Robert Bosch Professor King 220A (440) 775-8384 bobb@cs.oberlin.edu
B.A., Mathematics, Oberlin College, 1985 M.S., Operations Research and Statistics, RPI, 1987 Ph.D., Operations Research, Yale University, 1991

Schedule for Spring Semester 2004

 

ON LEAVE

 

Publications: Opt Art

Currently I am interested in using optimization to create pictures, portraits, and other works of art.

• "Continuous Line Drawings via the Traveling Salesman Problem" (with A. Herman) tspart.pdf. Also, here are some TSP art data files (cities.sun43084b, cities.mm20332, cities.ml27486) and pictures (sun43084b.jpg, mm20332small.jpg, ml27486small.jpg)
• "Constructing Domino Portraits" cdp.pdf Also, check out my domino website DominoArtwork.com.

Publications: Optimization Models

I am also interested in new or nontraditional applications of optimization.

• "Constraint Programming and Hybrid Formulations for Three Life Designs" (with M. Trick), Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Integration of AI and OR techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimisation Problems---CP-AI-OR'02, 77-91, (2002). Link to our CP/IP Life page.
• "Constraint Programming and Hybrid Formulations for Life" (with M. Trick), Proceedings of Formul'01 Workshop, CP'01, (2001).
• "Maximizing Fun at an Amusement Park" (with M. Cardiff and G. Hughes), The UMAP Journal 21(4), 483-498, (2000). Go to our website.
• "Maximum Density Stable Patterns in Variants of Conway's Game of Life", Operations Research Letters 27(1), 7-11, (2000). Link to the electronic version.
• "Finding Optimal Piano Fingerings" (with M. Hart and E. Tsai), The UMAP Journal 21(2), 167-177, (2000). Download a postscript file of our article: piano.ps. Learn about our code.
• "Optimal Card-Collecting Strategies for Magic: The Gathering", The College Mathematics Journal 31(1), 15-21, (2000). Download a postscript file of the article: magic.ps.
• "Integer Programming and Conway's Game of Life", SIAM Review 41(3), 596-604, (1999). Link to the electronic version.
• "Separating Hyperplanes and the Authorship of the Disputed Federalist Papers" (with J.A. Smith), The American Mathematical Monthly 105(7), 601-608, (1998).
• Refinements of Paltiel and Kaplan's Decision-theoretic Model of AIDS Clinical Trials" (with N.K. Stout), Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 31(2), 87-101, (1997). 
• "The Battle of the Burger Chains: Which is Best---Burger King, McDonald's, or Wendy's?", Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 30(3), 157-162 (1996).
• "Big Mac Attack: The Diet Problem Revisited at McDonald's", OR/MS Today August, 30-31, (1993).

 

Publications: Optima mind sharpener

Optima mind sharpener is an optimization-focused recreational mathematics column that appears in Optima, the newsletter of the Mathematical Programming Society. The first seven installments are currently available at the Optima web page.

• "Slither Link", to appear in Optima 69.
• "Digit Tiles", Optima 67, 4-6, (2002).
• "Two Domino Problems", Optima 66, 10-11, (2001).
• "Painting by Numbers", Optima 65, 16-17, (2001). Go to a website that contains a postscript file of the article, some C code, and some data files.
• "Lights Out", Optima 64, 15, (2000).
• "`Set'Less Collections of SET Cards", Optima 63, 2-5, (2000).
• "Peaceably Coexisting Armies of Queens", Optima 62, 6-9, (1999).
• "Maximizing Vitality", Optima 61, 10-11, (1999).
• "A Pentomino Exclusion Problem", Optima 60, 3, (1998).

 

Publications: Interior-Point Methods for LP

At Yale I wrote a Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Partial Updating in Interior-Point Methods for Linear Programming" under the direction of Kurt Anstreicher. During my first few years at Oberlin, I continued to do work in this area.

• "A Partial Updating Algorithm for Linear Programs with Many More Variables than Constraints" (with K.M. Anstreicher), Optimization Methods and Software 4, 243-257, (1995).
• "A New Infinity-Norm Path Following Algorithm for Linear Programming" (with K.M. Anstreicher), SIAM Journal on Optimization 5 (2), 236-246, (1995).
• "On Mizuno's Rank-One Updating Algorithm for Linear Programming", SIAM Journal on Optimization 3(4), 861-867, (1993).
• "On Partial Updating in a Potential Reduction Linear Programming Algorithm of Kojima, Mizuno, and Yoshise" (with K.M. Anstreicher), Algorithmica 9, 184-197, (1993).
• "Long Steps in an O(n³L) Algorithm for Linear Programming" (with K.M. Anstreicher), Mathematical Programming 54, 251-265, (1992).

 

Favorite Links

• Michael Trick's Operations Research Page (a terrific resource for OR-related stuff)
• John Mitchell's Collection of OR Sites (another great resource for OR-related stuff)
• Paul's Page of Conway's Life Miscellany (all about Conway's Game of Life)
• Derek Bosch's Home Page (my baby brother's web page)

 

Faculty & Staff || Events || Course Syllabi || Dept & Course Info || Majors Handbook Budapest Semester || Oberlin On Line || HOME

Updated: February 6, 2004