Robust Critical Node Selection by Benders Decomposition

The critical node selection problem (CNP) has important applications in telecommunication, supply chain design, and disease propagation prevention. In practice, the weights on the connections are either uncertain or hard to estimate so recently robust optimization approaches have been considered for CNP. In this article, we address very general uncertainty sets, only requiring a linear … Read more

Scheduling optimization of a real flexible job shop including side constraints regarding maintenance, fixtures, and night shifts

We present a generic iterative scheduling procedure for the scheduling of a real flexible job shop, the so-called multitask cell at GKN Aerospace Engine Systems in Sweden. A time-indexed formulation of the problem is presented including side constraints regarding preventive maintenance, fixture availability, and unmanned night shifts. This paper continues the work in Thörnblad et … Read more

A competitive iterative procedure using a time-indexed model for solving flexible job shop scheduling problems

We investigate the efficiency of a discretization procedure utilizing a time-indexed mathematical optimization model for finding accurate solutions to flexible job shop scheduling problems considering objectives comprising the makespan and the tardiness of jobs, respectively. The time-indexed model is used to find solutions to these problems by iteratively employing time steps of decreasing length. The … Read more

Improving the LP bound of a MILP by dual concurrent branching and the relationship to cut generation methods

In this paper branching for attacking MILP is investigated. Under certain circumstances branches can be done concurrently. By introducing a new calculus it is shown there are restrictions for dual values. As a second result of this study a new class of cuts for MILP is found, which are defined by those values. This class … Read more

A fix-and-relax heuristic for controlled tabular adjustment

Controlled tabular adjustment (CTA) is an emerging protection technique for tabular data protection. CTA formulates a mixed integer linear programming problem, which is tough for tables of moderate size. Finding a feasible initial solution may even be a challenging task for large instances. On the other hand, end users of tabular data protection techniques give … Read more

The Freight Train Routing Problem

We consider the following freight train routing problem (FTRP). Given is a transportation network with fixed routes for passenger trains and a set of freight trains (requests), each defined by an origin and destination station pair. The objective is to calculate a feasible route for each freight train such that a sum of all expected … Read more

Exploiting total unimodularity for classes of random network problems

Network analysis is of great interest for the study of social, biological and technological networks, with applications, among others, in business, marketing, epidemiology and telecommunications. Researchers are often interested in assessing whether an observed feature in some particular network is expected to be found within families of networks under some hypothesis (named conditional random networks, … Read more

A scenario decomposition algorithm for 0-1 stochastic programs

We propose a scenario decomposition algorithm for stochastic 0-1 programs. The algorithm recovers an optimal solution by iteratively exploring and cutting-off candidate solutions obtained from solving scenario subproblems. The scheme is applicable to quite general problem structures and can be implemented in a distributed framework. Illustrative computational results on standard two-stage stochastic integer programming and … Read more

On the Separation of Split Inequalities for Non-Convex Quadratic Integer Programming

We investigate the computational potential of split inequalities for non-convex quadratic integer programming, first introduced by Letchford and further examined by Burer and Letchford. These inequalities can be separated by solving convex quadratic integer minimization problems. For small instances with box-constraints, we show that the resulting dual bounds are very tight; they can close a … Read more

A Unified View on Relaxations for a Nonlinear Network Flow Problem

We consider a nonlinear nonconvex network flow problem that arises, for example, in natural gas or water transmission networks. Given is such network with active and passive components, that is, valves, compressors, pressure regulators (active) and pipelines (passive), and a desired amount of flow at certain specified entry and exit nodes of the network. Besides … Read more