Report in Wirtschaftsmathematik (WIMA Report)
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8
In this paper we consider the problem of finding in a given graph a minimal weight subtree of connected subgraph, which has a given number of edges. These NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems have various applications in the oil industry, in facility layout and graph partitioning. We will present different heuristic approaches based on spanning tree and shortest path methods and on an exact algorithm solving the problem in polynomial time if the underlying graph is a tree. Both the edge- and node weighted case are investigated and extensive numerical results on the behaviour of the heuristics compared to optimal solutions are presented. The best heuristic yielded results within an error margin of less than one percent from optimality for most cases. In a large percentage of tests even optimal solutions have been found.
4
In this paper a group of participants of the 12th European Summer Institute which took place in Tenerifa, Spain in June 1995 present their views on the state of the art and the future trends in Locational Analysis. The issue discussed includes modelling aspects in discrete, network and continuous location, heuristic techniques, the state of technology and undesirable facility location. Some general questions are stated reagrding the applicability of location models, promising research directions and the way technology affects the development of solution techniques.
33
The Multiple Objective Median Problem involves locating a new facility so that a vector of performance criteria is optimized over a given set of existing facilities. A variation of this problem is obtained if the existing facilities are situated on two sides of a linear barrier. Such barriers like rivers, highways, borders, or mountain ranges are frequently encountered in practice. In this paper, theory of the Multiple Objective Median Problem with line barriers is developped. As this problem is nonconvex but specially-structured, a reduction to a series of convex optimization problems is proposed. The general results lead to a polynomial algorithm for finding the set of efficient solutions. The algorithm is proposed for bi-criteria problems with different measures of distance.
34
In order to improve the distribution system for the Nordic countries the BASF AG considered 13 alternative scenarios to the existing system. These involved the construction of warehouses at various locations. For every scenario the transportation, storage, and handling cost incurred was to be as low as possible, where restrictions on the delivery time were given. The scenarios were evaluated according to (minimal) total cost and weighted average delivery time. The results led to a restriction to only three cases, involving only one new warehouse each. For these a more accurate model for the cost was developped and evaluated, yielding results similar to a simple linear model. Since there were no clear preferences between cost and delivery time, the final decision was chosen to represent a compromise between the two criteria.
35
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.
38
Knowledge about the distribution of a statistical estimator is important for various purposes like, for example, the construction of confidence intervals for model parameters or the determiation of critical values of tests. A widely used method to estimate this distribution is the so-called bootstrap which is based on an imitation of the probabilistic structure of the data generating process on the basis of the information provided by a given set of random observations. In this paper we investigate this classical method in the context of artificial neural networks used for estimating a mapping from input to output space. We establish consistency results for bootstrap estimates of the distribution of parameter estimates.
37
In this paper we derive nonparametric stochastic volatility models in discrete time. These models generalize parametric autoregressive random variance models, which have been applied quite successfully to nancial time series. For the proposed models we investigate nonparametric kernel smoothers. It is seen that so-called nonparametric deconvolution estimators could be applied in this situation and that consistency results known for nonparametric errors- in-variables models carry over to the situation considered herein.
39
The computational complexity of combinatorial multiple objective programming problems is investigated. NP-completeness and #P-completeness results are presented. Using two definitions of approximability, general results are presented, which outline limits for approximation algorithms. The performance of the well known tree and Christofides' heuristics for the TSP is investigated in the multicriteria case with respect to the two definitions of approximability.
40
Convex Operators in Vector Optimization: Directional Derivatives and the Cone of Decrease Directions
(1999)
The paper is devoted to the investigation of directional derivatives and the cone of decrease directions for convex operators on Banach spaces. We prove a condition for the existence of directional derivatives which does not assume regularity of the ordering cone K. This result is then used to prove that for continuous convex operators the cone of decrease directions can be represented in terms of the directional derivatices . Decrease directions are those for which the directional derivative lies in the negative interior of the ordering cone K. Finally, we show that the continuity of the convex operator can be replaced by its K-boundedness.
41
The notion of the balance number introduced in [3,page 139] through a certain set contraction procedure for nonscalarized multiobjective global optimization is represented via a min-max operation on the data of the problem. This representation yields a different computational procedure for the calculation of the balance number and allows us to generalize the approach for problems with countably many performance criteria.