A branch-and-bound algorithm for the linear ordering problem with cumulative costs

The Linear Ordering Problem with Cumulative Costs is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem arising from an application in UMTS mobile-phone communication systems. This paper presents a polynomially computable lower bound that is particularly effective to reduce the computing time of a branch-and-bound algorithm recently proposed in the literature. The same idea can be further exploited to sort the children nodes at each node of the search tree, in order to find the optimal solution earlier. A suitable truncation of the resulting branch-and-bound algorithm results in a very effective heuristic algorithm.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: EOR
• Authors: Giovanni Righini
• Keywords: Branch-and-bound Algorithm, EOR 2008, NP-hard Combinatorial Optimization, UMTS Mobile-phone Communication