Models and Algorithms for the Bin-Packing Problem with Minimum Color Fragmentation

In the bin-packing problem with minimum color fragmentation (BPPMCF), we are given a fixed number of bins and a collection of items, each associated with a size and a color, and the goal is to avoid color fragmentation by packing items with the same color within as few bins as possible. This problem emerges in areas as diverse as surgical scheduling and group event seating. We present several optimization models for the BPPMCF, including baseline integer programming formulations, alternative integer programming formulations based on two recursive decomposition strategies that utilize decision diagrams, and a branch-and-price algorithm. Using the results from an extensive computational evaluation on synthetic instances, we train a decision tree model that predicts which algorithm should be chosen to solve a given instance of the problem based on a collection of derived features. Our insights are validated through experiments on the aforementioned applications on real-world data. Summary of Contribution: In this paper, we investigate a colored variant of the bin-packing problem. We present and evaluate several exact mixed-integer programming formulations to solve the problem, including models that explore recursive decomposition strategies based on decision diagrams and a set partitioning model that we solve using branch and price. Our results show that the computational performance of the algorithms depends on features of the input data, such as the average number of items per bin. Our algorithms and featured applications suggest that the problem is of practical relevance and that instances of reasonable size can be solved efficiently.

Catalan words avoiding pairs of length three patterns

Catalan words are particular growth-restricted words counted by the eponymous integer sequence. In this article we consider Catalan words avoiding a pair of patterns of length 3, pursuing the recent initiating work of the first and last authors and of S. Kirgizov where (among other things) the enumeration of Catalan words avoiding a patterns of length 3 is completed. More precisely, we explore systematically the structural properties of the sets of words under consideration and give enumerating results by means of recursive decomposition, constructive bijections or bivariate generating functions with respect to the length and descent number. Some of the obtained enumerating sequences are known, and thus the corresponding results establish new combinatorial interpretations for them.

The number of corner polyhedra graphs

International audience Corner polyhedra were introduced by Eppstein and Mumford (2014) as the set of simply connected 3D polyhedra such that all vertices have non negative integer coordinates, edges are parallel to the coordinate axes and all vertices but one can be seen from infinity in the direction (1, 1, 1). These authors gave a remarkable characterization of the set of corner polyhedra graphs, that is graphs that can be skeleton of a corner polyhedron: as planar maps, they are the duals of some particular bipartite triangulations, which we call hereafter corner triangulations.In this paper we count corner polyhedral graphs by determining the generating function of the corner triangulations with respect to the number of vertices: we obtain an explicit rational expression for it in terms of the Catalan gen- erating function. We first show that this result can be derived using Tutte's classical compositional approach. Then, in order to explain the occurrence of the Catalan series we give a direct algebraic decomposition of corner triangu- lations: in particular we exhibit a family of almond triangulations that admit a recursive decomposition structurally equivalent to the decomposition of binary trees. Finally we sketch a direct bijection between binary trees and almond triangulations. Our combinatorial analysis yields a simpler alternative to the algorithm of Eppstein and Mumford for endowing a corner polyhedral graph with the cycle cover structure needed to realize it as a polyhedral graph.