In 1958, Ralph E. Gomory transformed the field of integer programming when he published a paper that described a cutting-plane algorithm for pure integer programs and announced that the method could be refined to give a finite algorithm for integer programming. In 2008, to commemorate the anniversary of this seminal paper, a special workshop celebrating fifty years of integer programming was held in Aussois, France, as part of the 12th Combinatorial Optimization Workshop. It contains reprints of key historical articles and written versions of survey lectures on six of the hottest topics in the field by distinguished members of the integer programming community. Useful for anyone in mathematics, computer science and operations research, this book exposes mathematical optimization, specifically integer programming and combinatorial optimization, to a broad audience.

This tutorial contains written versions of seven lectures on Computational Combinatorial Optimization given by leading members of the optimization community. The lectures introduce modern combinatorial optimization techniques, with an emphasis on branch and cut algorithms and Lagrangian relaxation approaches. Polyhedral combinatorics as the mathematical backbone of successful algorithms are covered from many perspectives, in particular, polyhedral projection and lifting techniques and the importance of modeling are extensively discussed. Applications to prominent combinatorial optimization problems, e.g., in production and transport planning, are treated in many places; in particular, the book contains a state-of-the-art account of the most successful techniques for solving the traveling salesman problem to optimality.