Master of Science / Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Todd Easton / Graph theory is a widely researched topic. A graph contains a set of nodes and a set of edges. The nodes often represent resources such as machines, employees, or plant locations. Each edge represents the relationship between a pair of nodes such as time, distance, or cost. Integer programs are frequently used to solve graphical problems. Unfortunately, IPs are NP-hard unless P = NP, which implies that it requires exponential effort to solve them. Much research has been focused on reducing the amount of time required to solve IPs through the use of valid inequalities or cutting planes. The theoretically strongest cutting planes are facet defining cutting planes. This research focuses on the node packing problem or independent set problem, which is a combinatorial optimization problem. The node packing problem involves coloring the maximum number of nodes such that no two nodes are adjacent. Node packings have been applied to airline traffic and radio frequencies. This thesis introduces a new class of graphical structures called suns. Suns produce previously undiscovered valid inequalities for the node packing polyhedron. Conditions are provided for when these valid inequalities are proven to be facet defining. Sun valid inequalities have the potential to more quickly solve node packing problems and could even be extended to general integer programs through conflict graphs.

Master of Science / Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Todd W. Easton / Integer programs (IP) are used in companies and organizations across the world to reach financial and time-related goals most often through optimal resource allocation and scheduling. Unfortunately, integer programs are computationally difficult to solve and in some cases the optimal solutions are unknown even with today’s advanced computing machines. Lifting is a technique that is often used to decrease the time required to solve an IP to optimality. Lifting begins with a valid inequality and strengthens it by changing the coefficients of variables in the inequality. Often times, this technique can result in facet defining inequalities, which are the theoretically strongest inequalities. This thesis introduces a new type of lifting called synchronized simultaneous lifting (SSL). SSL allows for multiple sets of simultaneously lifted variables to be simultaneously lifted which generates a new class of inequalities that previously would have required an oracle to be found. Additionally, this thesis describes an algorithm to perform synchronized simultaneous lifting for a binary knapsack inequality called the Synchronized Simultaneous Lifting Algorithm (SSLA). SSLA is a quadratic time algorithm that will exactly simultaneously lift two sets of simultaneously lifted variables. Short computational studies show SSLA can sometimes solve IPs to optimality that CPLEX, an advanced integer programming solver, alone cannot solve. Specifically, the SSL cuts allowed a 76 percent improvement over CPLEX alone.

Le problème d’ordre linéaire (LOP) a reçu beaucoup d’attention dans différents domaines d’application, allant de l’archéologie à l’ordonnancement en passant par l’économie et même de la psychologie mathématique. Ce problème est aussi connu pour être parmi les problèmes NP-difficiles. Nous considérons dans cette thèse une variante de (LOP) sous contrainte de cardinalité. Nous cherchons donc un ordre linéaire d’un sous-ensemble de sommets du graphe de préférences de cardinalité fixée et de poids maximum. Ce problème, appelé (FCLOP) pour ’fixed-cardinality linear ordering problem’, n’a pas été étudié en tant que tel dans la littérature scientifique même si plusieurs applications dans les domaines de macro-économie, de classification dominante ou de transport maritime existent concrètement. On retrouve en fait ses caractéristiques dans les modèles étendus de sous-graphes acycliques. Le problème d’ordre linéaire est déjà connu comme un problème NP-difficile et il a donné lieu à de nombreuses études, tant théoriques sur la structure polyédrale de l’ensemble des solutions réalisables en variables 0-1 que numériques grâce à des techniques de relaxation et de séparation progressive. Cependant on voit qu’il existe de nombreux cas dans la littérature, dans lesquelles des solveurs de Programmation Linéaire en nombres entiers comme CPLEX peuvent en résoudre certaines instances en moins de 10 secondes, mais une fois que la cardinalité est limitée, ces mêmes instances deviennent très difficiles à résoudre. Sur les aspects polyédraux, nous avons étudié le polytope de FCLOP, défini plusieurs classes d’inégalités valides et identifié la dimension ainsi que certaines inégalités qui définissent des facettes pour le polytope de FCLOP. Nous avons introduit un algorithme Relax-and-Cut basé sur ces résultats pour résoudre les instances du problème. Dans cette étude, nous nous sommes également concentrés sur la relaxation Lagrangienne pour résoudre ces cas difficiles. Nous avons étudié différentes stratégies de relaxation et nous avons comparé les bornes duales par rapport à la consolidation obtenue à partir de chaque stratégie de relâcher les contraintes afin de détecter le sous-ensemble des contraintes le plus approprié. Les résultats numériques montrent que nous pouvons trouver des bornes duales de très haute qualité. Nous avons également mis en place une méthode de décomposition Lagrangienne. Dans ce but, nous avons décomposé le modèle de FCLOP en trois sous-problèmes (au lieu de seulement deux) associés aux contraintes de ’tournoi’, de ’graphes sans circuits’ et de ’cardinalité’. Les résultats numériques montrent une amélioration significative de la qualité des bornes duales pour plusieurs cas. Nous avons aussi mis en oeuvre une méthode de plans sécants (cutting plane algorithm) basée sur la relaxation pure des contraintes de circuits. Dans cette méthode, on a relâché une partie des contraintes et on les a ajoutées au modèle au cas où il y a des de/des violations. Les résultats numériques montrent des performances prometteuses quant à la réduction du temps de calcul et à la résolution d’instances difficiles hors d’atteinte des solveurs classiques en PLNE. / Linear Ordering Problem (LOP) has receive significant attention in different areas of application, ranging from transportation and scheduling to economics and even archeology and mathematical psychology. It is classified as a NP-hard problem. Assume a complete weighted directed graph on V n , |V n |= n. A permutation of the elements of this finite set of vertices is a linear order. Now let p be a given fixed integer number, 0 ≤ p ≤ n. The p-Fixed Cardinality Linear Ordering Problem (FCLOP) is looking for a subset of vertices containing p nodes and a linear order on the nodes in S. Graphically, there exists exactly one directed arc between every pair of vertices in an LOP feasible solution, which is also a complete cycle-free digraph and the objective is to maximize the sum of the weights of all the arcs in a feasible solution. In the FCLOP, we are looking for a subset S ⊆ V n such that |S|= p and an LOP on these S nodes. Hence the objective is to find the best subset of the nodes and an LOP over these p nodes that maximize the sum of the weights of all the arcs in the solution. Graphically, a feasible solution of the FCLOP is a complete cycle-free digraph on S plus a set of n − p vertices that are not connected to any of the other vertices. There are several studies available in the literature focused on polyhedral aspects of the linear ordering problem as well as various exact and heuristic solution methods. The fixed cardinality linear ordering problem is presented for the first time in this PhD study, so as far as we know, there is no other study in the literature that has studied this problem. The linear ordering problem is already known as a NP-hard problem. However one sees that there exist many instances in the literature that can be solved by CPLEX in less than 10 seconds (when p = n), but once the cardinality number is limited to p (p < n), the instance is not anymore solvable due to the memory issue. We have studied the polytope corresponding to the FCLOP for different cardinality values. We have identified dimension of the polytope, proposed several classes of valid inequalities and showed that among these sets of valid inequalities, some of them are defining facets for the FCLOP polytope for different cardinality values. We have then introduced a Relax-and-Cut algorithm based on these results to solve instances of the FCLOP. To solve the instances of the problem, in the beginning, we have applied the Lagrangian relaxation algorithm. We have studied different relaxation strategies and compared the dual bound obtained from each case to detect the most suitable subproblem. Numerical results show that some of the relaxation strategies result better dual bound and some other contribute more in reducing the computational time and provide a relatively good dual bound in a shorter time. We have also implemented a Lagrangian decomposition algorithm, decom-6 posing the FCLOP model to three subproblems (instead of only two subproblems). The interest of decomposing the FCLOP model to three subproblems comes mostly from the nature of the three subproblems, which are relatively quite easier to solve compared to the initial FCLOP model. Numerical results show a significant improvement in the quality of dual bounds for several instances. We could also obtain relatively quite better dual bounds in a shorter time comparing to the other relaxation strategies. We have proposed a cutting plane algorithm based on the pure relaxation strategy. In this algorithm, we firstly relax a subset of constraints that due to the problem structure, a very few number of them are active. Then in the course of the branch-and-bound tree we verify if there exist any violated constraint among the relaxed constraints or. Then the characterized violated constraints will be globally added to the model. (...)