Concepts of Combinatorial Optimization, Vol. 1

Combinatorial optimization is a multidisciplinary scientific area, lying in the interface of three major scientific domains: mathematics, theoretical computer science and management.

The three volumes of the Combinatorial Optimization series aims to cover a wide range of topics in this area. These topics also deal with fundamental notions and approaches as with several classical applications of combinatorial optimization.

Concepts of Combinatorial Optimization, is divided into three parts:

• On the complexity of combinatorial optimization problems, that presents basics about worst-case and randomized complexity;
• Classical solution methods, that presents the two most-known methods for solving hard combinatorial optimization problems, that are Branch-and-Bound and Dynamic Programming;
• Elements from mathematical programming, that presents fundamentals from mathematical programming based methods that are in the heart of Operations Research since the origins of this field.

Vangelis Th. Paschos is Exceptional Professor of Computer Science and Combinatorial Optimization at the University Paris-Dauphine and chairman of the LAMSADE (Laboratory for the Modeling and the Analysis of Decision Aiding Systems). His research interests include the complexity theory, the theory of the polynomial approximation of NP-hard problems, the probabilistic combinatorial optimization, the on-line computation and the exact solution of NP-hard problems. He is the author of more than a hundred and fifty research papers. He is also member of the editorial board of several international scientific journals.