Combinatorial Optimization: Theory and Algorithms

by Bernhard Korte, Jens Vygen

This comprehensive textbook on combinatorial optimization places special emphasis on theoretical results and algorithms with provably good performance, in contrast to heuristics. It is based on numerous courses on combinatorial optimization and specialized topics, mostly at graduate level. This book reviews the fundamentals, covers the classical topics (paths, flows, matching, matroids, NP-completeness, approximation algorithms) in detail, and proceeds to advanced and recent topics, some of which have not appeared in a textbook before. Throughout, it contains complete but concise proofs, and also provides numerous exercises and references. This sixth edition has again been updated, revised, and significantly extended. Among other additions, there are new sections on shallow-light trees, submodular function maximization, smoothed analysis of the knapsack problem, the (ln 4+ɛ)-approximation for Steiner trees, and the VPN theorem. Thus, this book continues to represent the state of the art of combinatorial optimization.

Genres: Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms

719 pages, Hardcover

First published April 29, 2002

About the author

Bernhard H. Korte was a German computer scientist, a professor at the University of Bonn, and an expert in combinatorial optimization.