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Facility location problems in the plane play an important role in mathematical programming. When looking for new locations in modeling real-word problems, we are often confronted with forbidden regions, that are not feasible for the placement of new locations. Furthermore these forbidden regions may habe complicated shapes. It may be more useful or even necessary to use approcimations of such forbidden regions when trying to solve location problems. In this paper we develop error bounds for the approximative solution of restricted planar location problems using the so called sandwich algorithm. The number of approximation steps required to achieve a specified error bound is analyzed. As examples of these approximation schemes, we discuss round norms and polyhedral norms. Also computational tests are included.
There are several good reasons to introduce classification schemes for optimization problems including, for instance, the ability for concise problem statement opposed to verbal, often ambiguous, descriptions or simple data encoding and information retrieval in bibliographical information systems or software libraries. In some branches like scheduling and queuing theory classification is therefore a widely accepted and appreciated tool. The aim of this paper is to propose a 5-position classification which can be used to cover all location problems. We will provide a list of currentliy available symbols and indicate its usefulness in a - necessarily non-comprehensive - list of classical location problems. The classification scheme is in use since 1992 and has since proved to be useful in research, software development, classroom, and for overview articles.
Convex Analysis
(1998)
Preface Convex analysis is one of the mathematical tools which is used both explicitly and indirectly in many mathematical disciplines. However, there are not so many courses which have convex analysis as the main topic. More often, parts of convex analysis are taught in courses like linear or nonlinear optimization, probability theory, geometry, location theory, etc.. This manuscript gives a systematic introduction to the concepts of convex analysis. A focus is set to the geometrical interpretation of convex analysis. This focus was one of the reasons why I have decided to restrict myself to the finite dimensional case. Another reason for this restriction is that in the infinite dimensional case many proofs become more difficult and more technical. Therefore, it would not have been possible (for me) to cover all the topics I wanted to discuss in this introductory text in the infinite dimensional case, too. Anyway, I am convinced that even for someone who is interested in the infinite dimensional case this manuscript will be a good starting point. When I offered a course in convex analysis in the Wintersemester 1997/1998 (upon which this manuscript is based) a lot of students asked me how this course fits in their own studies. Because this manuscript will (hopefully) be used by some students in the future, I will give here some of the possible statements to answer this very question. - Convex analysis can be seen as an extension of classical analysis, in which still we get many of the results, like a mean-value theorem, with less assumptions on the smoothness of the function. - Convex analysis can be seen as a foundation of linear and nonlinear optimization which provides many tools to handle concepts in optimization much easier (for example the Lemma of Farkas). - Finally, convex analysis can be seen as a link between abstract geometry and very algorithmic oriented computational geometry. As already explained before, this manuscript is based on a one semester course and therefore cannot cover all topics and discuss all aspects of convex analysis in detail. To guide the interested reader I have included a list of nice books about this subject at the end of the manuscript. It should be noted that the philosophy of this course follows [3], [4] and THE BOOK of modern convex analysis [6]. The geometrical emphasis however, is also related to intentions of [1].^L
Location problems with Q (in general conflicting) criteria are considered. After reviewing previous results of the authors dealing with lexicographic and Pareto location the main focus of the paper is on max-ordering locations. In these location problems the worst of the single objectives is minimized. After discussing some general results (including reductions to single criterion problems and the relation to lexicographic and Pareto locations) three solution techniques are introduced and exemplified using one location problem class, each: The direct approach, the decision space approach and the objective space approach. In the resulting solution algorithms emphasis is on the representation of the underlying geometric idea without fully exploring the computational complexity issue. A further specialization of max-ordering locations is obtained by introducing lexicographic max-ordering locations, which can be found efficiently. The paper is concluded by some ideas about future research topics related to max-ordering location problems.
Robust facility location
(1998)
Let A be a nonempty finite subset of R^2 representing the geographical coordinates of a set of demand points (towns, ...), to be served by a facility, whose location within a given region S is sought. Assuming that the unit cost for a in A if the facility is located at x in S is proportional to dist(x,a) - the distance from x to a - and that demand of point a is given by w_a, minimizing the total trnsportation cost TC(w,x) amounts to solving the Weber problem. In practice, it may be the case, however, that the demand vector w is not known, and only an estimator {hat w} can be provided. Moreover the errors in sich estimation process may be non-negligible. We propose a new model for this situation: select a threshold valus B 0 representing the highest admissible transportation cost. Define the robustness p of a location x as the minimum increase in demand needed to become inadmissible, i.e. p(x) = min{||w^*-{hat w}|| : TC(w^*,x) B, w^* = 0} and solve then the optimization problem max_{x in S} p(x) to get the most robust location.
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.
In this paper we deal with single facility location problems in a general normed space where the existing facilities are represented by sets. The criterion to be satis ed by the service facility is the minimization of an increasing function of the distances from the service to the closest point ofeach demand set. We obtain a geometrical characterization of the set of optimal solutions for this problem. Two remarkable cases - the classical Weber problem and the minmax problem with demand sets - are studied as particular instances of our problem. Finally, for the planar polyhedral case we give an algorithmic description of the solution set of the considered problems.
In this paper we deal with the determination of the whole set of Pareto-solutions of location problems with respect to Q general criteria.These criteria include median, center or cent-dian objective functions as particular instances.The paper characterizes the set of Pareto-solutions of a these multicriteria problems. An efficient algorithm for the planar case is developed and its complexity is established. Extensions to higher dimensions as well as to the non-convexcase are also considered.The proposed approach is more general than the previously published approaches to multi-criteria location problems and includes almost all of them as particular instances.
In this paper we address the question of how many objective functions are needed to decide whether a given point is a Pareto optimal solution for a multicriteria optimization problem. We extend earlier results showing that the set of weakly Pareto optimal points is the union of Pareto optimal sets of subproblems and show their limitations. We prove that for strictly quasi-convex problems in two variables Pareto optimality can be decided by consideration of at most three objectives at a time. Our results are based on a geometric characterization of Pareto, strict Pareto and weak Pareto solutions and Helly's Theorem. We also show that a generalization to quasi-convex objectives is not possible, and state a weaker result for this case. Furthermore, we show that a generalization to strictly Pareto optimal solutions is impossible, even in the convex case.
It is well-known that some of the classical location problems with polyhedral gauges can be solved in polynomial time by finding a finite dominating set, i.e. a finite set of candidates guaranteed to contain at least one optimal location. In this paper it is first established that this result holds for a much larger class of problems than currently considered in the literature. The model for which this result can be proven includes, for instance, location problems with attraction and repulsion, and location-allocation problems. Next, it is shown that the approximation of general gauges by polyhedral ones in the objective function of our general model can be analyzed with regard to the subsequent error in the optimal objective value. For the approximation problem two different approaches are described, the sandwich procedure and the greedy algorithm. Both of these approaches lead - for fixed epsilon - to polynomial approximation algorithms with accuracy epsilon for solving the general model considered in this paper.