Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning (動態規劃和強化學習)

• Course objective: This course introduces dynamic decision-making under uncertainty, with an emphasis on dynamic programming and reinforcement learning. Drawing on applications in business and engineering, students will learn key theories and algorithms for solving multi-stage decision problems, both with and without explicit models of the environment. Assignments and a final project provide practical experience in problem formulation, algorithm evaluation, and Python-based implementation.

Nice talks on AI, geopolitics, optimization, SCM, and more

Vivek Farias and Jason Acimovic, Channel Fulfillment Problem Optimization, INFORMS, 2019.

References for graduate students and my laboratory members

Knowledge to master for a better foundation (and future)

Tools and general: 

•  Adi Ignatius, “We Want to Make Ourselves Better”: The HBR Interview with Bob Sternfels, Harvard Business Review, January–February 2026.  (new)

下廚 (歐貝拉，Cooking)

對我而言，煮飯是離開螢幕、讓腦袋放空和眼睛休息的好方法、也可以半蹲切菜以活動筋骨。久坐也不好，起身煮飯時，至少是站着。當然，用料也比較健康。

整個過程也和做研究是一樣的，從開始的流程設計、火候的觀察與修正、觀察結果、再持續改善；菜色和配料也要持續變化，想辦法創新。煎魚的時候，為了避免想要一直翻面的缺點，就設定鬧鐘，避免人為疏失。

煮菜最花時間的，莫過於備菜和收尾，內人在家時，這些工作大多她包了，我只負責下鍋。最重要的是，夫人不斷地鼓勵與正向回饋，令人有成就感。有一次和上課的同學聊天，同學們說：「師母提供滿滿的情緒價值」，說得真貼切！

紅酒燉牛肋條 (Beef short ribs braised in red wine)

一些常聽的 Podcast 節目和培養英文聽力的方法

一些常聽的 Podcast 節目 (*)，適合坐車、(讓眼睛) 休息、睡前、或運動時聽 (Some frequently listened-to podcasts (*) suitable for listening while traveling, giving your eyes a rest, before bed, or during exercise.) 

• Acquired (You could look at its transcript using iPhone.)

研究 (Research)

Journal articles:

• P.-S. Chen, H.-Y. Liu, and C.-H. Hsu, Economic Order Quantity of Deteriorating Drugs with New and Redistributed Demands in a Closed-loop Supply Chain: From the Viewpoint of a Hospital Pharmacy, International Journal of Systems Science: Operations & Logistics, 2026, Vol. 13, No. 1. (SCIE) 
• P.-S. Chen, J. Lyu,  C.-W. Chen, I.-H. Yu, and C.-H. Hsu, The Social-economic Value of a Renewable Energy Power Generation and Energy Storage System: A Case Study, International Journal of Systems Science: Operations & Logistics, 2026, Vol. 13, No. 1. (SCIE)
• H.-A. Bui, C.-H. Hsu, H.-W.V. Young, Y.-Y. Chen, and Y.-A. Liou, Advanced Semi-Supervised Learning for Remote Sensing-Based Land Cover Classification in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam, Remote Sensing, 2026, 18, 989. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18070989. (SCIE)

(Plz read it first) Business Analytics Laboratory (商業分析實驗室)

(Important) Please read this webpage first if you want to join my lab and schdule an interview.

(26/7/10) Another paper published in IJSS (Closed-loop EOQ)

(26/7/8) 115 學年度教育部校務發展獎補助計畫通過 (Industrial AI Teaching Platform)

(26/7/1) 國科會115 年度計畫通過 (NSTC project awarded)

服務和計畫 (Service and Projects)

政府計畫 (Government Project)

• 國科會，高維度受限迴歸模型與稀疏特徵選取：快速座標下降演算法和應用 (High-Dimensional Constrained Regression Models and Sparse Feature Selection: Fast Coordinate Descent Algorithms and Applications)，主持人 (PI)，115 年度 (2026/8 - 2027/7)
• 國科會，公平最佳決策樹和其應用 (Fair and Optimal Decision Tree and Its Applications)，主持人 (PI)，114 年度 (2025/8 - 2026/7)

產學合作 (Industry-Academia Cooperation)

• 金屬工業研究發展中心 (Metal Industries Research & Development Centre)，最佳化決策於工站排程應用之研究 (Optimal Decision-making in Work Station Scheduling) (3)，主持人 (PI)，2024

改變世界的17個方程式

Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World, Basic Books, 2012.

李政崇譯，改變世界的17 個方程式 (第2版)，商周出版，2025

AI Alignment

Articles: 

• 李珊珊，「從中學就開始培養 AI 天才？」前美國奧數主教練羅博深：這讓我脊背發涼，知識分子，2026.6.23 (Prof. Po-Shen Loh) (new)

知識分子：您的意思是，在高中階段就對 AI 人才進行針對性的超前培養，太早了？
羅博深：不只是太早的問題，而是這種「純技術導向」的教育結構本身就存在致命缺陷。
如果一個孩子從高中起就進入純理科的軌道，每天只跟演算法、模型和程式碼打交道，從來沒有讀過小說，從來沒有在具體的文學語境裡理解人類複雜的現實，不懂道德約束與同理心，那麼當他掌握了最尖端的技術力量，他可能會在無意間對整個社會造成無法挽回的傷害。
一個人如果擁有龐大的科技力量，卻對它的邊界和人文影響完全不了解，他根本不應該去接觸這些核心技術。這就像核武器一樣。
所以，每當我看到一個因為過早分軌、在知識結構裡完全缺失人文的理工科學生，我都會擔憂：他真的不應該繼續做前沿科技研究了。我們已經走到了一個技術極有可能危及全人類的節點，如果一個人的教育結構是這樣一條腿長、一條腿短的狀態，他就不應該被允許繼續往這條路上走。

知識分子：您曾提到，面對來自 AI 的挑戰，孩子們需要更加「Thoughtful」，能具體解釋一下嗎？

羅博深：我習慣用英文原詞來定義它，翻譯成「深思熟慮」之類的，並不太準確。

Thoughtful 的人有兩個核心特質。第一，有共情能力，體貼周到，真心希望讓別人快樂——不只是父母和朋友，也包括陌生人，這才是真正的利他精神。第二，肯真正地去思考——他們喜歡「理解」事物，而不只是「會做」。有些學生考試能拿高分，但只是機械地照著方法做，並不理解背後的邏輯。我要找的是那種喜歡用自己的獨立思維想清楚一件事、不滿足於別人給定的標準答案的人。

對人和對問題都有洞察，只要具備這兩點，一個人在未來會成長得很好。

• Medha Bankhwal, Ankit Bisht, Michael Chui, Roger Roberts, and Ashley van Heteren, AI for social good: Improving lives and protecting the planet, McKinsey, 2024.
• Yoshua Bengio et al., Managing extreme AI risks amid rapid progress, Science, 20 May 2024, Vol 384, Issue 6698, pp. 842-845 (arXiv)
• Jiaming Ji et al., AI Alignment: A Comprehensive Survey, arXiv:2310.19852 (website)
• Jack Stilgoe, Technological risks are not the end of the world, Science, 18 Apr 2024, Vol 384, Issue 6693.

上課內容 (Teaching)

許志華，中原大學，電機資訊學院，工業與系統工程學系

• Please use the school's MS team account for online sessions. 
• Login Account: 學號@o365st.cycu.edu.tw, student_ID@o365st.cycu.edu.tw
• Please use browser-based login instead of the application program to avoid login problems.
• Please be considerate/polite, and show up only during the office hours of a course. The students in the lab need quiet time for their studies and research. 
• 講義上有的內容，請同學要先查看或聽影片。有問題或疑義，再詢問助教。
• Email: If you have further questions, please email the TA. (cc (副本) teacher: chhsu135 at Gmail) TA will handle your questions or concerns. TA will discuss with me if she/he cannot resolve the issues.
• 2026 秋 (Fall) 
• Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning (動態規劃和強化學習)，博士班 (PhD)
• Form for you to fill in
• 助教：廖庭煜 (Angus)
• 作業研究 (上)，工業三乙
• 登記，課前預習和每週進度
• 助教：  (email:   at Gmail)，  ( ) (email:    at Gmail) 
• 辦公室時間：莊敬 302， (一) 15-17 pm， (二) 13-15 pm
• 學習數學的四個層次
• 中原隨筆 (My days at CYCU)
• 翻轉教室 (Flipped classroom)：工業系 許某教授，什麼是『大學生』

• 課程組員互評表 (Evaluation form for team members)
• Deadline: the day for the last class meeting time
• Default: If no one answers, everyone will get the same score for project participation.  If only 1 person fills in the form, we will use that as the group score for project participation.
• The best way to contact me (email):  chhsu135 AT gmail DOT com (主旨：修課名稱和班級，學號，姓名) (Subject: Class, student ID, Name)
• 辦公室 (My office)：(工業系館) 莊敬大樓 (Building no. 23 for ISE) 201-3，電話 (phone)  03 265 4427。辦公室時間，四 3 - 5:50 pm (歡迎使用 Microsoft team)。導生 (分組登記)。FB，Threads。

中原隨筆 (My days at CYCU)

在台南住了20幾年，因為種種因素，來到中原大學任教。懷念台南的好天氣、上下班不太塞車、和美食。秉持共好的精神，紀錄我在中原的所見所聞。

• 商業分析實驗室 (Business Analytics Laboratory)
• 指引 (Guides)，論文報告 (Group meeting)
• 新課：Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning (動態規劃和強化學習)，Nonlinear Optimization (非線性最佳化)

Buena Vista Social Club

CBS Sunday Morning,  "Buena Vista Social Club" serenades Broadway (感人的故事，令人驚豔的舞台效果)

作業研究期末報告

優秀作品 (內容和投影片製作)

• 戴維萱、彭彥智、蔣咏錡、鍾定豊、黃郁潔，冷凍食品配送車輛路徑問題的最佳化模型(2026 春作業研究 (下)，學科競賽版本)
• 林昱綺、李昀諺、嚴振瑋、許耀倫、蕭瑋萱，結合蟻群演算法之物流配送路徑最佳化研究 (2026 春作業研究 (下)，學科競賽版本)
• 胡嘉豪、陳昱安、彭琬婷、呂仲皓，醫院護理人員排班最佳化之應用 (2026 春作業研究 (下)，學科競賽版本)

Use LLM to learn *** and its impact

Research and development

• Marina Favaro and Jack Clark, When AI builds itself, Anthropic (new)
• As of May 2026, more than 80% of the code we merge into Anthropic’s codebase was authored by Claude.
• In the second quarter of 2026, the typical engineer was merging 8× as much code per day as they were in 2024.
• On the most open-ended tasks, Claude’s success rate reached 76% in May 2026, up 50 percentage points in six months.
• In this world, the pace of progress in AI development becomes determined entirely by the availability of compute (or the speed of discovering various efficiencies in algorithmic training or inference) for AI systems. Humans play a substantially diminished role in their development, likely moving most of our effort towards oversight, validation, and verification of an expanding “virtual lab” run by AI systems. We expect that systems capable of automated AI research and development would have skills that would transfer to the rest of science, allowing them to begin to revolutionize other fields.
• Dimitris Bertsimas and Georgios Margaritis, Robust and Adaptive Optimization under a Large Language Model Lens, arXiv:2501.00568. 

高教的反向重分配現象

RedHerrings (白經濟網站作者)，【數字說話】教育能翻轉人生嗎——高教的反向重分配現象，報導者，2018.9.10

一份來自台灣大學經濟學系系主任林明仁與學生沈暉智的研究，揭露台灣高等教育反向重分配的事實：越有錢的人，子女進入台大的機率也越高，而台大花在每位學生的支出明顯也高於其他私立學校，造成有錢人子女得到政府的資源相對多。國立大學長期維持「低學費高補貼」是否真的公平？

工業系作業研究學科競賽

主題 (開放題目) (二選一)

• 結合生產計畫與管制和作業研究兩門課求最佳解，包括工廠 (或公司) 內的排程、派工、設施規劃、廠內運輸、廠外運輸、供應鏈網路設計等相關問題 
• 以桃園巿為研究對象的相關最佳化問題

助教：蔡豐安 (Frank) (email: ann3866631 at Gmail)

所有的文件格式，以修課班級為主。

YouTube 人氣獎

• 影片上傳期限：5/21 ~ 5/28 (6 pm)

Nonlinear Optimization (非線性最佳化)

• Course objective: Nonlinear optimization is widely used in engineering, business, data science, and machine learning. We will introduce fundamental algorithms through examples in this course, enabling students to read research articles, formulate their own problems, and solve them efficiently using the appropriate algorithms.

Summarized AI information from Stanford HAI and IEEE Spectrum

Want to understand the global AI landscape? These reports are fantastic for staying updated on state-of-the-art trends. I highly recommend them to all my students, especially for doing research and job interview prep.

Stanford HAI, The 2026 AI Index Report

Eliza Strickland, 12 Graphs That Explain the State of AI in 2025 Stanford’s AI Index tracks performance, investment, public opinion, and more, IEEE Spectrum, 07 Apr 2025

• Stanford HAI, The 2025 AI Index Report

Eliza Strickland, The Top 10 AI Stories of 2024, IEEE Spectrum, 31 Dec 2024.

捐款給大學

美國大學 (和其研究、人才培育、衍生公司) 持續進步的重要原因

Michael T. Nietzel, University Of Wisconsin Receives $100 Million For Its New AI College, Forbes, Apr 28, 2026 (一億美金)