Thanks to the COST Action TD1409, MI-NET, we had the opportunity to participate on a short term scientific mission (STSM) in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim. During our stay, we worked with Dr. Verena Hagspiel, from NTNU, and with Dr. Kuno Huisman and Prof. Peter Kort, both from Tilburg University.

Our collaboration with these researchers is not new. We have been working on several projects, in particular, applying real options theory to decide when and how much a company should invest. Lately, we have been exploring the technology adoption problem, where a firm can adopt a new technology at any time, paying some irreversible cost. The later the firm adopts a new technology, the higher quality the product has, so the higher the demand for this product will be. But after this burst in the demand, demand tends to decrease along time. This is, for instance, the typical behavior of consumer demands for gadgets, like mobile phones.

This type of problems is very important to industry that seeks to know which conditions they should invest in a new technology.

Working in a team as we have been working in NTNU is very fruitful. We joined our skills: in one hand, our background is Mathematics, and, on the other hand, Dr. Verena, Dr. Kuno and Prof. Peter have a strong background in Economics. Furthermore, NTNU has several collaborations with companies. This opportunity of working with them is very important for us. They share with us the knowledge and experience from companies. In the resolution of the problems, the inputs from the both sides – Mathematics and Economics – can complement each other leading to great results.

Surely, this stay really boosted our research and the fact that we were able to work as a team of five made possible to achieve our goals faster than if each one of us was working alone in their home institutions. The STSM is a measureless contribution to the growth of research on Industrial Mathematics!

 

Dr Claudia Nunes is an Associate Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal. Her area of research focuses on stochastic processes and their applications to telecommunications and finance.

 

 

Ms Rita Pimentel is a PhD Student at  Instituto Superior Técnico da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa under the supervision of Dr Claudia Nunes. Rita’s interests is in statistics and stochastic processes.