Dr Katerina Papadaki

This course is available on the MSc in Applicable Mathematics and MSc in Operations Research & Analytics. This course is not available as an outside option.

Some familiarity with graph theory and some knowledge of linear programming is desirable. For students that have no linear programming background, it is recommended that they read the material of the first four lectures of course MA423, which can be found on the Moodle page of MA423.

The course is intended as an introduction to discrete and combinatorial techniques for solving optimisation problems, mainly involving graphs and networks. Topics covered include: minimum spanning trees; shortest path algorithms; maximum flow algorithms; minimum cost flow problems; matching and assignment problems; and other topics that may vary from year to year.

This course is delivered through a combination of seminars and lectures totalling a minimum of 30 hours across Lent Term.

Students will be expected to produce 3 problem sets in the LT.

Students will be given weekly exercises. Oral feedback will be provided in the seminars, where the weekly homework will be discussed. Three of these weekly exercises will be handed in as formative coursework and the students will be given written feedback on their submissions.

Lecture notes will be supplied for all topics.

Most of the lectures will be based on topics from:

R K Ahuja, T L Maganti and J B Orlin, Network Flows (2013).

William J. Cook, William H. Cunningham, William R. Pulleyblank, Alexander Schrijver, Combinatorial Optimization (1997).

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the summer exam period.