Approximation Algorithms for a Capacitated Network Design Problem

We study a capacitated network design problem with applications in local access network design. Given a network, the problem is to route flow from several sources to a sink and to install capacity on the edges to support the flow at minimum cost. Capacity can be purchased only in multiples of a fixed quantity. All the flow from a source must be routed in a single path to the sink. This NP-hard problem generalizes the Steiner tree problem and also more effectively models the applications traditionally formulated as capacitated tree problems. We present an approximation algorithm with performance ratio (_ST + 2) where _ST is the performance ratio of any approximation algorithm for the minimum Steiner tree problem. When all sources have unit demand, the ratio improves to _ST + 1) and, in particular, to 2 when all nodes in the graph are sources.     

动态容量网络中的最小最大时间流问题

动态(时间依赖的)容量网络与传统静态网络相比更具现实意义,在交通网络、物流网络和通信网络中都有着广泛的应用。在时间依赖网络最短路算法的基础上,研究具有实际背景的动态容量网络的最小最大时间流问题,给出求动态容量网络的最小最大时间流的多项式算法和算法的应用实例,其时间复杂度为O(mMv)。     

一种新的求解约束P-中位问题的启发式算法

针对约束P-中位问题的特点,提出了一种新的启发式算法。该算法借鉴了蚁群算法的信息素学习机制,同时针对问题的结构设计了合理的对象分配方式。模拟计算表明,该算法具有更好的全局优化性能和计算效率。     

Approximation Algorithms for a Capacitated Network Design Problem

We study a capacitated network design problem with applications in local access network design. Given a network, the problem is to route flow from several sources to a sink and to install capacity on the edges to support the flow at minimum cost. Capacity can be purchased only in multiples of a fixed quantity. All the flow from a source must be routed in a single path to the sink. This NP-hard problem generalizes the Steiner tree problem and also more effectively models the applications traditionally formulated as capacitated tree problems. We present an approximation algorithm with performance ratio (ρ_ST + 2) where ρ_ST is the performance ratio of any approximation algorithm for the minimum Steiner tree problem. When all sources have unit demand, the ratio improves to ρ_ST + 1) and, in particular, to 2 when all nodes in the graph are sources.     

A Branch-and-Cut method for the Capacitated Location-Routing Problem

Recent researches in the design of logistic networks have shown that the overall distribution cost may be excessive if routing decisions are ignored when locating depots. The Location-Routing Problem (LRP) overcomes this drawback by simultaneously tackling location and routing decisions. The aim of this paper is to propose an exact approach based on a Branch-and-Cut algorithm for solving the LRP with capacity constraints on depots and vehicles. The proposed method is based on a zero-one linear model strengthened by new families of valid inequalities. The computational evaluation on three sets of instances (34 instances in total), with 5–10 potential depots and 20–88 customers, shows that 26 instances with five depots are solved to optimality, including all instances with up to 40 customers and three with 50 customers.     

带权混合支配问题的近似算法研究

图G=(V,E)上的混合支配集D是由图G中的顶点和边组成的集合,因此对于图G中的任意一条边或一个顶点,若其不在D中,则其必须与D中某条边或某个顶点相邻。混合支配问题是在一个图中找到一个基数最小的混合支配集。混合支配问题是图顶点支配问题和边支配问题的混合,在实际生活中有着许多应用,最近在算法中也备受关注。混合支配问题在一般图上是NP完全的。带权混合支配问题则是混合支配问题的一个自然推广,其将图中的点和边以不同权重进行区分。令图中所有点的权重均为w_v,所有边的权重均为w_e,带权混合支配问题则要求寻找一个混合支配集使得其点和边的权重之和达到最小。尽管针对混合支配问题已存在一个简单2倍近似算法,但是对带权混合支配问题的近似算法的研究进展却非常缓慢。在点的权重不大于边的权重的情况下,文中给出了带权混合支配问题的一个3倍近似算法。     

A Global Repair Operator for Capacitated Arc Routing Problem

Capacitated arc routing problem (CARP) has attracted much attention during the last few years due to its wide applications in real life. Since CARP is NP-hard and exact methods are only applicable for small instances, heuristics and metaheuristic methods are widely adopted when solving CARP. This paper demonstrates one major disadvantage encountered by traditional search algorithms and proposes a novel operator named global repair operator (GRO) to address it. We further embed GRO in a recently proposed tabu search algorithm (TSA) and apply the resultant repair-based tabu search (RTS) algorithm to five well-known benchmark test sets. Empirical results suggest that RTS not only outperforms TSA in terms of quality of solutions but also converges to the solutions faster. Moreover, RTS is also competitive with a number of state-of-the-art approaches for CARP. The efficacy of GRO is thereby justified. More importantly, since GRO is not specifically designed for the referred TSA, it might be a potential tool for improving any existing method that adopts the same solution representation.     

Hybrid evolutionary algorithm for the Capacitated Centered Clustering Problem

The Capacitated Centered Clustering Problem (CCCP) consists of defining a set of p groups with minimum dissimilarity on a network with n points. Demand values are associated with each point and each group has a demand capacity. The problem is well known to be NP-hard and has many practical applications. In this paper, the hybrid method Clustering Search (CS) is implemented to solve the CCCP. This method identifies promising regions of the search space by generating solutions with a metaheuristic, such as Genetic Algorithm, and clustering them into clusters that are then explored further with local search heuristics. Computational results considering instances available in the literature are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of CS.     

New lower bound for the Capacitated Arc Routing Problem

We present a new lower bound, the Multiple Cuts Node Duplication Lower Bound, for the undirected Capacitated Arc Routing Problem. We prove that this new bound dominates the existing bounds for the problem. Computational results are also provided.     

The Capacitated p-facility Location Problem on the Real Line

The problem we address involves locating p new facilities to service a set of customers or fixed points on the real line such that a measure of total cost will be minimized. A basic form of this problem was investigated by Love (1976), who observed that the fixed points must be allocated in sequence to the new facilities in an optimal solution, and thus, the problem can be solved by a dynamic programming algorithm. Since then, other forms of the model have been investigated; however, in all cases it is assumed that the new facilities have unlimited capacity so that customer flows are always allocated to the nearest facility. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of capacity constraints on the optimal locations of the new facilities. A general fixed-cost function is also included to account for practical considerations such as zoning regulations, and to permit the facilities to be located anywhere on the line instead of only at the fixed vertices. A dynamic programming method is formulated to solve the problem when the variable cost components are increasing convex functions of travel distance. The problem is shown to be NP-hard under more general cost structures.     

Cost-based filtering algorithms for a Capacitated Lot Sizing Problem and the Constrained Arborescence Problem

Constraint Programming (CP) is a paradigm derived from artificial intelligence, operational research, and algorithmics that can be used to solve combinatorial problems. CP solves problems by interleaving search (assign a value to an unassigned variable) and propagation. Constraint propagation aims at removing/filtering inconsistent values from the domains of the variables in order to reduce the search space of the problem. In this thesis, we develop filtering algorithms for two complex combinatorial optimization problems: a Capacitated Lot Sizing Problem (CLSP) and the Constrained Arborescence Problem (CAP). Each of these problems has many variants and practical applications.The CLSP is the problem of finding an optimal production plan for single or multiple items while satisfying demands of clients and respecting resource restrictions. The CLSP finds important applications in production planning. In this thesis, we introduce a CLSP in CP. In many lot sizing and scheduling problems, in particular when the planning horizon is discrete and finite, there are stocking costs to be minimized. These costs depend on the time spent between the production of an order and its delivery. We focus on developing specialized filtering algorithms to handle the stocking cost part of a class of the CLSP. We propose the global optimization constraint StockingCost when the perperiod stocking cost is the same for all orders; and its generalized version, the IDStockingCost constraint (ID stands for Item Dependent).In this thesis, we also deal with a well-known problem in graph theory: the Minimum Weight Arborescence (MWA) problem. Consider a weighted directed graph in which we distinguish one vertex r as the root. An MWA rooted at r is a directed spanning tree rooted at r with minimum total weight. We focus on the CAP that requires one to find an arborescence that satisfies some side constraints (for example resource, degree, or diameter constraints) and that has minimum weight. The CAP has many real life applications in telecommunication networks, computer networks, transportation problems, scheduling problems, etc. After sensitivity analysis of the MWA, we introduce the CAP in CP. We propose a dedicated global optimization constraint to handle any known variant of the CAP in CP: the MinArborescence constraint. All the proposed filtering algorithms are analyzed theoretically and evaluated experimentally. The different experimental evaluations of these propagators against the state-of-the-art propagators show their respective efficiencies.     

Multiple Phase Neighborhood Search-GRASP for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) has been proved to be a very efficient algorithm for the solution of the Traveling Salesman Problem. Also, it has been proved that expanding the local search with the use of two or more different local search strategies helps the algorithm to avoid trapping in a local optimum. In this paper, a new modified version of GRASP, called Multiple Phase Neighborhood Search-GRASP (MPNS-GRASP), for the solution of the Vehicle Routing Problem is proposed. In this method, a stopping criterion based on Lagrangean Relaxation and Subgradient Optimization is utilized. In addition, a different way for expanding the neighborhood search is used based on a new strategy, the Circle Restricted Local Search Moves strategy. The algorithm was tested on two sets of benchmark instances and gave very satisfactory results. In both sets of instances the results have solution qualities with average values near to the optimum values and in a number of them the algorithm finds the optimum. The computational time of the algorithm is decreased significantly compared to other heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms due to the fact that the new strategy, the Expanding Neighborhood Search Strategy, is used.     

用于求解混合车辆路径问题的混合进化算法

文中研究了具有NP难度的混合车辆路径问题(Mixed Capacitated General Routing Problem,MCGRP),其是在基本车辆路径问题(Vehicle Routing Problem,VRP)的基础上通过添加限载容量约束及弧上的用户需求而衍生的。给定一列车辆数不限的车队,使车辆从站点出发向用户提供服务,服务完用户需求后仍返回站点;规定每辆车的总载重不能超过其载重量,且每个需求只能被一辆车服务且仅服务一次。MCGRP旨在求解每辆车的服务路线,使得在满足以上约束条件的情况下所有车辆的旅行消耗之和最小。混合车辆路径问题具有较高的理论价值和实际应用价值,针对该问题提出了一种高效的混合进化算法。该算法采用基于5种邻域算符的变邻域禁忌搜索来提高解的质量,并通过一种基于路径的交叉算符来继承解的优异性,从而有效地加速算法的收敛。在一组共计23个经典算例上的实验结果表明,该混合进化算法在求解混合车辆路径问题时是非常高效的。     

一类弱支配集问题的近似算法

支配集问题和集合覆盖问题均是图论中的经典问题,尤其是集合覆盖问题,它的近似算法在许多其他问题中均有非常多的应用,如设施选址问题、服务器的安置问题等。本文研究了支配集问题和集合覆盖问题的关系,讨论了几个弱支配集问题和弱覆盖问题、弱集合覆盖问题等,给出完全支配集问题的近似比为Inn的近似算法,分析了弱完全支配集问题的不可近似比最小规模,讨论了集合击中问题和弱集合b-覆盖问题的最小规模,同时讨论了完全支配集问题、集合d-击中等问题的不可近似性。     

An optimization-based heuristic for the Multi-objective Undirected Capacitated Arc Routing Problem

The Multi-objective Undirected Capacitated Arc Routing Problem (MUCARP) is the optimization problem aimed at finding the best strategy for servicing a subset of clients localized along the links of a logistic network, by using a fleet of vehicles and optimizing more than one objective. In general, the first goal consists in minimizing the total transportation cost, and in this case the problem brings back to the well-known Undirected Capacitated Arc Routing Problem (UCARP). The motivation behind the study of the MUCARP lies in the study of real situations where companies working in the logistic distribution field deal with complex operational strategies, in which different actors (trucks, drivers, customers) have to be allocated within an unified framework by taking into account opposite needs and different employment contracts. All the previous considerations lead to the MUCARP as a benchmark optimization problem for modeling practical situations. In this paper, the MUCARP is heuristically tackled. In particular, three competitive objectives are minimized at the same time: the total transportation cost, the longest route cost (makespan) and the number of vehicles (i.e., the total number of routes). An approximation of the optimal Pareto front is determined through an optimization-based heuristic procedure, whose performances are tested and analyzed on classical benchmark instances.     

能力约束及准备费用延用条件下批量问题的一种启发式算法

考虑能力约束及装备费用延用条件下的多部件批量问题。准备费用延用指如本期末与下期初生产同一部件，下期可节省其准备费用。提出了该问题的一种期间循进式启发算法。并进行了有关的仿真计算。     

A List Based Threshold Accepting Algorithm for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

The aim of this study is to describe a new stochastic search meta-heuristic algorithm for solving the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP), termed as the List Based Threshold Accepting (LBTA) algorithm. The main advantage of this algorithm over the majority of other meta-heuristics is that it produces quite satisfactory solutions in reasonable amount of time by tuning only one parameter of the algorithm. This property makes this algorithm a reliable and a practical tool for every decision support system designed for solving real life vehicle routing problems.     

A Memetic Algorithm With Competition for the Capacitated Green Vehicle Routing Problem

In this paper, a memetic algorithm with competition (MAC) is proposed to solve the capacitated green vehicle routing problem (CGVRP). Firstly, the permutation array called traveling salesman problem (TSP) route is used to encode the solution, and an effective decoding method to construct the CGVRP route is presented accordingly. Secondly, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) based initialization is presented to take use of the location information of the customers. Thirdly, according to the characteristics of the CGVRP, the search operators in the variable neighborhood search (VNS) framework and the simulated annealing (SA) strategy are executed on the TSP route for all solutions. Moreover, the customer adjustment operator and the alternative fuel station (AFS) adjustment operator on the CGVRP route are executed for the elite solutions after competition. In addition, the crossover operator is employed to share information among different solutions. The effect of parameter setting is investigated using the Taguchi method of design-of-experiment to suggest suitable values. Via numerical tests, it demonstrates the effectiveness of both the competitive search and the decoding method. Moreover, extensive comparative results show that the proposed algorithm is more effective and efficient than the existing methods in solving the CGVRP.