Formal Mathematical Definition
The formal definition of the assignment problem (or linear assignment problem) is
- Given two sets, A and T, of equal size, together with a weight function C : A × T → R. Find a bijection f : A → T such that the cost function:
-
- is minimized.
Usually the weight function is viewed as a square real-valued matrix C, so that the cost function is written down as:
The problem is "linear" because the cost function to be optimized as well as all the constraints contain only linear terms.
The problem can be expressed as a standard linear program with the objective function
subject to the constraints
The variable represents the assignment of agent to task, taking value 1 if the assignment is done and 0 otherwise. This formulation allows also fractional variable values, but there is always an optimal solution where the variables take integer values. This is because the constraint matrix is totally unimodular. The first constraint requires that every agent is assigned to exactly one task, and the second constraint requires that every task is assigned exactly one agent.
Read more about this topic: Assignment Problem
Famous quotes containing the words formal, mathematical and/or definition:
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)
“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“I’m beginning to think that the proper definition of “Man” is “an animal that writes letters.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)