Knapsack Problems

Thirteen years have passed since the seminal book on knapsack problems by Martello and Toth appeared. On this occasion a former colleague exclaimed back in 1990: "How can you write 250 pages on the knapsack problem?" Indeed, the definition of the knapsack problem is easily understood even by a non-expert who will not suspect the presence of challenging research topics in this area at the first glance. However, in the last decade a large number of research publications contributed new results for the knapsack problem in all areas of interest such as exact algorithms, heuristics and approximation schemes. Moreover, the extension of the knapsack problem to higher dimensions both in the number of constraints and in the num ber of knapsacks, as well as the modification of the problem structure concerning the available item set and the objective function, leads to a number of interesting variations of practical relevance which were the subject of intensive research during the last few years. Hence, two years ago the idea arose to produce a new monograph covering not only the most recent developments of the standard knapsack problem, but also giving a comprehensive treatment of the whole knapsack family including the siblings such as the subset sum problem and the bounded and unbounded knapsack problem, and also more distant relatives such as multidimensional, multiple, multiple-choice and quadratic knapsack problems in dedicated chapters.

Here is a state of art examination on exact and approximate algorithms for a number of important NP-hard problems in the field of integer linear programming, which the authors refer to as ``knapsack.'' Includes not only the classical knapsack problems such as binary, bounded, unbounded or binary multiple, but also less familiar problems such as subset-sum and change-making. Well known problems that are not usually classified in the knapsack area, including generalized assignment and bin packing, are also covered. The text fully develops an algorithmic approach without losing mathematical rigor.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Internet and Network Economics, WINE 2008, held in Shanghai, China, in December 2008. The 68 revised full papers presented together with 10 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 126 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on market equilibrium, congestion games, information markets, nash equilibrium, network games, solution concepts, algorithms and optimization, mechanism design, equilibrium, online advertisement, sponsored search auctions, and voting problems.

This book has a dual purpose?serving as an advanced textbook designed to prepare doctoral students to do research on the mathematical foundations of inventory theory, and as a reference work for those already engaged in such research. All chapters conclude with exercises that either solidify or extend the concepts introduced.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2002, held in Rome, Italy in September 2002. The 20 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions. Among the topics addressed are design and analysis of approximation algorithms, inapproximability results, online problems, randomization techniques, average-case analysis, approximation classes, scheduling problems, routing and flow problems, coloring and partitioning, cuts and connectivity, packing and covering, geometric problems, network design, and applications to game theory and other fields.

As environmental issues remain at the forefront of energy research, renewable energy is now an all-important field of study. And as smart technology continues to grow and be refined, its applications broaden and increase in their potential to revolutionize sustainability studies. This potential can only be fully realized with a thorough understanding of the most recent breakthroughs in the field. Research Advancements in Smart Technology, Optimization, and Renewable Energy is a collection of innovative research that explores the recent steps forward for smart applications in sustainability. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics including energy assessment, neural fuzzy control, and biogeography, this book is ideally designed for advocates, policymakers, engineers, software developers, academicians, researchers, and students.

This well-written textbook on combinatorial optimization puts special emphasis on theoretical results and algorithms with provably good performance, in contrast to heuristics. The book contains complete (but concise) proofs, as well as many deep results, some of which have not appeared in any previous books.

Meta-heuristics have developed dramatically since their inception in the early 1980s. They have had widespread success in attacking a variety of practical and difficult combinatorial optimization problems. These families of approaches include, but are not limited to greedy random adaptive search procedures, genetic algorithms, problem-space search, neural networks, simulated annealing, tabu search, threshold algorithms, and their hybrids. They incorporate concepts based on biological evolution, intelligent problem solving, mathematical and physical sciences, nervous systems, and statistical mechanics. Since the 1980s, a great deal of effort has been invested in the field of combinatorial optimization theory in which heuristic algorithms have become an important area of research and applications. This volume is drawn from the first conference on Meta-Heuristics and contains 41 papers on the state-of-the-art in heuristic theory and applications. The book treats the following meta-heuristics and applications: Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search, Networks & Graphs, Scheduling and Control, TSP, and Vehicle Routing Problems. It represents research from the fields of Operations Research, Management Science, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science.