This project looks at the challenges involved in the automatic reconstruction of strip (vertically cut) and cross (both vertically and horizontally cut) shredded documents. The unshredding problem is of interest in the fields of forensics, investigative sciences, and archaeology. All stages of the unshredding pipeline are analysed, starting from scanned images of shreds and ending with reconstr...

Branch-and-cut methods are among the most important techniques for solving integer programming problems. They can also be used to prove that all solutions of an integer program satisfy a given linear inequality. We examine the complexity of branch-and-cut proofs in the context of 0-1 integer programs. We prove an exponential lower bound on the length of branch-and-cut proofs which use 0-1 branc...

the effect of different storage temperatures on senescence and postharvest performance in cut scapes of three iris species (iris germanica, iris reticulata and iris kashmiriana) was studied with the aim to develop a cost-effective storage protocol so as to bring out the transportation of these cut flowers. the scapes were subjected to two different storage treatments-dry storage and wet storage...

Min-max and min-max regret criteria are commonly used to define robust solutions. After motivating the use of these criteria, we present general results. Then, we survey complexity results for the min-max and min-max regret versions of some combinatorial optimization problems: shortest path, spanning tree, assignment, min cut, min s-t cut, knapsack. Since most of these problems are NP -hard, we...

Min-max and min-max regret criteria are commonly used to define robust solutions. After motivating the use of these criteria, we present general results. Then, we survey complexity results for the min-max and min-max regret versions of some combinatorial optimization problems: shortest path, spanning tree, assignment, cut, s-t cut, knapsack. Since most of these problems are NP-hard, we also inv...

This paper deals with MIP-based primal heuristics to be used within a branch-and-cut approach for solving multi-layer telecommunication network design problems. Based on a mixed-integer programming formulation for two network layers, we present three heuristics for solving important subproblems, two of which solve a sub-MIP. On multi-layer planning instances with many parallel logical links, we...

Min-max and min-max regret criteria are commonly used to define robust solutions. After motivating the use of these criteria, we present general results. Then, we survey complexity results for the min-max and min-max regret versions of some combinatorial optimization problems: shortest path, spanning tree, assignment, cut, s-t cut, knapsack. Since most of these problems are NP-hard, we also inv...

The Minimum Coloring Cut Problem is defined as follows: given a connected graph G with colored edges, find an edge cut E′ of G (a minimal set of edges whose removal renders the graph disconnected) such that the number of colors used by the edges in E′ is minimum. In this work, we present two approaches based on Variable Neighborhood Search to solve this problem. Our algorithms are able to find ...

The requirement to phase-out methyl bromide (MB) in the cut-flower sector needs more attention than in other sectors in order to identify fully effective solutions that are environmental friendly and technically sustainable. Resistant varieties, soilless cultivation, steam, soil solarization, biocontrol agents and chemicals have been evaluated as potential alternatives and can be considered as ...