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This paper presents a case study of duty rostering for physicians at a department of orthopedics and trauma surgery. We provide a detailed description of the rostering problem faced and present an integer programming model that has been used in practice for creating duty rosters at the department for more than a year. Using real world data, we compare the model output to a manually generated roster as used previously by the department and analyze the quality of the rosters generated by the model over a longer time span. Moreover, we demonstrate how unforeseen events such as absences of scheduled physicians are handled.
Given an undirected, connected network G = (V,E) with weights on the edges, the cut basis problem is asking for a maximal number of linear independent cuts such that the sum of the cut weights is minimized. Surprisingly, this problem has not attained as much attention as its graph theoretic counterpart, the cycle basis problem. We consider two versions of the problem, the unconstrained and the fundamental cut basis problem. For the unconstrained case, where the cuts in the basis can be of an arbitrary kind, the problem can be written as a multiterminal network flow problem and is thus solvable in strongly polynomial time. The complexity of this algorithm improves the complexity of the best algorithms for the cycle basis problem, such that it is preferable for cycle basis problems in planar graphs. In contrast, the fundamental cut basis problem, where all cuts in the basis are obtained by deleting an edge, each, from a spanning tree T is shown to be NP-hard. We present heuristics, integer programming formulations and summarize first experiences with numerical tests.
Linear and integer programs are considered whose coefficient matrices can be partitioned into K consecutive ones matrices. Mimicking the special case of K=1 which is well-known to be equivalent to a network flow problem we show that these programs can be transformed to a generalized network flow problem which we call semi-simultaneous (se-sim) network flow problem. Feasibility conditions for se-sim flows are established and methods for finding initial feasible se-sim flows are derived. Optimal se-sim flows are characterized by a generalization of the negative cycle theorem for the minimum cost flow problem. The issue of improving a given flow is addressed both from a theoretical and practical point of view. The paper concludes with a summary and some suggestions for possible future work in this area.
Using covering problems (CoP) combined with binary search is a well-known and successful solution approach for solving continuous center problems. In this paper, we show that this is also true for center hub location problems in networks. We introduce and compare various formulations for hub covering problems (HCoP) and analyse the feasibility polyhedron of the most promising one. Computational results using benchmark instances are presented. These results show that the new solution approach performs better in most examples.
Using covering problems (CoP) combined with binary search is a well-known and successful solution approach for solving continuous center problems. In this thesis, we show that this is also true for center hub location problems in networks. We introduce and compare various formulations for hub covering problems (HCoP) and analyse the feasibility polyhedron of the most promising one. Computational results using benchmark instances are presented. These results show that the new solution approach performs better in most examples.
Given a public transportation system represented by its stops and direct connections between stops, we consider two problems dealing with the prices for the customers: The fare problem in which subsets of stops are already aggregated to zones and "good" tariffs have to be found in the existing zone system. Closed form solutions for the fare problem are presented for three objective functions. In the zone problem the design of the zones is part of the problem. This problem is NP hard and we therefore propose three heuristics which prove to be very successful in the redesign of one of Germany's transportation systems
We examine the feasibility polyhedron of the uncapacitated hub location problem (UHL) with multiple allocation, which has applications in the fields of air passenger and cargo transportation, telecommunication and postal delivery services. In particular we determine the dimension and derive some classes of facets of this polyhedron. We develop some general rules about lifting facets from the uncapacitated facility location (UFL) for UHL and projecting facets from UHL to UFL. By applying these rules we get a new class of facets for UHL which dominates the inequalities in the original formulation. Thus we get a new formulation of UHL whose constraints are all facet–defining. We show its superior computational performance by benchmarking it on a well known data set.
The thesis deals with the subgradient optimization methods which are serving to solve nonsmooth optimization problems. We are particularly concerned with solving large-scale integer programming problems using the methodology of Lagrangian relaxation and dualization. The goal is to employ the subgradient optimization techniques to solve large-scale optimization problems that originated from radiation therapy planning problem. In the thesis, different kinds of zigzagging phenomena which hamper the speed of the subgradient procedures have been investigated and identified. Moreover, we have established a new procedure which can completely eliminate the zigzagging phenomena of subgradient methods. Procedures used to construct both primal and dual solutions within the subgradient schemes have been also described. We applied the subgradient optimization methods to solve the problem of minimizing total treatment time of radiation therapy. The problem is NP-hard and thus far there exists no method for solving the problem to optimality. We present a new, efficient, and fast algorithm which combines exact and heuristic procedures to solve the problem.
We examine the feasibility polyhedron of the uncapacitated hub location problem (UHL) with multiple allocation, which has applications in the fields of air passenger and cargo transportation, telecommunication and postal delivery services. In particular we determine the dimension and derive some classes of facets of this polyhedron. We develop some general rules about lifting facets from the uncapacitated facility location (UFL) for UHL and projecting facets from UHL to UFL. By applying these rules we get a new class of facets for UHL which dominates the inequalities in the original formulation. Thus we get a new formulation of UHL whose constraints are all facet defining. We show its superior computational performance by benchmarking it on a well known data set.