The author presents polyhedral results and exact solution methods for location problems encountered in telecommunications, but which also have applications in other areas, such as transportation and supply chain management.

The aim in this graduate level text is to outline the key mathematical concepts that underpin these important questions in applied mathematics. These concepts involve discrete mathematics (particularly graph theory), optimization, computer science, and several ideas in biology.

Combinatorial optimization algorithms are used in many applications including the design, management, and operations of communication networks. The objective of this book is to advance and promote the theory and applications of combinatorial optimization in communication networks. Each chapter of the book is written by an expert dealing with theoretical, computational, or applied aspects of combinatorial optimization.

Topics covered in the book include the combinatorial optimization problems arising in optical networks, wireless ad hoc networks, sensor networks, mobile communication...

A brilliant treatment of a knotty problem in computing. This volume contains chapters written by reputable researchers and provides the state of the art in theory and algorithms for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). The book covers all important areas of study on TSP, including polyhedral theory for symmetric and asymmetric TSP, branch and bound, and branch and cut algorithms, probabilistic aspects of TSP, and includes a thorough computational analysis of heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms.

The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) was introduced in 1957 by Koopmans and Beckmann to model a plant location problem. Since then the QAP has been object of numerous investigations by mathematicians, computers scientists, ope- tions researchers and practitioners. Nowadays the QAP is widely considered as a classical combinatorial optimization problem which is (still) attractive from many points of view. In our opinion there are at last three main reasons which make the QAP a popular problem in combinatorial optimization. First, the number of re- life problems which are mathematically...

Combinatorial Engineering of Decomposable Systems presents a morphological approach to the combinatorial design/synthesis of decomposable systems. Applications involve the following: design (e.g., information systems; user's interfaces; educational courses); planning (e.g., problem-solving strategies; product life cycles; investment); metaheuristics for combinatorial optimization; information retrieval; etc.

VII Preface In many fields of mathematics, geometry has established itself as a fruitful method and common language for describing basic phenomena and problems as well as suggesting ways of solutions. Especially in pure mathematics this is ob- vious and well-known (examples are the much discussed interplay between lin- ear algebra and analytical geometry and several problems in multidimensional analysis). On the other hand, many specialists from applied mathematics seem to prefer more formal analytical and numerical methods and representations. Nevertheless, very often the internal...

As the telecommunication industry introduces new sophisticated technologies, the nature of services and the volume of demands have changed. Indeed, a broad range of new services for users appear, combining voice, data, graphics, video, etc. This implies new planning issues. Fiber transmission systems that can carry large amounts of data on a few strands of wire were introduced. These systems have such a large bandwidth that the failure of even a single transmission link: in the network can create a severe service loss to customers. Therefore, a very high level of service reliability is...

This book is a collection of articles studying various Steiner tree prob- lems with applications in industries, such as the design of electronic cir- cuits, computer networking, telecommunication, and perfect phylogeny. The Steiner tree problem was initiated in the Euclidean plane. Given a set of points in the Euclidean plane, the shortest network interconnect- ing the points in the set is called the Steiner minimum tree. The Steiner minimum tree may contain some vertices which are not the given points. Those vertices are called Steiner points while the given points are called terminals. The...

A brilliant treatment of a knotty problem in computing. This volume contains chapters written by reputable researchers and provides the state of the art in theory and algorithms for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). The book covers all important areas of study on TSP, including polyhedral theory for symmetric and asymmetric TSP, branch and bound, and branch and cut algorithms, probabilistic aspects of TSP, and includes a thorough computational analysis of heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms.