We present a fully polynomial time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for optimizing a very general class of nonlinear functions of low rank over a polytope. Our approximation scheme relies on constructing an approximate Pareto-optimal front of the linear functions which constitute the given low-rank function. In contrast to existing results in the literature, our approximation scheme … Read more
In this paper, we present a general framework for designing approximation schemes for combinatorial optimization problems in which the objective function is a combination of more than one function. Examples of such problems include those in which the objective function is a product or ratio of two linear functions, parallel machine scheduling problems with the … Read more
Valid inequalities or cutting planes for (mixed-) integer programming problems are an essential theoretical tool for studying combinatorial properties of polyhedra. They are also of utmost importance for solving optimization problems in practice; in fact any modern solver relies on several families of cutting planes. The Chvátal-Gomory procedure, one such approach, has a peculiarity that … Read more
This paper presents some strong valid inequalities for the Maximum Common Induced Subgraph Problem (MCIS) and the proofs that the inequalities are facet-defining under certain conditions. The MCIS is an NP-hard problem and, therefore, no polynomial time algorithm is known to solve it. In this context, the study of its polytope can help in the … Read more
Large-sized extended formulations have the potential for providing high-quality bounds on some combinatorial optimization problems where the natural formulations perform poorly. This chapter discusses the use of some families of cuts that have been recently applied on extended formulations that are obtained by the discretization of the continuous variables occurring in the natural formulation of … Read more
Naddef shows that the Hirsch conjecture is true for (0,1)-polytopes by proving that the diameter of any $(0,1)$-polytope in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space is at most $d$. In this short paper, we give a simple proof for the diameter. The proof is based on the number of solutions generated by the simplex method for a linear … Read more
There are $n$ individual assets and $k$ of them are to be sold over two stages. The first-stage prices are known and the second-stage prices have a known distribution. The sell or hold problem (SHP) is to determine which assets are to be sold at each stage to maximize the total expected revenue. We show … Read more
The aim of operational train timetabling is to find a conflict free timetable for a set of passenger and freight trains with predefined stopping time windows along given routes in an infrastructure network so that station capacities and train dependent running and headway times are observed. Typical models for this problem are based on time-discretized … Read more
We consider the problem of deleting a limited number of nodes from a graph in order to minimize a connectivity measure between the surviving nodes. We prove that the problem is $NP$-complete even on quite particular types of graph, and define a dynamic programming recursion that solves the problem in polynomial time when the graph … Read more
In this paper we deal with the critical node problem, where a given number of nodes has to be removed from an undirected graph in order to maximize the disconnections between the node pairs of the graph. We propose an integer linear programming model with a non-polynomial number of constraints but whose linear relaxation can … Read more