Economics 172B: Introduction to Operations Research, Winter 2002

This part of the Introduction to Operations Research sequence covers two kinds of nonlinear mathematical optimization problems: nonlinear programming and integer programming. The class will teach you how to formulate economic and business problems as nonlinear or integer programming problems, teach you how to solve them, and teach you how to interpret their solutions. Economics 172A is an essential prerequisite.
 

Final exam solutions are posted below. Grades will be available through StudentLink, and graded exams can be picked up any time after the first week of Spring quarter in the Economics student services office, Sequoyah 245.

TAs:

Jim Brennan, Sequoyah Hall 251 (jbrennan@econ.ucsd.edu); office hours Monday 2:00-4:00

Herb Newhouse, Economics 117 (hnewhous@econ.ucsd.edu); office hours Tuesday 11:30-1:30

Grader:

Julian Weisbrod (j_weisbrod@hotmail.com); no scheduled office hours, contact him by email if you want to discuss problem set grading

Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00-9:20am in HSS 2250

Textbook: Hillier and Lieberman, Introduction to Mathematical Programming (2nd edition); now at the bookstore, and on reserve in Geisel Library

Exams and Grades:  Your grade will be based on several written homework assignments (15%), a midterm exam in class on Thursday, February 7, the end of the fifth week, from 8:00-9:20 (30%); and a final exam on Thursday, March 21 from 8:00-11:00 (55%). Exams will be given only at the regularly scheduled times; it is your responsibility to avoid conflicts.

Homework: Homework assignments will periodically be announced in class and posted here. Assignments should be turned in by the end of class on the announced date, or put in TA Herb Newhouse's mailbox in Economics 210 by that time; late assignments will not be accepted.

Course materials (download free Adobe Acrobat Reader for pdf files):

• Syllabus (html)

• Lecture notes for the entire course (omit game theory part at end) (pdf)

• Handwritten lecture notes for classical and nonlinear programming and assignment problems, with more detail but less legibility than the typed lecture notes above: pages 1-31 (pdf), pages 1-10 (pdf), pages 11-20 (pdf), pages 21-31 (pdf)

• Notes on Newton-Raphson algorithm (optional) (html)

• Using Excel Solver for the Newton-Raphson algorithm (optional) (html)

• Handout on the Hungarian Method for the assignment problem (pdf)

• Problem Set #1 (html, pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #2 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #3 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #4 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #5 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #6, (pdf); solutions (pdf)

 
• OPTIONAL Problem Set #7 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

Final exam and solutions (pdf)

Old exams:

Midterm and final exams from Spring 2000 (the last and only recent time I taught this course; omit game theory questions, because game theory is not covered in this offering of the course) (html); midterm solutions (html)

• Problem Set #1 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #2 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #3 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #4 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #5 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #6 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #7 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #8 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #9 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

• Problem Set #10 (pdf); solutions (pdf)

Copyright © Vincent P. Crawford, 2002. All federal and state copyrights reserved for all original material on this site.