Duality
Duality
Chapter Four
Hamdy Taha
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Definition of the Dual Problem
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Definition of the Dual Problem
• The key ideas for constructing the dual from the primal are:
1. Assign a dual variable for each primal constraint.
2. Construct a dual constraint for each primal variable.
3. The (column) constraint coefficients and the objective
coefficient of the jth primal variable respectively define the
left-hand sides of the jth dual constraint.
4. The dual objective coefficients equal the right-hand sides of
the primal constraints.
5. If the dual objective is minimization, then the constraints are
all of type ≥. The opposite applies when the dual is
maximization.
6. For a constraint in (=) form, the corresponding dual variable
is unrestricted in sign.
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Example: Find the dual problem for each of the
following problems
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Right-hand side of dual constraints
Primal Variables
x1 x2 x3 ………… xj ………… xn
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Economic Interpretation of Duality
• The LP problem can be viewed as a resource allocation model
in which the objective is to maximize revenue subject to the
availability of limited resources.
• The general primal and dual problems representation
Primal Dual
n
Max . Z c
j 1
j xj
Min . W
m
by i i
i 1
subject to : subject to :
n
a
m
x j bi i 1,...., m
j 1
ij
a
i 1
ij yi c j j 1,...., n
xj 0 j 1,....., n yi 0 i 1,....., m
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Economic Interpretation of Duality
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Economic Interpretation of Duality
• For any 2 primal & dual feasible solutions, the values of the
objective functions, when finite, must satisfy the following
inequality:
n m
Z c j x j bi yi Wi
j 1 i 1
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Economic Interpretation of Duality
• The inequality Z < W (for any 2 feasible primal & dual
solutions) can be interpreted as:
• This relationship says that as long as the total revenue for all
activities is less than the worth of the resources, the
corresponding primal and dual solutions are not optimal.
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How to read the optimal solution of the dual from
the solution of the primal
• The optimal values of the dual variables = the coefficients of
the slack variables of the primal.
• So, the value of the slacks for the dual = the coefficients of the
decision variables in Z* .
• Let si denotes the slack of primal constraint i.
• Let kj denotes the slack of dual constraint j.
Z x1 x2 x3 s1 s2 Solution
Z 1 5 2 0 1 0 10
x3 0 4
s2 0 3
W y1 y2 k1 k2 k3 Solution
W 1 0 -3 0 0 -4 10
K1 0 5
K2 0 2
y1 0 1
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Duality Theorem
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