Applications of Combinatorial Optimization, Volume 3

Combinatorial optimization is a multidisciplinary scientific area, lying in the interface of three major scientific domains: mathematics, theoretical computer science and management. The three volumes of the Combinatorial Optimization series aims to cover a wide range of topics in this area. These topics also deal with fundamental notions and approaches as with several classical applications of combinatorial optimization. “Applications of Combinatorial Optimization” is presenting a certain number among the most common and well-known applications of Combinatorial Optimization.

Table of Contents:
Preface xiii Chapter 1. Airline Crew Pairing Optimization 1 Laurent ALFANDARI and Anass NAGIH 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Definition of the problem 2 1.3. Solution approaches 7 1.4. Solving the subproblem for column generation 11 1.5. Conclusion 21 1.6. Bibliography 22 Chapter 2. The Task Allocation Problem 23 Moaiz BEN DHAOU and Didier FAYARD 2.1. Presentation 24 2.2. Definitions and modeling 24 2.3. Review of the main works 29 2.4. A little-studied model 38 2.5. Conclusion 43 2.6. Bibliography 43 Chapter 3. A Comparison of Some Valid Inequality Generation Methods for General 0–1 Problems 49 Pierre BONAMI and Michel MINOUX 3.1. Introduction 49 3.2. Presentation of the various techniques tested 53 3.3. Computational results 67 3.4. Bibliography 70 Chapter 4. Production Planning 73 Nadia BRAUNER, Gerd FINKE and Maurice QUEYRANNE 4.1. Introduction 73 4.2. Hierarchical planning 74 4.3. Strategic planning and productive system design 75 4.4. Tactical planning and inventory management 77 4.5. Operations planning and scheduling 90 4.6. Conclusion and perspectives 104 4.7. Bibliography 105 Chapter 5. Operations Research and Goods Transportation 111 Teodor Gabriel CRAINIC and Frédéric SEMET 5.1. Introduction 111 5.2. Goods transport systems 113 5.3. Systems design 115 5.4. Long-distance transport 122 5.5. Vehicle routing problems 137 5.6. Exact models and methods for the VRP 139 5.7. Heuristic methods for the VRP 147 5.8. Conclusion 160 5.9. Appendix: metaheuristics 161 5.10. Bibliography 164 Chapter 6. Optimization Models for Transportation Systems Planning 177 Teodor Gabriel CRAINIC and Michael FLORIAN 6.1. Introduction 177 6.2. Spatial interaction models 178 6.3. Traffic assignment models and methods 181 6.4. Transit route choice models 193 6.5. Strategic planning of multimodal systems 197 6.6. Conclusion 204 6.7. Bibliography 204 Chapter 7. A Model for the Design of a Minimum-cost Telecommunications Network 209 Marc DEMANGE, Cécile MURAT, Vangelis Th. PASCHOS and Sophie TOULOUSE 7.1. Introduction 209 7.2. Minimum cost network construction 210 7.3. Mathematical model, general context 213 7.4. Proposed algorithm 216 7.5. Critical points 220 7.6. Conclusion 223 7.7. Bibliography 223 Chapter 8. Parallel Combinatorial Optimization 225 Van-Dat CUNG, Bertrand LE CUN and Catherine ROUCAIROL 8.1. Impact of parallelism in combinatorial optimization 225 8.2. Parallel metaheuristics 226 8.3. Parallelizing tree exploration in exact methods 235 8.4. Conclusion 247 8.5. Bibliography 248 Chapter 9. Network Design Problems: Fundamental Methods 253 Alain Quilliot 9.1. Introduction 253 9.2. The main mathematical and algorithmic tools for network design 258 9.3. Models and problems 275 9.4. The STEINER-EXTENDED problem 280 9.5. Conclusion 281 9.6 Bibliography 281 Chapter 10. Network Design Problems: Models and Applications 291 Alain Quilliot 10.1. Introduction 291 10.2. Models and location problems 293 10.3. Routing models for telecommunications 298 10.4. The design or dimensioning problem in telecommunications 301 10.5. Coupled flows and multiflows for transport and production 306 10.6. A mixed network pricing model 314 10.7. Conclusion 319 10.8. Bibliography 319 Chapter 11. Multicriteria Task Allocation to Heterogenous Processors with Capacity and Mutual Exclusion Constraints 327 Bernard ROY and Roman SLOWINSKI 11.1. Introduction and formulation of the problem 328 11.2. Modeling the set of feasible assignments 331 11.3. The concept of a blocking configuration and analysis of the unblocking means 334 11.4. The multicriteria assignment problem 346 11.5. Exploring a set of feasible non-dominated assignments in the plane g2 × g3 348 11.6. Numerical example 357 11.7. Conclusion 363 11.8. Bibliography 364 List of Authors 365 Index 369 Summary of Other Volumes in the Series 373