MATH 453, Fall 2014

PROBLEM SET AND READING ASSIGNMENT 2

Hand in 2, 6, 8, 9 on Thursday, September 11.
1. Problems 3, 4, 5 of the Linear Algebra Worksheet.
2. Problem 1.4, page 30.
3. Problem 1.14, page 34.
4. Problem 1.25, page 38.
5. Problem 1.30, page 40.
6. Problem 1.31 a)c), page 40.
7. Problem 1.35, page 41.
8. (Source, Chvatal, Linear Programming.) Find necessary and sufficient conditions for the
numbers s and t, if any, in order that the linear programming problem
maximize
subject to

z = x1 + x2
sx1 + tx2 1,

x 1 , x2 0

a) has an optimal solution;

b) is infeasible;
c) is unbounded (the objective function can be made arbitrarily large).
9. The first figure below is an example of a bipartite graph; its vertices can be separated
into two disjoint sets and the edges are only between vertices in different sets. The edges
highlighted by thicker lines form a matching in this bipartite graph: a matching is a subset
of edges such that no two share a common vertex as an endpoint. An important problem
of graph theory is finding a maximal matching, that is, a matching of the largest possible
number of edges. The maximal matching in the example graph has size 4. You should be
able to find such a matching by inspection of the graph.
The purpose of this problem is to show that the maximal matching problem in a bipartite
graph can be formulated as a transshipment problem. In the second figure we have redrawn
the original graph with the following changes and additions: (i), the original edges have
been turned into directed edges; ii) two new vertices have been added; (iii) all vertices have
been labeled; and each vertex has been assigned an integer demand. Notice that the demand
assigned to vertex v is just the number of vertices (4) on the left side of the original graph,

and the demand assigned to w is the negative of the number of vertices (5) on the right side
of the original graph.
If there is a directed edge from vertex u to v, let xuv denote an amount to be shipped
from u to v. A feasible shipping schedule is an assignment of non-negative xuv to the edges so
that demand is met at every vertex. (The total amount coming into a vertex is the amount
coming in minus the amount going out). For example, considering vertex `1 , this constraint
requires
x`1 ,v x`1 ,r1 x`1 ,r2 = 1.
a) Write down the demand constraints for vertices `2 , r1 , r2 , v, and w.
b) Let {xuv } be a feasible schedule such that each xuv is a non-negative integer. Show
that for each edge in the original bipartite graph, that is each edge from an `i vertex to an
rj vertex, either xuv = 0 or xuv = 1 and that the edges for which xuv = 1 define a matching.
c) Let the unit cost for shipping over any edge of the original graph, that is an edge from
`i to rj , be 1. Thus if x`i rj is shipped over the edge connecting `i and rj , this contributes
x`i rj to the cost. Let the cost of shipping over any other edge be 0.
Conclude from a) that the problem of finding a maximal matching is equivalent to the
linear integer programming problem of finding the feasible schedule with minimum cost.
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