Provisioning Virtual Private Networks under traffic uncertainty

We investigate a network design problem under traffic uncertainty which arises when provisioning Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): given a set of terminals that must communicate with one another, and a set of possible traffic matrices, sufficient capacity has to be reserved on the links of the large underlying public network so as to support all … Read more

Finding optimal realignments in sports leagues using a branch-and-cut-and-price approach

The sports team realignment problem can be modelled as $k$-way equipartition: given a complete graph $K_{n}=(V,E)$, with edge weight $c_{e}$ on each edge, partition the vertices $V$ into $k$ divisions that have exactly $S$ vertices, so as to minimize the total weight of the edges that have both endpoints in the same division. In this … Read more

Decomposition and Dynamic Cut Generation in Integer Linear Programming

Decomposition algorithms such as Lagrangian relaxation and Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition are well-known methods that can be used to generate bounds for mixed-integer linear programming problems. Traditionally, these methods have been viewed as distinct from polyhedral methods, in which bounds are obtained by dynamically generating valid inequalities to strengthen the linear programming relaxation. Recently, a number of … Read more

The Integration of an Interior-Point Cutting-Plane Method within a Branch-and-Price Algorithm

This paper presents a novel integration of interior point cutting plane methods within branch-and-price algorithms. Unlike the classical method, columns are generated at a “central” dual solution by applying the analytic centre cutting plane method (ACCPM) on the dual of the full master problem. First, we introduce improvements to ACCPM. We propose a new procedure … Read more