Research

My research has focused on the following topics:

  • Quadratic 0-1 Knapsack problems
  • Nonlinear 0-1 optimization
  • Scheduling problems, especially exam scheduling

Recent work involves the final exam scheduling for Rose-Hulman each term.  This problem is different from the traditional exam scheduling problem because:

  1. All sections of the same course have their exam at the same time
  2. Room availability is limited
  3. The number of time slots is reduced
  4. The objectives for a schedule involves
    1. minimizing the number of students with multiple exams scheduled at the same time
    2. minimizing the number of students with exams occurring in back-to-back time slots
    3. minimizing the number of students with exams occurring in 3 or more consecutive time slots.

Recent papers:

  • “Recommendations for an Undergraduate Curriculum at the Interface of Operations Research and Computer Science”; Joint work with J. Hardin, C. Beck, , K. Furman, A. Hanna, A. Holder, C. Rego, INFORMS Trans. Ed., V. 12 (2012), issue 3, pp. 117-123.   https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.1110.0080

  • “A heuristic algorithm for a chance constrained stochastic program”; Joint work with Concetta A. DePaolo.  European Journal of Operational Research, V. 176 (2007), pp. 27-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.08.008

  • “Automated Supply Chain Management in the U.S. Steel Industry”; Joint work with Seifert, Michael, William A. Kline, and Thomas W. Mason. Peer Reviewed Proceedings of the 2004 National Conference of the American Society of Engineering Management,  October 20-23, 2004,  Alexandria, VA,  pp. 443-452.
  • “The quadratic 0-1 knapsack problem with series-parallel support”; Joint work with Gerhard J. Woeginger.  Operations Research Letters, V. 30 (2002), no. 3, pp. 159-166.  https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6377(02)00122-0

  • “Maximizing the product of two linear 0-1 functions”; Joint work with Peter L. Hammer, Pierre Hansen and Panos Pardalos.  Optimization, V. 51 (2002), pp. 511-537.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02331930290009847

  • “Maximally disjoint solutions to the set covering problem”;  Joint work with Peter L. Hammer. Journal of Heuristics, V. 7 (2001), pp. 131-144.  http://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009687403254

  • “Optimal cell flipping to minimize channel density in VLSI design and a class of  PseudoBoolean optimization problems”; Joint work with E. Boros, P.L. Hammer, and M. Minoux; Discrete Applied Mathematics, V. 90(1999), pp. 69-88.  https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-218X(98)00114-0