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Extrema of a Class of Functions on a Finite Set

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Kenneth W. Lebensold*
Affiliation:
City College of New York, New York, New York
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In this paper, we are concerned with the following problem: Let S be a finite set and Sm* ⊂ 2S a collection of subsets of S each of whose members has m elements (m a positive integer). Let f be a real-valued function on S and, for pSm*, define f(P) as Σs∊pf (s). We seek the minimum (or maximum) of the function f on the set Sm*.

The Traveling Salesman Problem is to find the cheapest polygonal path through a given set of vertices, given the cost of getting from any vertex to any other. It is easily seen that the Traveling Salesman Problem is a special case of this system, where S is the set of all edges joining pairs of points in the vertex set, Sm* is the set of polygons, each polygon has m elements (m = no. of points in the vertex set = no. of edges per polygon), and f is the cost function.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Mathematical Society 1974

References

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