Basic Algorithmic Concepts

Abstract

In this chapter we introduce some algorithmic ideas which will be used in more elaborate ways in various chapters for different problems. The aim of presenting these ideas in a simple form is twofold. On one hand we want to provide the reader, who is a novice in the area of knapsack problems or combinatorial and integer programming in general, with a basic introduction such that no other reference is needed to work successfully with the more advanced algorithms in the remainder of this book. On the other hand, we would like to establish a common conceptual cornerstone from which the other chapters can develop the more refined variants of these basic ideas as they are required for each of the individual problems covered there. In this way we can avoid repetitions without affecting the self-contained character of the remaining chapters.