NAG Library Chapter Introduction
H – Operations Research
1 Scope of the Chapter
This chapter provides routines to solve certain integer programming, transportation and shortest path problems. Additionally ‘best subset’ routines are included.
2 Background to the Problems
General
linear programming (LP) problems (see
Dantzig (1963)) are of the form:
- find to maximize
- subject to linear constraints which may have the forms:
This chapter deals with
integer programming (IP) problems in which some or all the elements of the solution vector
are further constrained to be
integers. For general LP problems where
takes only real (i.e., noninteger) values, refer to
Chapter E04.
IP problems may or may not have a solution, which may or may not be unique.
Consider for example the following problem:
The hatched area in
Figure 1 is the
feasible region, the region where all the constraints are satisfied, and the points within it which have integer coordinates are circled. The lines of hatching are in fact contours of decreasing values of the objective function
, and it is clear from
Figure 1 that the optimum IP solution is at the point
. For this problem the solution is unique.
However, there are other possible situations.
(a) |
There may be more than one solution; e.g., if the objective function in the above problem were changed to , both and would be IP solutions. |
(b) |
The feasible region may contain no points with integer coordinates, e.g., if an additional constraint
were added to the above problem. |
(c) |
There may be no feasible region, e.g., if an additional constraint
were added to the above problem. |
(d) |
The objective function may have no finite minimum within the feasible region; this means that the feasible region is unbounded in the direction of decreasing values of the objective function, e.g., if the constraints
were deleted from the above problem. |
Figure 1
Algorithms for IP problems are usually based on algorithms for general LP problems, together with some procedure for constructing additional constraints which exclude noninteger solutions (see
Beale (1977)).
The Branch and Bound (B&B) method is a well-known and widely used technique for solving IP problems (see
Beale (1977) or
Mitra (1973)). It involves subdividing the optimum solution to the original LP problem into two mutually exclusive sub-problems by branching an integer variable that currently has a fractional optimal value. Each sub-problem can now be solved as an LP problem, using the objective function of the original problem. The process of branching continues until a solution for one of the sub-problems is feasible with respect to the integer problem. In order to prove the optimality of this solution, the rest of the sub-problems in the B&B tree must also be solved. Naturally, if a better integer feasible solution is found for any sub-problem, it should replace the one at hand.
A common method for specifying IP and LP problems in general is the use of the MPSX file format (see
IBM (1971)). A full description of this file format is provided in the routine document for
H02BUF.
The efficiency in computations is enhanced by discarding inferior sub-problems. These are problems in the B&B search tree whose LP solutions are lower than (in the case of maximization) the best integer solution at hand.
The B&B method may also be applied to convex quadratic programming (QP) problems. Routines have been introduced into this chapter to formally apply the technique to dense general QP problems and to sparse LP or QP problems.
A special type of linear programming problem is the transportation problem in which there are variables which represent quantities of goods to be transported from each of sources to each of destinations.
The problem is to minimize
where
is the unit cost of transporting from source
to destination
. The constraints are:
Note that the availabilities must equal the requirements:
and if all the
and
are integers, then so are the optimal
.
The
shortest path problem is that of finding a path of minimum length between two distinct vertices
and
through a network. Suppose the vertices in the network are labelled by the integers
. Let
denote an ordered pair of vertices in the network (where
is the origin vertex and
the destination vertex of the arc),
the amount of flow in arc
and
the length of the arc
. The LP formulation of the problem is thus given as
where
and
The above formulation only yields a meaningful solution if
; that is,
forms part of the shortest route only if
. In fact since the optimal LP solution will (in theory) always yield
,
(1) can also be solved as an IP problem. Note that the problem may also be solved directly (and more efficiently) using a variant of Dijkstra's algorithm (see
Ahuja et al. (1993)).
The
travelling salesman problem is that of finding a minimum distance route round a given set of cities. The salesperson must visit each city only once before returning to his or her city of origin. It can be formulated as an IP problem in a number of ways. One such formulation is described in
Williams (1993). There are currently no routines in the Library for solving such problems.
The best subsets problem assumes a scoring mechanism and a set of features. The problem is one of choosing the best subsets of size . It is addressed by two routines in this chapter. The first of these uses reverse communication; the second direct communication.
3 Recommendations on Choice and Use of Available Routines
H02BBF | solves dense integer programming problems using a branch and bound method. |
H02BFF | solves dense integer or linear programming problems defined by a MPSX data file. |
H02BUF | converts an MPSX data file defining an integer or a linear programming problem to the form required by E04MFF/E04MFA or H02BBF. |
H02BVF | prints the solution to an integer or a linear programming problem using specified names for rows and columns. |
H02BZF | supplies further information on the optimum solution obtained by H02BBF. |
H02CBF | solves dense integer general quadratic programming problems. |
H02CCF | reads optional parameter values for H02CBF from external file. |
H02CDF | supplies optional parameter values to H02CBF. |
H02CEF | solves sparse integer linear programming or quadratic programming problems. |
H02CFF | reads optional parameter values for H02CEF from external file. |
H02CGF | supplies optional parameter values to H02CEF. |
H03ABF | solves transportation problems. It uses integer arithmetic throughout and so produces exact results. On a few machines, however, there is a risk of integer overflow without warning, so the integer values in the data should be kept as small as possible by dividing out any common factors from the coefficients of the constraint or objective functions. |
H03ADF | solves shortest path problems using Dijkstra's algorithm. |
H02BBF,
H02BFF and
H03ABF treat all matrices as dense and hence are not intended for large sparse problems. For solving large sparse LP problems, use
E04NQF or
E04UGF/E04UGA.
H05AAF selects the best
subsets of size
using a reverse communication branch and bound algorithm.
H05ABF selects the best
subsets of size
using a direct communication branch and bound algorithm.
4 Functionality Index
Integer programming problem (dense): | | |
print solution with specified names | | H02BVF |
solve LP problem using branch and bound method | | H02BBF |
solve QP problem using branch and bound method | | H02CBF |
supply further information on the solution obtained from H02BBF | | H02BZF |
Integer programming problem (sparse): | | |
solve LP or QP problem using branch and bound method | | H02CEF |
MPSX data input, defining IP or LP problem, | | |
interpret data, optimize and print solution | | H02BFF |
Read optional parameter values from external file for H02CBF | | H02CCF |
Read optional parameter values from external file for H02CEF | | H02CFF |
Shortest path, through directed or undirected network | | H03ADF |
5 Auxiliary Routines Associated with Library Routine Parameters
H02CBU | nagf_mip_iqp_dense_dummy_monit See the description of the argument
MONIT in H02CBF. |
H02CEY | nagf_mip_iqp_sparse_dummy_monit See the description of the argument
MONIT in H02CEF. |
6 Routines Withdrawn or Scheduled for Withdrawal
None.
7 References
Ahuja R K, Magnanti T L and Orlin J B (1993) Network Flows: Theory, Algorithms and Applications Prentice–Hall
Beale E M (1977) Integer programming The State of the Art in Numerical Analysis (ed D A H Jacobs) Academic Press
Dantzig G B (1963) Linear Programming and Extensions Princeton University Press
IBM (1971) MPSX – Mathematical programming system Program Number 5734 XM4 IBM Trade Corporation, New York
Mitra G (1973) Investigation of some branch and bound strategies for the solution of mixed integer linear programs Math. Programming 4 155–170
Williams H P (1993) Model Building in Mathematical Programming (3rd Edition) Wiley