COMP 566 Autumn 2008
Course Announcements
Please check this page once a
week. New items
at the top of the page.
course home page lecture summaries
assignments
2008.11.13
End of term feedback session (free beer) at Thomson House, 3650
McTavish, from 4:30 pm Thurs Nov. 27
Assignment 4 is posted, due Dec 2 in MC232.
2008.11.11 Two lectures will be
given by Mike Saunders, Nov 14 and 17. Details.
2008.11.11 Note
presentations start Tuesday Nov.
18. Presentations are for 15
minutes plus 5 mins for questions. Schedule
2008.11.11 There will be
one more assignment, due at the end of term.
2008.11.4 Extra office
hours: Wed Nov 5 10-12 noon, McConnell 308.
2008.11.3 For question 3(b)
you need to find bounds on the number of radios so that the basis of
the final dictionary found in 3(a) remains an optimum basis.
2008.10.22 Second class test will
be on Thurs. Nov. 6. Assignment 3 is posted. (Revised 2008.10.22)
Class test will be on Thursday
October 9.
2008.9.24: Assignment 2 is posted
and due October 7, beginning of class. We will review the assignment in
class.
2008.9.10: Assignment 1 is posted
and due September 23 in class. Minor clarifications September 17.
Teaching Assistant: Conor Meagher
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~cmeagh1/
Office: MC232
email: cmeagh1 at cs.mcgill.ca
By
appointment
Course software
Getting a computer account:
go to one of the Gentoo/linux machines in the Trottier building 3rd
floor: http://socsinfo.cs.mcgill.ca/wiki/Labs
Use login name: newuser password: newuser
In the course we make use of the packages maple, lp_solve, cplex
and lrs. All are installed on Gentoo/linux
machines in Trottier: labi-j.cs.mcgill.ca,
i=2,6,7 and 1<=j<=20
You can connect remotely by ssh: eg: ssh
lab6-4.cs.mcgill.ca
If you do not find the software, try typing: %source
/usr/socs/Cshrc
You will need to set the path for some of the software.
cplex path: /usr/local/bin/cplex-10
Usage: You need to set
an environment variable, then type cplex-10 at the prompt. Follow these
instructions.
Other documentation for cplex can be found here and here.
maple path: /usr/local/bin/maple
A maple session that shows how to solve systems of equations is here.
lp_solve path:
/usr/bin/lp_solve
This free program can be used to solve linear or integer linear
programs.
Usage: lp_solve -S4 <
input_file (-S4 option gives dual
variables)
Some examples input and output files are here.
The man page is here.
The full package is available for download from the lp_solve home
page.
A nice help page with DOS executable is available at:
http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~rrw1/opt/lp_solve/
lrs path:
/usr/bin/glrs (glrs uses a faster arithmetic package
than lrs, otherwise the same)
This program computes all of the extreme points (and extreme rays if
any) of the
feasible region of an LP. Home page is: http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~avis/C/lrs.html
Zimpl free
modelling tool for LPs and ILPs (constraint
generator to lp or mps formats).
http://www.zib.de/koch/zimpl/
It is easy to learn and use. On page 16 of the documentation
(http://www.zib.de/koch/zimpl/download/zimpl.pdf)
you will find Chvatal's
diet problem as an example.
Coin-Or Computational
Infrastructure for Operations Research
http://www.coin-or.org/
-->"an open-source community for operations research software in
order
to speed development and deployment of models, algorithms, and
cutting-edge
computational research." It has some neat cut generators for solving
ILPs.
Symphony Open
source Mixed ILP solver that implements branch and cut
http://www.branchandcut.org/SYMPHONY/
-->it s very customizable and is part of COIN-OR. If you tweak things
right, you will solve tough ILPs faster than CPLEX can. You can even
implement your own cuts.
SOCS computer labs wiki is at http://socsinfo.cs.mcgill.ca/wiki/Main_Page
Some pointers for those looking for projects:
http://www.optimization-online.org/
Informs Search of Annual Comprehensive Index Bibliographic Database
http://www.worms.ms.unimelb.edu.au/
ORMS today
http://www.lionhrtpub.com/ORMS.shtml
Prof. Goffin's home
page
Journals to check:
Mathematical Programming, Operations Research, Networks,
INFORS, Interfaces, Management Science