Rich in publications, the well-established field of discrete optimization nevertheless features relatively few books with ready-to-use computer programs. This book, geared toward upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, addresses that need. In addition, it offers a look at the programs' derivation and performance characteristics. Subjects include linear and integer programming, packing and covering, optimization on networks, and coloring and scheduling. A familiarity with design, analysis, and use of computer algorithms is assumed, along with knowledge of programming in Pascal. The book can be used as a supporting text in discrete optimization courses or as a software handbook, with twenty-six programs that execute the most common algorithms in each topic area. Each chapter is self-contained, allowing readers to browse at will.

This book treats the fundamental issues and algorithmic strategies emerging as the core of the discipline of discrete optimization in a comprehensive and rigorous fashion. Following an introductory chapter on computational complexity, the basic algorithmic results for the two major models of polynomial algorithms are introduced--models using matroids and linear programming. Further chapters treat the major non-polynomial algorithms: branch-and-bound and cutting planes. The text concludes with a chapter on heuristic algorithms.Several appendixes are included which review the fundamental ideas of linear programming, graph theory, and combinatorics--prerequisites for readers of the text. Numerous exercises are included at the end of each chapter.

This book deals with decision making in environments of significant data un certainty, with particular emphasis on operations and production management applications. For such environments, we suggest the use of the robustness ap proach to decision making, which assumes inadequate knowledge of the decision maker about the random state of nature and develops a decision that hedges against the worst contingency that may arise. The main motivating factors for a decision maker to use the robustness approach are: • It does not ignore uncertainty and takes a proactive step in response to the fact that forecasted values of uncertain parameters will not occur in most environments; • It applies to decisions of unique, non-repetitive nature, which are common in many fast and dynamically changing environments; • It accounts for the risk averse nature of decision makers; and • It recognizes that even though decision environments are fraught with data uncertainties, decisions are evaluated ex post with the realized data. For all of the above reasons, robust decisions are dear to the heart of opera tional decision makers. This book takes a giant first step in presenting decision support tools and solution methods for generating robust decisions in a variety of interesting application environments. Robust Discrete Optimization is a comprehensive mathematical programming framework for robust decision making.

This book aims to demonstrate and detail the pervasive nature of Discrete Optimization. The handbook couples the difficult, critical-thinking aspects of mathematical modeling with the hot area of discrete optimization. It is done with an academic treatment outlining the state-of-the-art for researchers across the domains of the Computer Science, Math Programming, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, and Operations Research. The book utilizes the tools of mathematical modeling, optimization, and integer programming to solve a broad range of modern problems.

In recent years, many new techniques have emerged in the mathematical theory of discrete optimization that have proven to be effective in solving a number of hard problems. This book presents these recent advances, particularly those that arise from algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, convex and discrete geometry, generating functions, and other tools normally considered outside of the standard curriculum in optimization. These new techniques, all of which are presented with minimal prerequisites, provide a transition from linear to nonlinear discrete optimization. This book can be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduates or first-year graduate students in mathematics, computer science or operations research. It is also appropriate for mathematicians, engineers, and scientists engaged in computation who wish to gain a deeper understanding of how and why algorithms work.

Graph theory offers a rich source of problems and techniques for programming and data structure development, as well as for understanding computing theory, including NP-Completeness and polynomial reduction. A comprehensive text, Graphs, Algorithms, and Optimization features clear exposition on modern algorithmic graph theory presented in a rigorous yet approachable way. The book covers major areas of graph theory including discrete optimization and its connection to graph algorithms. The authors explore surface topology from an intuitive point of view and include detailed discussions on linear programming that emphasize graph theory problems useful in mathematics and computer science. Many algorithms are provided along with the data structure needed to program the algorithms efficiently. The book also provides coverage on algorithm complexity and efficiency, NP-completeness, linear optimization, and linear programming and its relationship to graph algorithms. Written in an accessible and informal style, this work covers nearly all areas of graph theory. Graphs, Algorithms, and Optimization provides a modern discussion of graph theory applicable to mathematics, computer science, and crossover applications.

In the last few years, Algorithms for Convex Optimization have revolutionized algorithm design, both for discrete and continuous optimization problems. For problems like maximum flow, maximum matching, and submodular function minimization, the fastest algorithms involve essential methods such as gradient descent, mirror descent, interior point methods, and ellipsoid methods. The goal of this self-contained book is to enable researchers and professionals in computer science, data science, and machine learning to gain an in-depth understanding of these algorithms. The text emphasizes how to derive key algorithms for convex optimization from first principles and how to establish precise running time bounds. This modern text explains the success of these algorithms in problems of discrete optimization, as well as how these methods have significantly pushed the state of the art of convex optimization itself.

Memetic Algorithms (MAs) are computational intelligence structures combining multiple and various operators in order to address optimization problems. The combination and interaction amongst operators evolves and promotes the diffusion of the most successful units and generates an algorithmic behavior which can handle complex objective functions and hard fitness landscapes. “Handbook of Memetic Algorithms” organizes, in a structured way, all the the most important results in the field of MAs since their earliest definition until now. A broad review including various algorithmic solutions as well as successful applications is included in this book. Each class of optimization problems, such as constrained optimization, multi-objective optimization, continuous vs combinatorial problems, uncertainties, are analysed separately and, for each problem, memetic recipes for tackling the difficulties are given with some successful examples. Although this book contains chapters written by multiple authors, a great attention has been given by the editors to make it a compact and smooth work which covers all the main areas of computational intelligence optimization. It is not only a necessary read for researchers working in the research area, but also a useful handbook for practitioners and engineers who need to address real-world optimization problems. In addition, the book structure makes it an interesting work also for graduate students and researchers is related fields of mathematics and computer science.

This accessible textbook demonstrates how to recognize, simplify, model and solve optimization problems - and apply these principles to new projects.

This well-written textbook on combinatorial optimization puts special emphasis on theoretical results and algorithms with provably good performance, in contrast to heuristics. The book contains complete (but concise) proofs, as well as many deep results, some of which have not appeared in any previous books.