Title:Recent Advances in the Sparse Simplex Method


			Istvan Maros
		 Department of Computing
		      Imperial College
		      180 Queen's Gate
		     London SW7 2BZ U.K.
		    i.maros@doc.ic.ac.uk
		http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~im/


Abstract:
The sparse simplex method continues to play a vital role in 
large scale optimization being used either directly or embedded 
as the computational engine in other solution algorithms. In the 
latter category the most important areas are mixed integer 
programming and decomposition methods. The requirements of the 
simplex method are very high, most importantly: robustness and 
efficiency. The recent spectacular progress of the simplex 
method is the results of several contributing factors, namely, 
important algorithmic improvements and adoption of techniques of 
computing science and software engineering. Even the knowledge 
of computer architectures is essential. The talk gives an 
overview of the achievements and discusses some important 
details that have relevance to other sparse optimization 
algorithms, too.