Spring 2009 Seminar Series

DATE: April 9th
LOCATION: E51-057
TIME: 4:15pm
Reception immediately following in the ORC ConferenceRoom, E40-106

SPEAKER:
Jiawei Zhang

TITLE
The Joint Replenishment Problem and Polymatroid Optimization

ABSTRACT
We present two results regarding polymatroid optimization. The first result is regarding the problem of maximizing a separable concave function over a polymatroid. We analyze the submodularity of its optimal objective value in the parameters of the objective function. In the second result, we present a solution, which has a simple expression, to maximize a class of d-Schur concave functions over a polymatroid. Both results have been motivated by a cooperative game associated with the well-known joint replenishment problem. We also present other applications of the results.