Research

 

Current research interests

Multicommodity flows instances

Five recent publications

Current funded projects and supervisions

Current research interests

SearchCol: Meta-heuristic Search by Column generation, funded by FCT Portugal (PTDC/EIA-EIA/100645/2008) 2010-2012 (Principal Investigator).

http://searchcol.dps.uminho.pt

My main research interest is to improve the ability to solve large and complex optimization problems in different application areas. Two promising approaches are:

- using decomposition methods in integer programming, such as branch-and-price-and-cut;

- using hybrid approaches of linear programming, problem-specific algorithms, and meta-heuristics.

I am currently working in problems of the following areas:

- Network design and routing;

- Production planning and scheduling;

- Cutting and packing;
- Forest management.


Multicommodity flows instances

Carbin set of instances for the Binary (or unsplittable or non bifurcated) linear minimum cost multicommodity flow problem

These instances were randomly generated by GenMCF, developed by Carina Pimentel and Filipe Alvelos, Departamento de Produçãããããããããããããããão e Sistemas, Centro de Investigaçãããããããããããããããão Algoritmi, Universidade do Minho, Portugal.

The zipped file has around 900Kb (uncompressed 3,3Mb). A readme.txt file describes the instances and the format in which they are represented.

Values of the best known solutions.

CarPlan set of instances for linear minimum cost multicommodity flow problems

These instances were also randomly generated by GenMCF. They have the particularity that the underlying graph is a planar one. They are available in the JL format (zipped 2,2 Mb, unzipped 3,3Mb) and in the fmc format (zipped 600 Kb, unzipped 1,8Mb). A description of the JL format is provided at the Professor Antonio Frangioni site. They were used in F. Alvelos and J. M. Valério de Carvalho, "An Extended Model and  Column Generation Algorithm for the Planar Multicommodity Flow Problem", Networks 50 (2007), pp 3-16.

Link

A large collection of instances can be found at at the Professor Antonio Frangioni site.

 

Five recent publications

 

F. Alvelos, A. de Sousa, D. Santos, "SearchCol: Metaheuristic Search by Column Generation", in "Hybrid Metaheuristics", M. Blesa, C. Blum, G. Raidl, A. Roli, M. Sampels (Eds.),  Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 6373, Pages 190-205, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-16054-7_14, 2010.

I. Martins, F. Alvelos, M. Constantino, "A branch-and-price approach for harvest scheduling subject to maximum area restrictions", Computational Optimization and Applications, DOI: 10.1007/s10589-010-9347-1, 2010.

D. Santos, A. de Sousa, F. Alvelos, M. Dzida and M. Pióro, "Optimization of link load balancing in multiple spanning tree routing networks", Telecommunication Systems, DOI: 10.1007/s11235-010-9337-8, 2010.

E. Silva, F. Alvelos, J. M. Valério de Carvalho, "An integer programming model for two- and three-stage two-dimensional cutting stock problems", European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 205, Issue 3, 16 September 2010, Pages 699-708.

C. Pimentel, F. Alvelos, J. M. Valério de Carvalho, "Comparing Dantzig-Wolfe decompositions and branch-and-price algorithms for the multi-item capacitated lot sizing problem", Optimization Methods & Software, Volume 25,  Issue 2, April 2010, Pages 299-319.

 

Current funded projects and supervisions

SearchCol: Meta-heuristic Search by Column generation, funded by FCT Portugal (PTDC/EIA-EIA/100645/2008) 2010-2012 (Principal Investigator).

http://searchcol.dps.uminho.pt


Carina Maria Oliveira Pimentel, Métodos híbridos para dimensionamento de lotes e escalonamento integrados, PhD research grant (SFRH/BD/38582/2007) (Co-supervisor: J. M. Valério de Carvalho).

Elsa Marília da Costa Silva, Métodos híbridos para problemas de corte e empacotamento a duas dimensões, PhD research grant (SFRH/BD/42259/2007). (Co-supervisor: J. M. Valério de Carvalho).

Tiago José da Costa Gomes, Planeamento de cadeias de abastecimento: modelos e métodos para apoio à decisão, PhD research grant (SFRH/BD/44601/2008). (Co-supervisor: M. Sameiro de Carvalho).

Dorabella Martins Silva Santos, Gestão de Recursos em Redes Metropolitanas Ethernet, PosDoc research grant (SFRH/BPD/41581/2007). (Supervisor: Amaro de Sousa).


For other projects see the Systems Engineering, Optimization and Operations Research webpage.