Interfaces in Computer Science and Operations Research

Interfaces in Computer Science and Operations Research
Author: R. S. Barr
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1461541026

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The disciplines of computer science and operations research (OR) have been linked since their origins, each contributing to the dramatic advances of the other. This work explores the connections between these key technologies: how high-performance computing methods have led to advances in OR de ployment, and how OR has contributed to the design and development of ad vanced systems. The collected writings-from researchers and practitioners in Computer Science, Operations Research, Management Science, and Artificial Intelligence-were among those delivered at the Fifth INFORMS Computer Science Technical Section Conference in Dallas, Texas, January 8-10, 1996. The articles advance both theory and practice. Presented are new approaches to complex problems based on: metaheuristics (neural networks, genetic al gorithms, and Tabu Search), optimization and mathematical programming, stochastic methods, constraint programming, and logical analysis. These ad vanced methodologies are applied to new applications in such areas as: telecom munications network design, financial engineering, manufacturing, project man agement, and forecasting, airline and machine scheduling, vehicle routing, mod eling and decision support systems. Featured is a remarkable paper by keynote speaker Fred Glover, creator of the Tabu Search family of metaheuristics. In it he develops the principles of memory-based heuristic methods, contrasts them with the popular genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, provides a sweeping survey of application vignettes, and points to promising avenues for future research.

Computer Science and Operations Research: New Developments in their Interfaces

Computer Science and Operations Research: New Developments in their Interfaces
Author: Osman Balci
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 549
Release: 2014-05-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1483297861

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The interface of Operation Research and Computer Science - although elusive to a precise definition - has been a fertile area of both methodological and applied research. The papers in this book, written by experts in their respective fields, convey the current state-of-the-art in this interface across a broad spectrum of research domains which include optimization techniques, linear programming, interior point algorithms, networks, computer graphics in operations research, parallel algorithms and implementations, planning and scheduling, genetic algorithms, heuristic search techniques and data retrieval.

Operations Research and Cyber-Infrastructure

Operations Research and Cyber-Infrastructure
Author: John W. Chinneck
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2009-01-05
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0387888438

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Operations Research and Cyber-Infrastructure is the companion volume to the Eleventh INFORMS Computing Society Conference (ICS 2009), held in Charleston, South Carolina, from January 11 to 13, 2009. It includes 24 high-quality refereed research papers. As always, the focus of interest for ICS is the interface between Operations Research and Computer Science, and the papers in this volume reflect that interest. This is naturally an evolving area as computational power increases rapidly while decreasing in cost even more quickly, and the papers included here illustrate the wide range of topics at this interface.

Computing Tools for Modeling, Optimization and Simulation

Computing Tools for Modeling, Optimization and Simulation
Author: Manuel Laguna
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1461545676

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Computing Tools for Modeling, Optimization and Simulation reflects the need for preserving the marriage between operations research and computing in order to create more efficient and powerful software tools in the years ahead. The 17 papers included in this volume were carefully selected to cover a wide range of topics related to the interface between operations research and computer science. The volume includes the now perennial applications of rnetaheuristics (such as genetic algorithms, scatter search, and tabu search) as well as research on global optimization, knowledge management, software rnaintainability and object-oriented modeling. These topics reflect the complexity and variety of the problems that current and future software tools must be capable of tackling. The OR/CS interface is frequently at the core of successful applications and the development of new methodologies, making the research in this book a relevant reference in the future. The editors' goal for this book has been to increase the interest in the interface of computer science and operations research. Both researchers and practitioners will benefit from this book. The tutorial papers may spark the interest of practitioners for developing and applying new techniques to complex problems. In addition, the book includes papers that explore new angles of well-established methods for problems in the area of nonlinear optimization and mixed integer programming, which seasoned researchers in these fields may find fascinating.

Advances in Computational and Stochastic Optimization, Logic Programming, and Heuristic Search

Advances in Computational and Stochastic Optimization, Logic Programming, and Heuristic Search
Author: David L. Woodruff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475728077

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Computer Science and Operations Research continue to have a synergistic relationship and this book - as a part of the Operations Research and Computer Science Interface Series - sits squarely in the center of the confluence of these two technical research communities. The research presented in the volume is evidence of the expanding frontiers of these two intersecting disciplines and provides researchers and practitioners with new work in the areas of logic programming, stochastic optimization, heuristic search and post-solution analysis for integer programs. The chapter topics span the spectrum of application level. Some of the chapters are highly applied and others represent work in which the application potential is only beginning. In addition, each chapter contains expository material and reviews of the literature designed to enhance the participation of the reader in this expanding interface.

Scheduling of Resource-Constrained Projects

Scheduling of Resource-Constrained Projects
Author: Robert Klein
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 146154629X

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Project management has become a widespread instrument enabling organizations to efficiently master the challenges of steadily shortening product life cycles, global markets and decreasing profit margins. With projects increasing in size and complexity, their planning and control represents one of the most crucial management tasks. This is especially true for scheduling, which is concerned with establishing execution dates for the sub-activities to be performed in order to complete the project. The ability to manage projects where resources must be allocated between concurrent projects or even sub-activities of a single project requires the use of commercial project management software packages. However, the results yielded by the solution procedures included are often rather unsatisfactory. Scheduling of Resource-Constrained Projects develops more efficient procedures, which can easily be integrated into software packages by incorporated programming languages, and thus should be of great interest for practitioners as well as scientists working in the field of project management. The book is divided into two parts. In Part I, the project management process is described and the management tasks to be accomplished during project planning and control are discussed. This allows for identifying the major scheduling problems arising in the planning process, among which the resource-constrained project scheduling problem is the most important. Part II deals with efficient computer-based procedures for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem and its generalized version. Since both problems are NP-hard, the development of such procedures which yield satisfactory solutions in a reasonable amount of computation time is very challenging, and a number of new and very promising approaches are introduced. This includes heuristic procedures based on priority rules and tabu search as well as lower bound methods and branch and bound procedures which can be applied for computing optimal solutions.

Optimization Software Class Libraries

Optimization Software Class Libraries
Author: Stefan Voß
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2005-12-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 030648126X

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Optimization problems in practice are diverse and evolve over time, giving rise to - quirements both for ready-to-use optimization software packages and for optimization software libraries, which provide more or less adaptable building blocks for app- cation-specific software systems. In order to apply optimization methods to a new type of problem, corresponding models and algorithms have to be “coded” so that they are accessible to a computer. One way to achieve this step is the use of a mod- ing language. Such modeling systems provide an excellent interface between models and solvers, but only for a limited range of model types (in some cases, for example, linear) due, in part, to limitations imposed by the solvers. Furthermore, while m- eling systems especially for heuristic search are an active research topic, it is still an open question as to whether such an approach may be generally successful. Modeling languages treat the solvers as a “black box” with numerous controls. Due to variations, for example, with respect to the pursued objective or specific problem properties, - dressing real-world problems often requires special purpose methods. Thus, we are faced with the difficulty of efficiently adapting and applying appropriate methods to these problems. Optimization software libraries are intended to make it relatively easy and cost effective to incorporate advanced planning methods in application-specific software systems. A general classification provides a distinction between callable packages, nume- cal libraries, and component libraries.

Handbook of Terminal Planning

Handbook of Terminal Planning
Author: Jürgen W. Böse
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2011-02-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1441984089

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Container Terminals (CT) operate as central nodes in worldwide hub-and-spoke networks and link ocean-going vessels with smaller feeder vessels as well as with inbound and outbound hinterland transportation systems using road, rail, or inland waterways. The volume of transcontinental container flows has gained appreciably over the last five decades -- throughput figures of CT reached new records, frequently with double-digit annual growth rates. Stimulated by throughput requirements and stronger competition between terminals settled in the same region or serving a similar hinterland, respectively, cost efficiency and throughput capabilities become more and more important. Nowadays, both terminal capacity and costs have to be regarded as key indicators for CT competitiveness. In respect of this steady growth, this handbook focuses on planning activities being aimed at “order of magnitude improvements” in terminal performance and economic viability. On the one hand the book is intended to provide readership with technological and organizational CT basics for strategic planning. On the other hand this book offers methodical assistance for fundamental dimensioning of CT in terms of 'technique', 'organization' or 'man'. The former primarily considers comprehensive information about container handling technologies representing the state of the art for present terminal operations, while the latter refers to methodological support comprising in particular quantitative solutions and modeling techniques for strategic terminal decisions as well as straightforward design guidelines. The handbook includes an introductory contribution which gives an overview of strategic planning problems at CT and introduces the contributions of the volume with regard to their relationship in this field. Moreover, each paper contains a section or paragraph that describes the impact of findings investigated by the author(s) for problem-solving in long-term planning of CT (as an application domain). The handbook intends to provide solutions and insights that are valuable for both practitioners in industry who need effective planning approaches to overcome problems and weaknesses in terminal design/development and researchers who would like to inform themselves about the state of the art in methodology of strategic terminal planning or be inspired by new ideas. That is to say, the handbook is addressed to terminal planners in practice as well as to students of maritime courses of study and (application oriented) researchers in the maritime field.