CSCI 670: Theoretical Thinking Projects: Mathematical Formulation
of a Research Project
Deadline: 11/12/2025, Wednesday
We hope this project will be enjoyable, fun, engaging, and beneficial for you.
A: The Project
Research is about iden0fying open problems/direc0ons or fundamental phenomena, matching
one’s own interests and insights, that may have impact or poten0al impact to the world.
Mathema0cal and algorithmic formula0ons of real-world problems, such as Web search,
Internet rou0ng, robo0c path planning, Uber/LyC scheduling, personalized adver0sing, online
auc0on, image/speech recogni0on, machine learning, drug design, viral marke0ng, poli0cal
campaign and influences, AI in health care, financial investment, weather and earthquake
modeling, deep space explora0on, and other social/business/scien0fic tasks, have become
increasingly important. Asking good ques0ons also to become more essen0al in the era with
intelligent AI tools.
In this assignment, you will be asked to write a five-page report on your or other’s aKempt to
mathema0cally formulate a problem that arises from your research area or concerning with a
problem that is interes0ng to you. To help you organize your wri0ng, you may consider
addressing the following ques0ons, or ques0ons you come up inspired by these ques0ons.
1. What is the real-world background of your problem?
2. What is the mathema0cal defini0on of your problem?
3. Why is this research problem important or interes0ng?
4. What are the key algorithmic ques0ons concerning your problem?
5. What is the state-of-the-art for modeling and solving this problem?
6. What are interes0ng open ques0ons inspired by your formula0on?
7. What are some concrete conjectures whose seKlement (posi0ve or nega0ve) you think
are instrumental for the major advancement of this research problem?
“Lightning talk” sessions are scheduled for November 3 and 5 (during class).
These will give you the opportunity to present your work to the enFre class.
Detailed guidelines for the presentaFons will be shared later in the semester. To
accommodate everyone, each talk will be limited to three minutes.
B: Note: Using ChatGPT and Web Search for Project
Web search and AI tools such as ChatGPT have created a new, personalized environment for
learning and research. While these tools are far from perfect, they provide meaningful and
valuable support for several fundamental aspects of learning and research explora0on.
• iden0fy sources of informa0on,
• generate helpful illustra0ve examples,
• provide relevant informa0on,
• make reading recommenda0ons,
• break down complex topics/concepts into simpler ones,
• summarize mul0ple sources of data,
• suggest poten0al connec0ons to other subjects,
• generate ideas,
• provide frameworks for reasoning, etc.
• Provide suggested formula0on
An important step in fully utilizing these tools for self-learning and research exploration is to ask
effective questions adaptively and to create effective summaries and prompts.
In this project, you may use any AI tool or discuss with others if you find it beneficial. However,
when writing the final term paper, it is essential to focus on your own understanding and
decisions. If AI tools contribute to your formulation of a research problem, conjecture, or
direction, please describe the steps you took to integrate the AI tool into your exploration and
formulation. For example:
• Your queries/prompts to ChatGPT during the project, along with a brief explanation of
why you made them.
• A concise explanation of how you developed these prompts.
• A short summary of what you learned from ChatGPT’s answers.
• A short summary of how you built on ChatGPT’s recommendations to advance your
work.