On the Complexity of Scheduling with Elastic Times

We consider the problem of scheduling hypermedia documents with elastic times. The objects have variable durations characterized by ideal, minimum, and maximum values. A schedule is a set of tensions on the arcs of the precedence graph which also represents synchronization constraints. We consider the problem of deciding if there exists a schedule in which … Read more

Multiprocessor Scheduling under Precedence Constraints: Polyhedral Results

We consider the problem of scheduling a set of tasks related by precedence constraints to a set of processors, so as to minimize their makespan. Each task has to be assigned to a unique processor and no preemption is allowed. A new integer programming formulation of the problem is given and strong valid inequalities are … Read more

Automatic Scheduling of Hypermedia Documents with Elastic Times]

The problem of automatic scheduling hypermedia documents consists in finding the optimal starting times and durations of objects to be presented, to ensure spatial and temporal consistency of a presentation while respecting limits on shrinking and stretching the ideal duration of each object. The combinatorial nature of the minimization of the number of objects whose … Read more

An application of integer programming to playoff elimination in football championships

Football is the most followed and practiced sport in Brazil, with a major economic importance. Thousands of jobs depend directly from the activity of the football teams. The Brazilian national football championship is followed by millions of people, who attend the games in the stades, follow radio and TV transmissions, and check newspapers, radio, TV, … Read more

On-Line Scheduling to Minimize Average Completion Time Revisited

We consider the scheduling problem of minimizing the average weighted completion time on identical parallel machines when jobs are arriving over time. For both the preemptive and the nonpreemptive setting, we show that straightforward extensions of Smith’s ratio rule yield smaller competitive ratios than the previously best-known deterministic on-line algorithms. Citation Working Paper 4435-03, Sloan … Read more

A Semidefinite Programming Approach for the Nearest Correlation Matrix Problem

The nearest \cm\ problem is to find a positive semidefinite matrix with unit diagonal that is nearest in the Frobenius norm to a given symmetric matrix $A$. This problem can be formulated as an optimization problem with a quadratic objective function and semidefinite programming constraints. Using such a formulation, we derive and test a primal-dual … Read more

An Exact Algorithm for the Capacitated Vertex p-Center Problem

We develop a simple and practical exact algorithm for the problem of locating $p$ facilities and assigning clients to them within capacity restrictions in order to minimize the maximum distance between a client and the facility to which it is assigned (capacitated $p$-center). The algorithm iteratively sets a maximum distance value within which it tries … Read more

Continuous Line Drawings via the Traveling Salesman Problem

We describe how to use the traveling salesman problem (TSP) to create continuous line drawings of target pictures. Citation Dept. of Mathematics, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 44074 Article Download View Continuous Line Drawings via the Traveling Salesman Problem

Parallel Interior Point Solver for Structured Quadratic Programs: Application to Financial Planning Problems

Issues of implementation of a library for parallel interior-point methods for quadratic programming are addressed. The solver can easily exploit any special structure of the underlying optimization problem. In particular, it allows a nested embedding of structures and by this means very complicated real-life optimization problems can be modeled. The efficiency of the solver is … Read more