GAINESVILLE, FL: Dr. Vladimir Boginski, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has initiated a collaboration with Dr. Sergiy Butenko (PhD ISE ’03), Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M, and Dr. Balabhaskar Balasundaram, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management at Oklahoma State, to study clique relaxation models arising in biological and social networks. Clique relaxations represent “cohesive” or “robust” clusters of nodes in a network.  According to the postulate that nature operates in the most efficient manner, specific cohesive cluster configurations that arise in biological networks can inspire the design of human-made, low-cost resilient network topologies.  To date, clique relaxation models have not been studied in a systematic fashion; therefore, this project aims to develop a comprehensive framework that will not only allow one to rigorously classify the existing concepts, but also yield new clique relaxation models of potential practical interest.   The work is being funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) . The total value of the grant is roughly $400,000 over three years.