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In the context of inverse optimization, inverse versions of maximum flow and minimum cost flow problems have thoroughly been investigated. In these network flow problems there are two important problem parameters: flow capacities of the arcs and costs incurred by sending a unit flow on these arcs. Capacity changes for maximum flow problems and cost changes for minimum cost flow problems have been studied under several distance measures such as rectilinear, Chebyshev, and Hamming distances. This thesis also deals with inverse network flow problems and their counterparts tension problems under the aforementioned distance measures. The major goals are to enrich the inverse optimization theory by introducing new inverse network problems that have not yet been treated in the literature, and to extend the well-known combinatorial results of inverse network flows for more general classes of problems with inherent combinatorial properties such as matroid flows on regular matroids and monotropic programming. To accomplish the first objective, the inverse maximum flow problem under Chebyshev norm is analyzed and the capacity inverse minimum cost flow problem, in which only arc capacities are perturbed, is introduced. In this way, it is attempted to close the gap between the capacity perturbing inverse network problems and the cost perturbing ones. The foremost purpose of studying inverse tension problems on networks is to achieve a well-established generalization of the inverse network problems. Since tensions are duals of network flows, carrying the theoretical results of network flows over to tensions follows quite intuitively. Using this intuitive link between network flows and tensions, a generalization to matroid flows and monotropic programs is built gradually up.
Given a directed graph G = (N,A) with arc capacities u and a minimum cost flow problem defined on G, the capacity inverse minimum cost flow problem is to find a new capacity vector u' for the arc set A such that a given feasible flow x' is optimal with respect to the modified capacities. Among all capacity vectors u' satisfying this condition, we would like to find one with minimum ||u' - u|| value. We consider two distance measures for ||u' - u||, rectilinear and Chebyshev distances. By reduction from the feedback arc set problem we show that the capacity inverse minimum cost flow problem is NP-hard in the rectilinear case. On the other hand, it is polynomially solvable by a greedy algorithm for the Chebyshev norm. In the latter case we propose a heuristic for the bicriteria problem, where we minimize among all optimal solutions the number of affected arcs. We also present computational results for this heuristic.
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.
In this paper, theory and algorithms for solving the multiple objective minimum cost flow problem are reviewed. For both the continuous and integer case exact and approximation algorithms are presented. In addition, a section on compromise solutions summarizes corresponding results. The reference list consists of all papers known to the autheors which deal with the multiple objective minimum cost flow problem.