A new polyhedral approach to combinatorial designs

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dc.contributor.advisor Hicks, Illya V. en_US
dc.creator Arambula Mercado, Ivette en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2004-09-30T01:54:33Z
dc.date.available 2004-09-30T01:54:33Z
dc.date.created 2005-05 en_US
dc.date.issued 2004-09-30T01:54:33Z
dc.identifier.uri http://handle.tamu.edu/1969.1/358
dc.description.abstract We consider combinatorial t-design problems as discrete optimization problems. Our motivation is that only a few studies have been done on the use of exact optimization techniques in designs, and that classical methods in design theory have still left many open existence questions. Roughly defined, t-designs are pairs of discrete sets that are related following some strict properties of size, balance, and replication. These highly structured relationships provide optimal solutions to a variety of problems in computer science like error-correcting codes, secure communications, network interconnection, design of hardware; and are applicable to other areas like statistics, scheduling, games, among others. We give a new approach to combinatorial t-designs that is useful in constructing t-designs by polyhedral methods. The first contribution of our work is a new result of equivalence of t-design problems with a graph theory problem. This equivalence leads to a novel integer programming formulation for t-designs, which we call GDP. We analyze the polyhedral properties of GDP and conclude, among other results, the associated polyhedron dimension. We generate new classes of valid inequalities to aim at approximating this integer program by a linear program that has the same optimal solution. Some new classes of valid inequalities are generated as Chv´atal-Gomory cuts, other classes are generated by graph complements and combinatorial arguments, and others are generated by the use of incidence substructures in a t-design. In particular, we found a class of valid inequalities that we call stable-set class that represents an alternative graph equivalence for the problem of finding a t-design. We analyze and give results on the strength of these new classes of valid inequalities. We propose a separation problem and give its integer programming formulation as a maximum (or minimum) edge-weight biclique subgraph problem. We implement a pure cutting-plane algorithm using one of the stronger classes of valid inequalities derived. Several instances of t-designs were solved efficiently by this algorithm at the root node of the search tree. Also, we implement a branch-and-cut algorithm and solve several instances of 2-designs trying different base formulations. Computational results are included. en_US
dc.description.provenance Made available in DSpace on 2004-09-30T01:54:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 etd-tamu-2004A-INEN-Arambula-1.pdf: 732938 bytes, checksum: c43ef37afc2eea357a193ba82bf2c87a (MD5) etd-tamu-2004A-INEN-Arambula-1.pdf.txt: 247615 bytes, checksum: 5ee02b42765f51b1e00bd47d01d3d087 (MD5) en
dc.format.extent 732938 bytes
dc.format.extent 247615 bytes
dc.format.medium electronic en_US
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.format.mimetype text/plain
dc.language.iso en_US en_US
dc.publisher Texas A&M University en_US
dc.subject t-designs en_US
dc.subject integer programming en_US
dc.subject combinatorial optimization en_US
dc.subject polyhedral methods en_US
dc.subject valid inequalities en_US
dc.subject cutting planes en_US
dc.subject branch-and-cut en_US
dc.subject Steiner systems en_US
dc.title A new polyhedral approach to combinatorial designs en_US
thesis.degree.department Industrial Engineering en_US
thesis.degree.discipline Industrial Engineering en_US
thesis.degree.grantor Texas A&M University en_US
thesis.degree.name Ph. D. en_US
thesis.degree.level Doctoral en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Feldman, Richard M. en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Leon, V. Jorge en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Chen, Jianer en_US
dc.type.genre Electronic Dissertation en_US
dc.type.material text en_US
dc.format.digitalOrigin born digital en_US

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