2.1. A General Case
Corresponding to IMOLP problem (1)-(3), we consider the following set:
where .
For every
and
, the following convex polyhedron is directly obtained from (7):
A formula presented in the following property to describe the solution set of an interval linear equation is given by Oettli-Prager [
23]:
Property 2.1.
,
where , , , , , , and are defined in problem (1)-(3).
This property is proven by Rohn ([
29], Theorem 2.1, p.43) in a special case when
but his proof can be easily modified to prove Property 2.1. In the case when
, from Property 2.1 the following property is easily obtained:
, then .
The solution set of an interval linear inequality with positive variables is given in the following property whose proof is obvious:
Property 2.3.
,
Noting that the variables in (7) are non-negative, based on Property 2.2 the following property can be easily obtained:
Property 2.4.
,
This property is also presented in Li et al ([
22], Theorem 2.5), Rohn [
30].
is a convex polyhedron described by a system of linear inequalities with non-negative variables, has an extreme point if and only if it is not empty.
In order to find extreme points of
based on the simplex method,
is stated in the following form:
Let
where
and is the i-th
component of p;
is a set consisting of all minimal elements of by inclusion.
Let be a set established based on by a way similar to that used to establish based on .
It can be easily seen that the set
can be found by the method given in Tu [
34] without determining all extreme points of
.
A relation between and is considered in the following property:
Property 2.5. For every
there is such that .
Proof. There is an extreme point of
such that
. Noting that
, from (8) and Property 2.4 it follows that
. Based on a proof similar to that of Property 2.4 in [
34], it can be easily seen that there is an extreme point
of
such that
. From the definition of
it follows that there is
such that
. Therefore,
.
Let
where
is the
i-th row of a matrix
defined in (4).
A formula to compute the efficient set of IMOLP problem (1)-(3) is shown in the following property:
Property 2.6.
.
Proof. For every element
there are
,
and
such that
. Based on Property 2.4 in [
34], there is
such that
, where
.
Therefore, . From Property 2.5 it follows that there is such that . Thus, . Therefore, .
Conversely, for every element there is such that . Based on Property 2.4 and (8), from it follows that there are , and an extreme point such that . It is clear that , where . From it follows that . Noting that and , it can be easily seen that ,
Thus, based on the complementary theorem of linear programming,
is an optimal solution of the linear programming problem max
. Therefore,
. It is clear that
. Therefore,
. The proof is complete.
Since the solution set of an interval linear equation, in general, is not convex, see, for example, Hensen [
15], Fiedler et al. [
11], Rohn [
28,
30]. Therefore, the sets
defined in Property 2.6 can be not convex polyhedrons. This can cause difficulties in finding most preferred solutions from the efficient set of IMOLP problem (1)-(3).
Now we consider an IMOLP problem of which the efficient set can be computed by a union of a finite number of convex polyhedrons.
2.2. A Special Case
We consider the following IMOLP problem:
where
is an interval matrix in
,
is an interval matrix in
,
is an interval column vector in
. Problem (9)-(11) is a special case of IMOLP problem (1)-(3) because its variables are restricted in sign. IMOLP problem (9)-(11) can be easily solved by the above presented method for solving problem (1)-(3). To do this, we restate problem (9)-(11) in the form of problem (1)-(3) by defining
,
,
,
,
,
and
, where
is the unit matrix in
and
is the
n column vector with components being 0. Thus, the efficient set of problem (9)-(11), denoted by
, can be computed by the formula given in Property 2.6. Now we represent this formula with using the data of problem (9)-(11).
Property 2.7.
,
where
is the
i-th row of the matrix
and
Proof. Let
and be the matrices obtained from the matrices and by dropping rows whose indices are not in , respectively. Based on Properties 2.2 and 2.3, it can be easily seen that = ==( and are the i-th rows of the matrices and , respectively) == . Based on Property 2.6, the proof is complete.
Remark 2.2 . IMOLP problem (9)-(11) is a popular one used in investigating practical problems because the condition of the variables is natural. Since its efficient set can be computed by the union of convex polyhedrons, finding most preferred solutions based on IMOLP problem (9)-(11) has many advantages.
Remark 2.3. Interval linear programming (ILP) problems are extensively investigated by many researchers, for example, Garajova and Hladik [
13], Hladik [
16]. Since ILP problems are a special case of IMOLP problems, the above presented results also validate for ILP problems.