Bahnisch).
  

• Managing invasive species under structural uncertainty using partially observable Markov decision processes.
  Paper presented at the 21st International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2015), Gold Coast, Australia (with Martin Peron and Iadine Chades).

• Minimizing Discontinuities in Electricity Tariffs.
  Paper presented at the annual international conference of the German Operations Research Society (OR2015), Vienna.

• Panelist on a discussion panel on the topic Behavioural Operations Research: The next 10 years
  27th European Conference on Operational Research, Glasgow, July 2015.

• Understanding the challenges of decision-analytic interventions in organizations – a practice-based framework.
  Paper presented at the 27th European Conference on Operational Research, Glasgow, July 2015 (with Gilberto Montibeller and Ana Barcus).

• Managing invasive species under structural uncertainty using partially observable Markov decision processes.
  Paper presented at the 27th European Conference on Operational Research, Glasgow, July 2015 (with Martin Peron and Iadine Chades).

• An Outlook on Behavioural OR – Three tasks, three pitfalls and one definition.
  Paper presented at the 20th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS), Barcelona, July 2014.

• Decision Analysis in the context of the Behavioural Reality in Organizations – An empirically supported framework for analyzing implementation problems.
  Paper presented at the 20th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS), Barcelona, July 2014 (with Ana Barcus and Gilberto Montibeller).

• Exploring Decision-Making Episodes in Actu, in Situ, in Toto: An empirical study of decision-making practices in organizational projects.
  Paper to be presented at the 30th EGOS Colloquium, Rotterdam, July 2014 (with Ana Barcus and Gilberto Montibeller).

• Practices and the praxis of organizational decision-making – a systematic account.
  Paper presented at the 26th European Conference on Operational Research, Rome, July 2013.

• Matching-based Alternating Hamiltonian Cycles.
  Paper presented at the 19th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS), Melbourne, July 2011.

• Matching-based Alternating Hamiltonian Graphs.
  Paper presented to the Mathematical Programming Study Group of The Operational Research Society (UK), London School of Economics and Political Science, London, June 2011.

• Optimizing Natural Gas Flows Including Balancing.
  Paper presented at the 21st Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society, Vancouver, May 2010.

• Matching-Based Alternating Hamiltonian Cycles on Threshold Graphs.
  Paper presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, San Diego, October 2009.

• Optimizing Natural Gas Supply Portfolios.
  Paper presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, San Diego, October 2009.

• Twin-Constrained Hamiltonian Threshold Graphs.
  Paper presented at the 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 2009.

• The Minimum Score Separation Problem - a combinatorial problem in the paper industry.
  Paper presented at the 22nd European Conference on Operational Research, Prague, July 2007.

• A Mathematical Programming Approach to Analyzing Natural Gas Markets.
  Presentation at the Operational Research Department, London School of Economics, May 2004.

• GSF 2004 – an optimization tool for the French gas market integrating gas supply contracts, transit, transportation, balancing, and modulation.
  Presentation to BP France, Paris-Cergy, November 2003.

• Modeling the German Gas Market.
  Presentation to BP NEGP, London, July 2003.

Teaching Experience

Over the years I have taught a number of courses in various areas of Operations Research and its mathematical foundations. Topics include:

• Graph Theory and Algorithms on Graphs
• Algorithms and Data Structures
• Decision-making for Management
• Model-building in Mathematical Programming
• Linear and Mixed-Integer Programming
• Stochastic Optimization
• Statistics
• Introduction to Probability Theory
• Linear Algebra and Calculus

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