Methods to solve multi-skill project scheduling problem

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis supervised by P. Martineau and E. Néron and defended on 28 November 2006 at the Université François-Rabelais de Tours. The thesis is written in French, and is available upon request from the author. This work deals with the problem of scheduling a project. The activities of this project requires skills that may not be mastered by all persons involved. First of all, the problem is defined in the introduction part. Then we propose different methods to solve it: lower bounds in part 2, different heuristics and meta-heuristics in part 3, and finally a branch-and-bound procedure in the last part.     

Combinatorial identification problems and graph powers

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis supervised by Pr. Olivier Hudry and defended on 7th June 2010 at Télécom ParisTech. The thesis is written in French (introduction and overview of results) and English (articles, which contain the proofs) and is available from the author upon request or from . It deals in a first part with algorithmic and combinatorial properties of different variations on identifying codes in undirected graphs, a theoretical model for problems of detection and localization in networks. These issues led us to consider a notion of powers of graphs, which we investigate into several directions in a second part.     

Hypercyclicity of special operators on Hilbert function spaces

In this paper we give some sufficient conditions for the adjoint of a weighted composition operator on a Hilbert space of analytic functions to be hypercyclic. This paper is a part of the second author’s Doctoral thesis written at Shiraz University under the direction of the first author.     

Simulation and optimisation of intermodal barge transport networks

This is a summary of the author??s PhD thesis supervised by Gerrit Janssens and Cathy Macharis and defended on 7 May 2010?at the Hasselt University, Belgium. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. This work deals with two key aspects in the competitiveness of intermodal transport making use of inland navigation. The first part of the thesis studies bundling of freight in intermodal barge transport networks. Alternative bundling strategies for container barge transport are compared by means of discrete event simulation. Cooperation between inland barge terminals to bundle freight flows is modelled as a service network design problem. The second part relates to the initial and final journey by road in the intermodal barge transport chain. Pre- and end-haulage by road is modelled as a Full Truckload Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows. A local search algorithm and deterministic annealing algorithm are proposed to find near-optimal solutions.     

On a new class of nonlinear set covering problems arising in wireless network design

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis, supervised by Edoardo Amaldi and defended on 28 April 2006 at Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Matematica. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. The thesis investigates a class of nonlinear set covering variants arising from the problem of designing single-frequency Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) with maximum efficiency. In the first part of the thesis a basic hyperbolic formulation of the problem is considered. After a complexity and approximability study, the problem is tackled by linearization techniques, and by Lagrangean and Dantzig–Wolfe decompositions. The second part of the thesis focuses on variants accounting for various relevant features of the WLAN application. A Branch-and-Price algorithm is presented, and extensions to the multiple-frequency WLAN design problem are considered.      

Solving scheduling problems from high-level models

This is the summary of the author??s PhD thesis supervised by Yves Deville and Pascal Van Hentenryck, and defended on 25 May 2010?at the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author, or downloadable from http://becool.info.ucl.ac.be/files2/thesis-monette.pdf. This work is about the gap between high-level modelling of scheduling problems and its efficient resolution. We propose to automatically classify models of scheduling problems, and to apply an appropriate search algorithm. Thanks to the strong separation between model and search, we propose also a simple way to create hybrid algorithms. A second part of the thesis deals with Constraint Programming approaches for two scheduling problems: The one-machine non-preemptive problem and the Just-In-Time Job-Shop problem. All parts are accompanied by experimental results showing their practicality.     

On the continuity of a Lagrangian multiplier function in input optimization

We show that a Lagrangian multiplier function in input optimization is generally discontinuous on regions of stability and then we find conditions for its continuity.Research partly supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.Presented at TIMS/ORSA Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, April 29-May 1, 1985.The contribution of this author is part of his M.Sc. thesis in Applied Mathematics at McGill University.     

Enhanced mixed integer programming techniques and routing problems

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis supervised by Andrea Lodi and Paolo Toth and defended on 16 April 2009 at the Università di Bologna. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. This work is focused on Mixed Integer Programming (MIP). In particular, the first part of the thesis deals with general purpose cutting planes, which are probably the key ingredient behind the success of the current generation of MIP solvers. The second part is instead focused on the heuristic and exact exploitation of integer programming techniques for hard combinatorial optimization problems in the context of routing applications.     

Angular derivatives on bounded symmetric domains

In this paper we generalise the classical Julia-Wolff-Carathéodory theorem to holomorphic functions defined on bounded symmetric domains. This work comprises part of the Ph.D. thesis [13] of the first author who gratefully acknowledges the support of Forbairt Basic Research grant SC/97/614.     

Real inversion and jump formulae for the Laplace transform. Part I

Generalizations of the Laplace asymptotic method are obtained and real inversion formulae of the Post-Widder type for the Laplace transform are generalized. This paper is to be a part of the first author’s Ph.D. thesis written under the direction of the second author at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The participation of the second author in this paper has been sponsored in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research OAR through the European Office, Aerospace Research, United States Air Force.     

Models and algorithms for the reconfiguration of distributed wireless switching systems

This paper is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis entitled “Models and algorithms for the reconfiguration of wireless switching systems”. The thesis deals with the study of a strongly NP-hard resource-constrained scheduling problem arising from the telecommunication industry. This work was supervised by Jacques Carlier and Dritan Nace, both from Université de Technologie de Compiègne, and carried out while the author was a System Architect within Nortel GSM Access R&D organization. The thesis, which is written in both French and English, has been defended on 29 March 2007 and is available by email request to the author. This research was supported in part by Association Nationale de la Recherche Technique grant CIFRE-121/2004.     

Bases and decomposition numbers of finite groups

The second author carried this work as part of his Ph.D. thesis research in Tel-Aviv University under the supervision of Professor Marcel Herzog.     

Some classical combinatorial problems on circulant and claw-free graphs: the isomorphism and coloring problems on circulant graphs and the stable set problem on claw-free graphs

This is a summary of the author’s Ph.D. thesis supervised by Sara Nicoloso and Gianpaolo Oriolo and defended on 3 April 2008 at Sapienza Università di Roma. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. This work deals with three classical combinatorial problems, namely the isomorphism, the vertex-coloring and the stable set problem, restricted to two graph classes, namely circulant and claw-free graphs. In the first part (joint work with Sara Nicoloso), we derive a necessary and sufficient condition to test isomorphism of circulant graphs, and give simple algorithms to solve the vertex-coloring problem on this class of graphs. In the second part (joint work with Gianpaolo Oriolo and Gautier Stauffer), we propose a new combinatorial algorithm for the maximum weighted stable set problem in claw-free graphs, and devise a robust algorithm for the same problem in the subclass of fuzzy circular interval graphs, which also provides recognition when the stability number is greater than three.     

On standard integral table algebras generated by an element of width 2

The paper studies standard integral table algebras containing an element of width two. It is shown that the table subalgebra generated by such an element is exactly isomorphic to one of the table algebras described in Main Theorems 1.1. and 1.2. The contribution of this author is a part of his Ph.D. thesis at Bar-Ilan University under the supervision of Z. Arad and M. Muzychuk. This author was partially supported by the Israeli Ministry of Absorption.     

L ∞ — Limit theorems for Markov processes

A necessary and sufficient condition for convergence of Markov processesL _∞ is given. As a consequence we get a theorem concerning the convergence of Harris processes. This paper is a part of the author’s Ph.D. thesis to be submitted to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor S. R. Foguel for much valuable advice and encouragement.     

Real inversion and jump formula for the laplace transform,part II

A generalization of the Hirschman inversion formula and a new jump formula for the Laplace transform are proved. This paper is the second part of a paper with the same name (see this Journal v., 1, 1963, pp. 85–104). The notations used here are the same as in the first part. §1–§4 belong to the first part. This paper is to be a part of the first author’s Ph. D. thesis written under the direction of the second author at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The participation of the second author in this paper has been sponsored in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, OAR, through the European Office of Aerospace Research, United States Air Force.     

Operations research methods in preventing domino accidents in the chemical process industry

This text summarizes the results related to Operations research contained in the PhD thesis defended by the author in June 2006 under the supervision of Karel Soudan at the Universiteit Antwerpen in Belgium. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request (Reniers in shaping an integrated cluster safety culture in the chemical process industry, 415 p, 2006a). This work investigates the optimization of major accident precautions in the chemical process industry. An integrated cluster safety culture is shaped by developing three separate capabilities (procedural, human, and technological) and by both integrating and optimizing them using the well-known Deming loop. The technological (Operations research) part develops a cluster management decision support system. The latter tool offers prevention planning guidance in taking adequate precaution measures to overcome complex domino effect risks.      

Symplectic geography in dimension 8.

We show that in dimension 8 the geography of symplectic manifolds does not differ from that of almost complex ones.Acknowledgement The content of this paper is part of a thesis written under the supervision of H. Geiges. The author would like to thank him for many helpful comments and suggestions.     

On pelczynski’s paper “universal bases”

A short proof is given to a theorem of Pelczynski concerning universal bases. This is part of the author’s Ph.D. thesis written at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Professor J. Lindenstrauss. The author wishes to thank Professor Lindenstrauss for his guidance.     

Some necessary and sufficient conditions for Hypercyclicity Criterion

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for an operator on a separable Hilbert space to satisfy the hypercyclicity criterion. This paper is a part of the second author’s Doctoral thesis, written at Shiraz University under the direction of the first author.