Awakening Elementary School System in University

"Hahaha, not bad, not bad! So you do remember me, kid!" Professor Gongtan let out a hearty laugh, strode forward, and clapped Chen Lin unceremoniously on the shoulder. His small eyes were filled with undisguised admiration. "That move you pulled at the competition that day completely blew me away! Your future is limitless!"

Chen Lin was a bit embarrassed by this forward friendliness and could only offer a modest smile.

However, a small doubt in his mind was growing larger and larger.

He turned to the smiling Zhu Jianqing and asked, "Chairman Zhu, what... is going on here?"

"Hahaha, President Chen, please don’t misunderstand." Zhu Jianqing laughed and waved his hand dismissively. "The technical bottleneck we at Huanrun have encountered is quite tricky. So, to find a solution as quickly as possible, I used various channels to invite several of the nation’s top experts in the relevant fields. Professor Gong is the high-level expert I invited through my connections at the Science and Technology University."

He paused, a hint of approval in his voice. "So far, the only ones willing to come and discuss this in person are you from Yanhai, and Professor Gong’s team."

Chen Lin understood immediately.

’So this isn’t a one-on-one technical consultation today.’

’Interesting.’

Zhu Jianqing was clearly a man of action. Having explained the situation, he wasted no more time.

He picked up the phone on his desk, dialed an internal line, and gave a concise order: "Inform everyone, prepare for a meeting."

Then, he personally led Chen Lin, Shen Yan, and Professor Gongtan toward a large conference room outside his office.

When the conference room doors were pushed open, Chen Lin saw that it was already packed with over a dozen people.

Most of them wore white lab coats and had serious expressions; they looked to be Huanrun Pharmaceutical’s internal basic research team.

Professor Gongtan hadn’t come alone either.

Following him were two young men who looked to be in their late twenties. Both wore glasses and had a composed demeanor, looking every bit the part of researchers.

"Come, let me introduce you." Professor Gongtan pointed to the two men behind him and said to the room, "These are two of my PhD students, You Lie and Lv Yi. I brought them along today to let them broaden their horizons a bit."

Chen Lin noticed that when You Lie and Lv Yi’s gazes swept over Shen Yan, who was standing behind him, both of their eyes lit up in unison at almost the exact same moment.

Their expressions were a mixture of awe and curiosity. One of them, You Lie, even subconsciously pushed up his glasses and straightened his back.

’Tsk, tsk, tsk.’

Chen Lin inwardly pursed his lips.

’Looks like I’ll have to get Shen Yan to go back to her high-school-style casual wear. This professional office lady look is just too lethal.’

Just as Chen Lin’s mind was wandering, Zhu Jianqing began to make introductions for both sides.

"Professor Gong, President Chen, this is the head of our group’s basic research team, Dr. Yan Feifei."

Yan Feifei looked to be around forty. She wore a pair of rimless glasses, and her neat short hair gave her an intellectual and capable air.

Although she wore a prim white lab coat, one could still see the high-quality business suit she had on underneath.

She lacked the unkempt appearance common among researchers, instead exuding the grace and composure of someone long accustomed to a high-ranking position.

She gave a slight nod to the room by way of greeting, then, without any further pleasantries, walked directly to the massive electronic whiteboard at the front of the room and opened a prepared PowerPoint presentation.

"Distinguished experts, time is precious, so I’ll keep this brief."

Her voice was gentle yet clear, her pace neither rushed nor slow, carrying a rhythm that naturally commanded one’s focus. "During the clinical evaluation of a new targeted drug, we at Huanrun Pharmaceutical decided to adopt a more cutting-edge international method in order to improve trial efficiency: the ’Bayesian adaptive design’ protocol."

"To put it simply, we are no longer using fixed, unchanging criteria to screen patients for enrollment. Instead, we hope to dynamically and intelligently adjust the enrollment threshold for subsequent patients based on data accumulated during the trial."

A clear chart popped up on the electronic whiteboard, intuitively displaying the procedural differences between traditional trial design and adaptive design.

"Our goal is clear," Dr. Yan said, pushing up her glasses as her tone grew more serious. "We hope to obtain the most reliable trial conclusions in the shortest amount of time and with the fewest test subjects, all while strictly controlling for the statistical risks of false positives and false negatives."

At this point, she took a deep breath and clicked the remote, advancing the PowerPoint to the most critical slide.

That slide had no images, no flowcharts—only a dense wall of complex mathematical formulas and definitions, enough to make anyone who was bad at math faint on the spot.

"And this is precisely the core problem we are currently facing."

Dr. Yan’s gaze swept over everyone present, finally settling on Professor Gongtan and Chen Lin. "We need to design a mathematical optimization framework to generate an optimal strategy for dynamically adjusting the enrollment threshold."

As Chen Lin listened, he marveled inwardly.

For once, he didn’t need Shen Yan at his side to translate the complex medical background into mathematical language he could understand.

Evidently, to ensure efficient communication between both parties, Dr. Yan Feifei had already refined the problem beforehand, stripping away all irrelevant medical details.

For him, the feeling was unprecedentedly refreshing!

By the time Dr. Yan had finished her clear and methodical explanation of every detail of the optimization task—from decision variables and state space to the objective function, constraints, and even several potential solution pathways—a complete and elegant solution had already taken shape in Chen Lin’s mind, a mind enhanced by the [Little Mathematician] title.

However, he didn’t rush to speak.

His superhuman vision, enhanced by the [Little Champion] title, allowed his peripheral vision to keenly catch a subtle movement from Professor Gongtan’s side.

He decided to hold back and see what the top students from the Science and Technology University had to offer.

The first to speak was the PhD student next to Professor Gongtan, the one named Lv Yi.

He cleared his throat, his face a mixture of excitement and seriousness at facing a difficult problem, and said in a deep voice, "Dr. Yan, your problem is indeed very challenging. Personally, I believe one of the greatest difficulties lies in the curse of dimensionality of the state space."

As he spoke, he unconsciously straightened his posture, his gaze furtively flicking toward Shen Yan.