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This book documents the state of the art in combinatorial optimization, presenting approximate solutions of virtually all relevant classes of NP-hard optimization problems. The wealth of problems, algorithms, results, and techniques make it an indispensible source of reference for professionals. The text smoothly integrates numerous illustrations, examples, and exercises.

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Giorgio Ausiello is Professor Emeritus in the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Automatica e Gestionale, Università di Roma "La Sapienza". He has coauthored numerous formal academic journal and conference publications. He has chaired many related conferences and research groups, and he was a founding member of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), and its President from 2006 to 2009. His main research interests include on-line algorithms, approximation algorithms, dynamic graph algorithms, optimization problems in vehicle routing and logistics, and streaming algorithms; he has also researched and published on programming theorys, computational complexity, and database theory.

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