Handbook of Combinatorial Optimization

Combinatorial optimization is a dynamic field at the intersection of operations research, computer science, and applied mathematics, with applications ranging from network design to machine vision and scheduling. It encompasses diverse areas like linear and integer programming, graph theory, and artificial intelligence. The discipline evolved from linear programming, which has significant applications in resource allocation and planning. Key developments, such as the ellipsoid method and interior point approaches, have introduced polynomial-time algorithms that greatly influence combinatorial optimization solutions.