The quadratic traveling salesman problem (QTSP) is an extension of the (classical) Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) where the costs depend on each two nodes that are traversed in succession, i. e., on the edges in the symmetric (STSP) and on the arcs in the asymmetric case (ATSP). The QTSP is motivated by an application in bioinformatics. It can be used in the solution of certain Permuted Markov models that are set up for the recognition of transcription factor binding sites and of splice sites in gene regulation. Important special cases are the Angular-Metric TSP used in robotics and the TSP with Reload Costs used in the planning of telecommunication and transport networks. The SQTSP and the AQTSP can be formulated as integer optimization problems over the polytope associated with the STSP resp. ATSP together with a quadratic cost function. We study the polytopes arising from a linearization of the respective quadratic integer programming formulations. Based on the proof of the dimension of the polytopes using the so called direct method we can prove the facetness of several valid inequalities. These facets and valid inequalities can be divided into three large groups. Some are related to the Boolean quadric polytope. Furthermore we introduce the conflicting edges/arc inequalities that forbid certain configurations of edges and 2-edges resp. of arcs and 2-arcs. Finally, we strengthen valid inequalities of STSP and ATSP in order to get stronger inequalities in the quadratic case. We present two general lifting approaches. One is applicable to all inequalities with nonnegative coefficients and the second allows to strengthen clique tree inequalities. Applying these approaches to the subtour elimination constraints leads to facets in most cases, but in general facetness is not preserved. In addition, the complexity of the separation problems for some of the facet classes is studied. Finally, we present some computational results using a branch-and-cut framework, which is improved by some of the newly derived cutting planes. The tested instances from biology could be solved surprisingly well. Instances with up to 100 nodes could be solved in less than 700 seconds improving the results in the literature by several orders of magnitude. For most of the randomly generated instances using some additional separators allowed to reduce the root gaps and the numbers of nodes in the branch-and-cut tree significantly, often even the running times.

Contrary to popular belief, we can’t all be winners. Suppose 6 people compete in a chess tournament in which all pairs of players compete directly and no ties are allowed; i.e., 6 people compete in a ‘round robin tournament’. Each player is assigned a ‘score’, namely the number of games they won, and the ‘score sequence’ of the tournament is a list of the players’ scores. Determining whether a given potential score sequence actually is a score sequence proves to be difficult. For instance, (0, 0, 3, 3, 3, 6) is not feasible because two players cannot both have score 0. Neither is the sequence (1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4) because the sum of the scores is 16, but only 15 games are played among 6 players. This so called ‘tournament score sequence problem’ (TSSP) was solved in 1953 by the mathematical sociologist H. G. Landau. His work inspired the investigation of round robin tournaments as directed graphs. We study a modification in which the TSSP is cast as a system of inequalities whose solutions form a polytope η-dimensional space. This relaxation allows us to investigate the possibility of fractional scores. If, in a ‘round-robin’-ish tournament, Players A and B play each other 3 times, and Player A wins 2 of the 3 games, we can record this interaction as a 2/3 score for Player A and a 1/3 score for Player B. This generalization greatly impacts the nature of possible score sequences. We will also entertain an interpretation of these fractional scores as probabilities predicting the outcome of a true round robin tournament. The intersection of digraph theory, polyhedral combinatorics, and linear programming is a relatively new branch of graph theory. These results pioneer research in this field.

This paper explores how to optimally distribute vaccines by deciding what middle warehouses to use for storage. For this purpose, a network has been designed with a central warehouse, a set of middle warehouses and a set of local hospitals. The supply has been defined by two different types of vaccines to incorporate their logistical requirements, and the demand has been defined by the elderly population of Sweden. The model was constructed as a mixed-integer program in the optimisation programming language GAMS. The results was a set of 13 middle warehouses allocated such that the total distances when distributing the vaccines are minimised. It was also identified how much of each type of vaccines that was being shipped. The integer program was then relaxed to test whether the optimal value was in fact a global optima. Both the objective value for the original problem and for the relaxed problem was 10189.8 km, which means that it could be identified as a global optima. Furthermore, this paper explored ways to mitigate the supply chain risks with the help of mathematical methods and supply chain management literature. This paper presents scenario-based stochastic programming, how to construct a supplier portfolio, reliability engineering and distribution-based stochastic programming as useful methods when dealing with the risks.  In essence, the purpose of this paper was to evaluate modeling opportunities for distributions of vaccines rather than the quantitative results since the data was limited. The aim was to present a general model that could be used with different sets of data, and provide the most optimal allocation of warehouses. Recommended improvements to the paper are greater accuracy in data, in probability distributions and expansion of model with consideration of time. / Detta arbete utforskar hur man kan optimera distributionen av vaccin genom att bestämma placering av en mängd mellanlager. I detta syfte har ett nätverk designats med ett centrallager, en utspridd mängd mellanlager och en mängd lokala sjukhus. Utbudet har definerats som två olika typer av vaccin för att ta hänsyn till deras olika logistiska krav och efterfrågan har definerats som Sveriges äldre befolkning. Modellen var konstruerad som ett blandat heltalsproblem i programmeringsspråket GAMS. Resultatet blev 13 mellanlager som är optimala för en så effektiv distribution av vaccin som möjligt. Resultaten visar också vilken typ av vaccin som ska skickas var. Heltalsprogrammet använder sedan relaxation för att undersöka om resultatet är ett globalt optimum och inte endast ett lokalt optimum. Målfunktionens värde är 10189,8 km både för det ordinarie problemet och för det relaxerade, vilket inneär att man kan dra slutsaten att värdet är ett globalt optimum. Dessutom utforskars sätt att mildra försörjningskedjans risker med hjälp av matematiska metoder och litteratur inom logistik av försörjningskedjor. Denna uppsats presenterar scenariobaserad och distributionbaserad stokastisk programmering, konstruktion av leverantörsportföljer och tillförlitlighetsteknik som användbara metoder för att hantera riskerna.  Sammanfattningsvis är detta ett arbete som utforskar möjligheter med modelleringen av vaccindistribution snarare än en rigid kvantitativ analys eftersom datan är begränsad. Syftet var därför att utveckla en generell modell som med olika dataset kan ge den optimala allokeringen av mellanlager. De förbättringar av arbetet som rekommenderas är mer noggrann data, exakthet kring sannolikhetsfördelningarna och en expansion av modellen som tar hänsyn till tid.

Air traffic flow management is a critical component of air transport operations because at some point in time, often very frequently, one of more of the critical resources in the air transportation network has significantly reduced capacity, resulting in congestion and delay for airlines and other entities and individuals who use the network. Typically, these “bottlenecks” are noticed at a given airport or terminal area, but they also occur in en route airspace. The two-stage combinatorial optimization framework for air traffic flow management under constrained capacity that is presented in this thesis, represents a important step towards the full consideration of the combinatorial nature of air traffic flow management decision that is often ignored or dealt with via priority-based schemes. It also illustrates the similarities between two traffic flow management problems that heretofore were considered to be quite distinct. The runway systems at major airports are highly constrained resources. From the perspective of arrivals, unnecessary delays and emissions may occur during peak periods when one or more runways at an airport are in great demand while other runways at the same airport are operating under their capacity. The primary cause of this imbalance in runway utilization is that the traffic flow into and out of the terminal areas is asymmetric (as a result of airline scheduling practices), and arrivals are typically assigned to the runway nearest the fix through which they enter the terminal areas. From the perspective of departures, delays and emissions occur because arrivals take precedence over departures with regard to the utilization of runways (despite the absence of binding safety constraints), and because arrival trajectories often include level segments that ensure “procedural separation” from arriving traffic while planes are not allowed to climb unrestricted along the most direct path to their destination. Similar to the runway systems, the terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACON) boundary fixes are also constrained resources of the terminal airspace. Because some arrival traffic from different airports merges at an arrival fix, a queue for the terminal areas generally starts to form at the arrival fix, which are caused by delays due to heavy arriving traffic streams. The arrivals must then absorb these delays by path stretching and adjusting their speed, resulting in unplanned fuel consumption. However, these delays are often not distributed evenly. As a result, some arrival fixes experience severe delays while, similar to the runway systems, the other arrival fixes might experience no delays at all. The goal of this thesis is to develop a combined optimization approach for terminal airspace flow management that assigns a TRACON boundary fix and a runway to each flight while minimizing the required fuel burn and emissions. The approach lessens the severity of terminal capacity shortage caused by and imbalance of traffic demand by shunting flights from current positions to alternate runways. This is done by considering every possible path combination. To attempt to solve the congestion of the terminal airspace at both runways and arrival fixes, this research focuses on two sequential optimizations. The fix assignments are dealt with by considering, simultaneously, the capacity constraints of fixes and runways as well as the fuel consumption and emissions of each flight. The research also develops runway assignments with runway scheduling such that the total emissions produced in the terminal area and on the airport surface are minimized. The two-stage sequential framework is also extended to en route airspace. When en route airspace loses its capacity for any reason, e.g. severe weather condition, air traffic controllers and flight operators plan flight schedules together based on the given capacity limit, thereby maximizing en route throughput and minimizing flight operators' costs. However, the current methods have limitations due to the lacks of consideration of the combinatorial nature of air traffic flow management decision. One of the initial attempts to overcome these limitations is the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP), which will be initiated soon by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The developed two-stage combinatorial optimization framework fits this CTOP perfectly from the flight operator's perspective. The first stage is used to find an optimal slot allocation for flights under satisfying the ration by schedule (RBS) algorithm of the FAA. To solve the formulated first stage problem efficiently, two different solution methodologies, a heuristic algorithm and a modified branch and bound algorithm, are presented. Then, flights are assigned to the resulting optimized slots in the second stage so as to minimize the flight operator's costs.

O problema do sequenciamento da produção diz respeito à alocação das tarefas nas máquinas em um ambiente de fabricação, o qual vem sendo amplamente estudado. O sequenciamento pode variar em tamanho e complexidade dependendo do tipo de ambiente onde ele é aplicado, do número e tipos de restrições tecnológicas e da função objetivo do problema. A utilização de métodos de decisão para a solução de problemas de sequenciamento na indústria depende de modelos que sejam capazes de oferecer soluções para os problemas reais, que geralmente envolvem diversas restrições, os quais devem ser considerados simultaneamente. No presente trabalho o problema de sequenciamento da produção em ambientes flow shop permutacionais, com bloqueio com buffer zero, e com tempos de setup dependente da sequência e da máquina, com o objetivo de minimização do makespan é estudado, sendo este considerado um problema NP-Completo. O problema é pouco explorado na literatura. No presente trabalho é apresentado um procedimento de cálculo para o makespan e três métodos de solução para o problema: quatro limitantes inferiores para o procedimento Branch-and-Bound; quatro modelos MILP, sendo dois deles adaptados; e 28 modelos heurísticos construtivos adaptados para o problema. Os métodos desenvolvidos baseiam-se em propriedades matemáticas do problema que são apresentadas neste trabalho como limitante inferior e limitante superior. Dentre todos os modelos MILP, o modelo adaptado RBZBS1 obteve os melhores resultados para os problemas menores e o modelo desenvolvido TNZBS1 obteve os melhores desvios relativos médios do makespan para os problemas maiores, que não foram resolvidos dentro do limite de tempo computacional estipulado. O limitante inferior para o Branch-and-Bound LBTN2 foi melhor que os demais tanto no tempo computacional e no número de nós explorados como também no número de problemas não resolvidos e no desvio relativo médio do makespan. Foi realizado uma comparação entre o melhor modelo MILP e o melhor limitante inferior para o Branch-and-Bound, sendo que o último obteve melhores resultados para os problemas testados. Entre os métodos heurísticos adaptados, o PF foi o que obteve, de uma forma geral, os melhores resultados em todas as fases. / Production scheduling is defined as a problem of allocating jobs in machines in a production environment and it has been largely studied. The scheduling can vary in difficulty and complexity depending on the environment, the variety and types of technological restraints and the objective function of the problem. The use of decision making methods to solve scheduling problems in the industry needs models that are capable to solve real problems, that usually involve a big variety of restraints that have to be simultaneously studied. At the present work the scheduling problem in a permutational flow shop environment, considering blocking with zero buffer, and sequence and machine dependent setup times, with the objective of minimizing makespan is studied, which is considered a NP-Complete problem and little explored in literature. The work presents a calculation procedure for the makespan and three solution methods for the problem: four lower bounds for the Branch-and-Bound procedure; four MILP models, two of which are adapted; and 28 constructive heuristic methods adapted to the problem. The methods developed are based on mathematical properties of the problem that are presented in this work as a lower bound and an upper bound. Among all the MILP models, the adapted model RBZBS1 was the one to obtain the best results for the smaller problems, and the developed model TNZBS1 obtained the smallest mean relative deviation of the makespan for the bigger problems that were not solved within the specified computational time limit. The lower bound for the Branch-and-Bound LBTN2 obtained smaller computational times and number of explored nodes as well as the number of unsolved problems and the mean relative deviation for the makespan than all other lower bounds. Also, a comparison among the best MILP model and the best lower bound for the Branch-and-Bound was performed, being that the last obtained better results for the tested problems. Among the adapted heuristic methods, the PF heuristic was the one that obtained, in general, the better results in all phases.

O problema do sequenciamento da produção diz respeito à alocação das tarefas nas máquinas em um ambiente de fabricação, o qual vem sendo amplamente estudado. O sequenciamento pode variar em tamanho e complexidade dependendo do tipo de ambiente onde ele é aplicado, do número e tipos de restrições tecnológicas e da função objetivo do problema. A utilização de métodos de decisão para a solução de problemas de sequenciamento na indústria depende de modelos que sejam capazes de oferecer soluções para os problemas reais, que geralmente envolvem diversas restrições, os quais devem ser considerados simultaneamente. No presente trabalho o problema de sequenciamento da produção em ambientes flow shop permutacionais, com bloqueio com buffer zero, e com tempos de setup dependente da sequência e da máquina, com o objetivo de minimização do makespan é estudado, sendo este considerado um problema NP-Completo. O problema é pouco explorado na literatura. No presente trabalho é apresentado um procedimento de cálculo para o makespan e três métodos de solução para o problema: quatro limitantes inferiores para o procedimento Branch-and-Bound; quatro modelos MILP, sendo dois deles adaptados; e 28 modelos heurísticos construtivos adaptados para o problema. Os métodos desenvolvidos baseiam-se em propriedades matemáticas do problema que são apresentadas neste trabalho como limitante inferior e limitante superior. Dentre todos os modelos MILP, o modelo adaptado RBZBS1 obteve os melhores resultados para os problemas menores e o modelo desenvolvido TNZBS1 obteve os melhores desvios relativos médios do makespan para os problemas maiores, que não foram resolvidos dentro do limite de tempo computacional estipulado. O limitante inferior para o Branch-and-Bound LBTN2 foi melhor que os demais tanto no tempo computacional e no número de nós explorados como também no número de problemas não resolvidos e no desvio relativo médio do makespan. Foi realizado uma comparação entre o melhor modelo MILP e o melhor limitante inferior para o Branch-and-Bound, sendo que o último obteve melhores resultados para os problemas testados. Entre os métodos heurísticos adaptados, o PF foi o que obteve, de uma forma geral, os melhores resultados em todas as fases. / Production scheduling is defined as a problem of allocating jobs in machines in a production environment and it has been largely studied. The scheduling can vary in difficulty and complexity depending on the environment, the variety and types of technological restraints and the objective function of the problem. The use of decision making methods to solve scheduling problems in the industry needs models that are capable to solve real problems, that usually involve a big variety of restraints that have to be simultaneously studied. At the present work the scheduling problem in a permutational flow shop environment, considering blocking with zero buffer, and sequence and machine dependent setup times, with the objective of minimizing makespan is studied, which is considered a NP-Complete problem and little explored in literature. The work presents a calculation procedure for the makespan and three solution methods for the problem: four lower bounds for the Branch-and-Bound procedure; four MILP models, two of which are adapted; and 28 constructive heuristic methods adapted to the problem. The methods developed are based on mathematical properties of the problem that are presented in this work as a lower bound and an upper bound. Among all the MILP models, the adapted model RBZBS1 was the one to obtain the best results for the smaller problems, and the developed model TNZBS1 obtained the smallest mean relative deviation of the makespan for the bigger problems that were not solved within the specified computational time limit. The lower bound for the Branch-and-Bound LBTN2 obtained smaller computational times and number of explored nodes as well as the number of unsolved problems and the mean relative deviation for the makespan than all other lower bounds. Also, a comparison among the best MILP model and the best lower bound for the Branch-and-Bound was performed, being that the last obtained better results for the tested problems. Among the adapted heuristic methods, the PF heuristic was the one that obtained, in general, the better results in all phases.

The quadratic traveling salesman problem (QTSP) is an extension of the (classical) Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) where the costs depend on each two nodes that are traversed in succession, i. e., on the edges in the symmetric (STSP) and on the arcs in the asymmetric case (ATSP). The QTSP is motivated by an application in bioinformatics. It can be used in the solution of certain Permuted Markov models that are set up for the recognition of transcription factor binding sites and of splice sites in gene regulation. Important special cases are the Angular-Metric TSP used in robotics and the TSP with Reload Costs used in the planning of telecommunication and transport networks. The SQTSP and the AQTSP can be formulated as integer optimization problems over the polytope associated with the STSP resp. ATSP together with a quadratic cost function. We study the polytopes arising from a linearization of the respective quadratic integer programming formulations. Based on the proof of the dimension of the polytopes using the so called direct method we can prove the facetness of several valid inequalities. These facets and valid inequalities can be divided into three large groups. Some are related to the Boolean quadric polytope. Furthermore we introduce the conflicting edges/arc inequalities that forbid certain configurations of edges and 2-edges resp. of arcs and 2-arcs. Finally, we strengthen valid inequalities of STSP and ATSP in order to get stronger inequalities in the quadratic case. We present two general lifting approaches. One is applicable to all inequalities with nonnegative coefficients and the second allows to strengthen clique tree inequalities. Applying these approaches to the subtour elimination constraints leads to facets in most cases, but in general facetness is not preserved. In addition, the complexity of the separation problems for some of the facet classes is studied. Finally, we present some computational results using a branch-and-cut framework, which is improved by some of the newly derived cutting planes. The tested instances from biology could be solved surprisingly well. Instances with up to 100 nodes could be solved in less than 700 seconds improving the results in the literature by several orders of magnitude. For most of the randomly generated instances using some additional separators allowed to reduce the root gaps and the numbers of nodes in the branch-and-cut tree significantly, often even the running times.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The Navy has to choose the number of, and designs for, ships in the Combat Logistics Force (CLF), and then plan how to use them to provide logistical support to our Carrier Strike Groups, Expeditionary Strike Groups, and Seabasing platforms engaged in any variety of worldwide conflicts. CLF ships are very expensive to build and equip and our budget is limited --- we need to make sure the ships we buy and the way we integrate these with our CLF fleet can continue to provide the flexible support our Navy requires. We introduce a decision support tool using a global sea route and resupply base model, and a daily time resolution optimization of CLF ship activities to support any complete, worldwide scenario. Our result is an optimal, face-valid daily operational logistics plan - a schedule of evolutions for each available CLF ship. We discover exactly how to use CLF ships to support a notional, but particularly relevant, preemptive combat scenario with follow-on humanitarian assistance missions. Finally, we study how changing CLF ship numbers and missions can enhance operational effectiveness. / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy