{"product_id":"the-quadratic-assignment-problem-theory-and-algorithms-von-e-cela","title":"The Quadratic Assignment Problem","description":"The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) was introduced in 1957 by Koopmans and Beckmann to model a plant location problem. Since then the QAP has been object of numerous investigations by mathematicians, computers scientists, ope- tions researchers and practitioners. Nowadays the QAP is widely considered as a classical combinatorial optimization problem which is (still) attractive from many points of view. In our opinion there are at last three main reasons which make the QAP a popular problem in combinatorial optimization. First, the number of re- life problems which are mathematically modeled by QAPs has been continuously increasing and the variety of the fields they belong to is astonishing. To recall just a restricted number among the applications of the QAP let us mention placement problems, scheduling, manufacturing, VLSI design, statistical data analysis, and parallel and distributed computing. Secondly, a number of other well known c- binatorial optimization problems can be formulated as QAPs. Typical examples are the traveling salesman problem and a large number of optimization problems in graphs such as the maximum clique problem, the graph partitioning problem and the minimum feedback arc set problem. Finally, from a computational point of view the QAP is a very difficult problem. The QAP is not only NP-hard and - hard to approximate, but it is also practically intractable: it is generally considered as impossible to solve (to optimality) QAP instances of size larger than 20 within reasonable time limits.\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9781441947864\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003eTheory and Algorithms\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9780792348788\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003eTheory and Algorithms\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Libri","offers":[{"title":"Softcover - 9781441947864","offer_id":39415564533853,"sku":"9781441947864","price":160.49,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover - 9780792348788","offer_id":51344872390,"sku":"9780792348788","price":160.49,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0940\/0622\/files\/864a861a-a50b-419e-afb5-b4e880a9ad4c.jpg?v=1772256589","url":"https:\/\/shop.autorenwelt.de\/en\/products\/the-quadratic-assignment-problem-theory-and-algorithms-von-e-cela","provider":"Autorenwelt Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}