Mixed-integer Quadratic Programming is in NP

Mixed-integer quadratic programming is the problem of optimizing a quadratic function over points in a polyhedral set where some of the components are restricted to be integral. In this paper, we prove that the decision version of mixed-integer quadratic programming is in NP, thereby showing that it is NP-complete. This is established by showing that if the decision version of mixed-integer quadratic programming is feasible, then there exists a solution of polynomial size. This result generalizes and unifies classical results that quadratic programming is in NP and integer linear programming is in NP

Scheduling Parallel Jobs with Linear Speedup

We consider a scheduling problem where a set of jobs is distributed over parallel machines. The processing time of any job is dependent on the usage of a scarce renewable resource, e.g., personnel. An amount of k units of that resource can be allocated to the jobs at any time, and the more of that resource is allocated to a job, the smaller its processing time. The dependence of processing times on the amount of resources is linear for any job. The objective is to find a resource allocation and a schedule that minimizes the makespan. Utilizing an integer quadratic programming relaxation, we show how to obtain a (3+e)-approximation algorithm for that problem, for any e>0. This generalizes and improves previous results, respectively. Our approach relies on a fully polynomial time approximation scheme to solve the quadratic programming relaxation. This result is interesting in itself, because the underlying quadratic program is NP-hard to solve in general. We also briefly discuss variants of the problem and derive lower bounds.operations research and management science;