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Given a graph whose arc traversal times vary over time, the Time-Dependent Travelling Salesman Problem consists in finding a Hamiltonian tour of least total duration covering the vertices of the graph. The main goal of this work is to…
The 2-Opt heuristic is one of the simplest algorithms for finding good solutions to the metric Traveling Salesman Problem. It is the key ingredient to the well-known Lin-Kernighan algorithm and often used in practice. So far, only upper and…
We study the problem of computing a shortest tour that visits a sequence of $k$ polygons $P_1,\dots, P_k$ with a total number of $n$ vertices. A tour is an oriented curve such that there exist points $p_i\in P_i$ for all $i$ where $p_i$…
We provide a spectrum of new theoretical insights and practical results for finding a Minimum Dilation Triangulation (MDT), a natural geometric optimization problem of considerable previous attention: Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the…
We study the edge-length polytope, motivated both by algorithmic research on the Circulant Traveling Salesman Problem (Circulant TSP) and number-theoretic research related to the Buratti-Horak-Rosa conjecture. Circulant TSP is a special…
The maximum traveling salesman problem (Max TSP) consists of finding a Hamiltonian cycle with the maximum total weight of the edges in a given complete weighted graph. This problem is APX-hard in the general metric case but admits…
We revisit the traveling salesman problem with neighborhoods (TSPN) and present the first constant-ratio approximation for disks in the plane: Given a set of $n$ disks in the plane, a TSP tour whose length is at most $O(1)$ times the…
It has long been known that cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) can in theory be used for robot motion planning. However, in practice even the simplest examples can be too complicated to tackle. We consider in detail a "Piano…
The Double Travelling Salesman Problem with Multiple Stacks, DTSPMS, deals with the collect and delivery of n commodities in two distinct cities, where the pickup and the delivery tours are related by LIFO constraints. During the pickup…
The paper revisits the robust $s$-$t$ path problem, one of the most fundamental problems in robust optimization. In the problem, we are given a directed graph with $n$ vertices and $k$ distinct cost functions (scenarios) defined over edges,…
In this work, we aim to explore connections between dynamical systems techniques and combinatorial optimization problems. In particular, we construct heuristic approaches for the traveling salesman problem (TSP) based on embedding the…
The Asymmetric Traveling Salesperson Path Problem (ATSPP) is one where, given an asymmetric metric space $(V,d)$ with specified vertices s and t, the goal is to find an s-t path of minimum length that passes through all the vertices in V.…
Motivated by the $k$-center problem in location analysis, we consider the \emph{polygon burning} (PB) problem: Given a polygonal domain $P$ with $h$ holes and $n$ vertices, find a set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $P$ that minimizes the maximum…
Finding the exact integrality gap $\alpha$ for the LP relaxation of the metric Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) has been an open problem for over thirty years, with little progress made. It is known that $4/3 \leq \alpha \leq 3/2$, and a…
An NP-hard graph problem may be intractable for general graphs but it could be efficiently solvable using dynamic programming for graphs with bounded width (or depth or some other structural parameter). Dynamic programming is a well-known…
The Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP) has generated significant interest over the last decade due to its occurrence in several civil and military surveillance applications. Currently, there is no algorithm that can find an optimal…
The Directed Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP) is a variant of the classical Traveling Salesman Problem in which the edges in the graph are directed and a vertex and edge can be visited multiple times. The goal is to find a directed closed…
Finding a shortest path in a graph is one of the most classic problems in algorithmic and graph theory. While we dispose of quite efficient algorithms for this ordinary problem (like the Dijkstra or Bellman-Ford algorithms), some slight…
We consider the Travelling Salesman Problem with Vertex Requisitions, where for each position of the tour at most two possible vertices are given. It is known that the problem is strongly NP-hard. The proposed algorithm for this problem has…
The problem of deciding if a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) tour is minimal was proved to be coNP-complete by Papadimitriou and Steiglitz. We give an alternative proof based on a polynomial time reduction from 3SAT. Like the original…