TY - GEN A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Megow, Nicole A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Tuchscherer, Andreas A1 - Vredeveld, Tjark T1 - The Online Target Date Assignment Problem N2 - Many online problems encountered in real-life involve a two-stage decision process: upon arrival of a new request, an irrevocable first-stage decision (the assignment of a specific resource to the request) must be made immediately, while in a second stage process, certain ``subinstances'' (that is, the instances of all requests assigned to a particular resource) can be solved to optimality (offline) later. We introduce the novel concept of an \emph{Online Target Date Assignment Problem} (\textsc{OnlineTDAP}) as a general framework for online problems with this nature. Requests for the \textsc{OnlineTDAP} become known at certain dates. An online algorithm has to assign a target date to each request, specifying on which date the request should be processed (e.\,g., an appointment with a customer for a washing machine repair). The cost at a target date is given by the \emph{downstream cost}, the optimal cost of processing all requests at that date w.\,r.\,t.\ some fixed downstream offline optimization problem (e.\,g., the cost of an optimal dispatch for service technicians). We provide general competitive algorithms for the \textsc{OnlineTDAP} independently of the particular downstream problem, when the overall objective is to minimize either the sum or the maximum of all downstream costs. As the first basic examples, we analyze the competitive ratios of our algorithms for the par ticular academic downstream problems of bin-packing, nonpreemptive scheduling on identical parallel machines, and routing a traveling salesman. T3 - ZIB-Report - 05-61 KW - Online Algorithms KW - Online Target Date Assignment Problem Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-8945 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Kaibel, Volker A1 - Peinhardt, Matthias A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Tuchscherer, Andreas T1 - LP-Based Local Approximation for Markov Decision Problems N2 - The standard computational methods for computing the optimal value functions of Markov Decision Problems (MDP) require the exploration of the entire state space. This is practically infeasible for applications with huge numbers of states as they arise, e.\,g., from modeling the decisions in online optimization problems by MDPs. Exploiting column generation techniques, we propose and apply an LP-based method to determine an $\varepsilon$-approximation of the optimal value function at a given state by inspecting only states in a small neighborhood. In the context of online optimization problems, we use these methods in order to evaluate the quality of concrete policies with respect to given initial states. Moreover, the tools can also be used to obtain evidence of the impact of single decisions. This way, they can be utilized in the design of policies. T3 - ZIB-Report - 06-20 KW - Markov decision problem KW - linear programming KW - column generation Y1 - 2006 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9131 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Rambau, Jörg ED - Liebling, T. ED - Duran, G. ED - Matamala, M. T1 - Reoptimization Gaps versus Model Errors in Online-Dispatching of Service Units for ADAC T2 - Latin-American Conference on Combinatorics, Graphs and Applications, Santiago de Chile 2004 Y1 - 2004 VL - 18 SP - 157 EP - 163 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Rambau, Jörg T1 - Reoptimization Gaps versus Model Errors in Online-Dispatching of Service Units for ADAC JF - DISAM Y1 - 2006 VL - 154 IS - 13 SP - 1897 EP - 1907 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Athanasiadis, Christos A. A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Santos, Francisco T1 - The Generalized Baues Problem for Cyclic Polytopes II N2 - Given an affine surjection of polytopes $\pi: P \to Q$, the Generalized Baues Problem asks whether the poset of all proper polyhedral subdivisions of $Q$ which are induced by the map $\pi$ has the homotopy type of a sphere. We extend earlier work of the last two authors on subdivisions of cyclic polytopes to give an affirmative answer to the problem for the natural surjections between cyclic polytopes $\pi: C(n,d') \to C(n,d)$ for all $1 \leq d < d' < n$. T3 - ZIB-Report - SC-98-43 KW - Generalized Baues Problem KW - Polyhedral Subdivisions KW - Induced Subdivisions KW - Poset KW - Spherical KW - Cyclic Polytopes KW - Bistellar Operations Y1 - 1999 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-3862 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Huber, Birkett A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Santos, Francisco T1 - The Cayley Trick, lifting subdivisions and the Bohne-Dress theorem on zonotopal tilings N2 - In 1994, Sturmfels gave a polyhedral version of the Cayley Trick of elimination theory: he established an order-preserving bijection between the posets of \emph{coherent} mixed subdivisions of a Minkowski sum $\mathcal{A}_1+\cdots+\mathcal{A}_r$ of point configurations and of \emph{coherent} polyhedral subdivisions of the associated Cayley embedding $\mathcal{C}(\mathcal{A}_1,\dots,\mathcal{A}_r)$. In this paper we extend this correspondence in a natural way to cover also \emph{non-coherent} subdivisions. As an application, we show that the Cayley Trick combined with results of Santos on subdivisions of Lawrence polytopes provides a new independent proof of the Bohne-Dress Theorem on zonotopal tilings. This application uses a combinatorial characterization of lifting subdivisions, also originally proved by Santos. T3 - ZIB-Report - SC-98-44 KW - Polyhedral subdivision KW - fiber polytope KW - mixed subdivision KW - lifting subdivision KW - Minkowski sum KW - Cayley Trick KW - Bohne-Dress Theorem Y1 - 1999 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-3874 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ascheuer, Norbert A1 - Grötschel, Martin A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Rambau, Jörg T1 - Combinatorial Online Optimization N2 - In ``classical'' optimization, all data of a problem instance are considered given. The standard theory and the usual algorithmic techniques apply to such cases only. Online optimization is different. Many decisions have to be made before all data are available. In addition, decisions once made cannot be changed. How should one act ``best'' in such an environment? In this paper we survey online problems coming up in combinatorial optimization. We first outline theoretical concepts, such as competitiveness against various adversaries, to analyze online problems and algorithms. The focus, however, lies on real-world applications. We report, in particular, on theoretical investigations and our practical experience with problems arising in transportation and the automatic handling of material. T3 - ZIB-Report - SC-98-24 KW - Online Optimization KW - competitiveness KW - combinatorial optimization KW - real-world problems Y1 - 1998 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-3674 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Santos, Francisco T1 - The Generalized Baues Problem for Cyclic Polytopes I. N2 - The Generalized Baues Problem asks whether for a given point configuration the order complex of all its proper polyhedral subdivisions, partially ordered by refinement, is homotopy equivalent to a sphere. In this paper, an affirmative answer is given for the vertex sets of cyclic polytopes in all dimensions. This yields the first non-trivial class of point configurations with neither a bound on the dimension, the codimension, nor the number of vertice for which this is known to be true. Moreover, it is shown that all triangulations of cyclic polytopes are lifting triangulations. This contrasts the fact that in general there are many non-regular triangulations of cyclic polytopes. Beyond this, we find triangulations of $C(11,5)$ with flip deficiency. This proves---among other things---that there are triangulations of cyclic polytopes that are non-regular for every choice of points on the moment curve. T3 - ZIB-Report - SC-98-14 KW - Generalized Baues Problem KW - Polyhedral Subdivisions KW - Induced Subdivisions KW - Poset KW - Spherical KW - Cyclic Polytopes KW - Bistellar Operations KW - Flip Defici Y1 - 1998 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-3579 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ascheuer, Norbert A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Rambau, Jörg T1 - The Online Transportation Problem: Competitive Scheduling of Elevators N2 - In this paper we consider the following online transportation problem (\textsc{Oltp}): Objects are to be transported between the vertices of a given graph. Transportation requests arrive online, specifying the objects to be transported and the corresponding source and target vertex. These requests are to be handled by a server which commences its work at a designated origin vertex and which picks up and drops objects at their starts and destinations. After the end of its service the server returns to its start. The goal of \textsc{Oltp} is to come up with a transportation schedule for the server which finishes as early as possible. We first show a lower bound of~$5/3$ for the competitive ratio of any deterministic algorithm. We then analyze two simple and natural strategies which we call \textsf{REPLAN} and \textsf{IGNORE}. \textsf{REPLAN} completely discards its schedule and recomputes a new one when a new request arrives. \textsf{IGNORE} always runs a (locally optimal) schedule for a set of known requests and ignores all new requests until this schedule is completed. We show that both strategies, \textsf{REPLAN} and \textsf{IGNORE}, are $5/2$-competitive. We also present a somewhat less natural strategy \textsf{SLEEP}, which in contrast to the other two strategies may leave the server idle from time to time although unserved requests are known. We also establish a competitive ratio of~$5/2$ for the algorithm \textsf{SLEEP}. Our results are extended to the case of ``open schedules'' where the server is not required to return to its start position at the end of its service. T3 - ZIB-Report - SC-98-34 KW - online optimization KW - competitive analysis KW - elevator Y1 - 1998 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-3779 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grötschel, Martin A1 - Krumke, Sven A1 - Rambau, Jörg A1 - Winter, Thomas A1 - Zimmermann, Uwe ED - Grötschel, Martin ED - Krumke, Sven ED - Rambau, Jörg T1 - Combinatorial Online Optimization in Real Time T2 - Online Optimization of Large Scale Systems Y1 - 2001 SP - 679 EP - 704 PB - Springer ER -