Network flow algorithms

Network flow theory has been used across a number of disciplines, including theoretical computer science, operations research, and discrete math, to model not only problems in the transportation of goods and information, but also a wide range of applications from image segmentation problems in computer vision to deciding when a baseball team has been eliminated from contention. This graduate text and reference presents a succinct, unified view of a wide variety of efficient combinatorial algorithms for network flow problems, including many results not found in other books. It covers maximum flows, minimum-cost flows, generalized flows, multicommodity flows, and global minimum cuts and also presents recent work on computing electrical flows along with recent applications of these flows to classical problems in network flow theory. • Presents results in the area from a modern computer science algorithms outlook • Contains several key algorithms not previously treated in book form, including new algorithms on electrical flow • Includes fifty-five end-of-chapter exercises which provide applications and additional algorithms to analyze Cover......Page 1 Front Matter......Page 3 Network Flow Algorithms......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 Preface......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 13 1 Preliminaries:Shortest Path Algorithms......Page 15 2 Maximum Flow Algorithms......Page 37 3 Global Minimum Cut Algorithms......Page 94 4 More Maximum Flow Algorithms......Page 130 5 Minimum-Cost Circulation Algorithms......Page 146 6 Generalized Flow Algorithms......Page 202 7 Multicommodity Flow Algorithms......Page 238 8 Electrical Flow Algorithms......Page 267 9 Open Questions......Page 305 References......Page 308 Author Index......Page 321 Index......Page 324 This comprehensive text and reference for graduate students and professionals in theoretical computer science, operations research, and discrete math offers an up-to-date, unified view of efficient combinatorial algorithms for a wide variety of network flow problems, including recent work on computing electrical flows and their applications.