Tolerances Applied in Combinatorial Optimization

Abstract

In this paper we deal with sensitivity analysis of combinatorial optimization problems and its fundamental term, the tolerance. For three classes of objective functions (∑, ∏, MAX) we give some basic properties on upper and lower tolerances. We show that the upper tolerance of an element is well defined, how to compute the upper tolerance of an element and give equivalent formulations when the upper tolerance is +∞ or > 0. Analogous results are given for the lower tolerance and some results on the relationship between lower and upper tolerances are given.