A NOTE ON REDUCING THE NUMBER OF VARIABLES IN INTEGER PROGRAMMING-PROBLEMS

A necessary and sufficient condition for identification of dominated c olumns, which correspond to one type of redundant integer variables, i n the matrix of a general Integer Programming problem, is derived. The given condition extends our recent work on eliminating dominated inte ger variables in Knapsack problems, and revises a recently published p rocedure for reducing the number of variables in general Integer Progr amming problems given in the literature. A report on computational exp eriments for one class of large scale Knapsack problems, illustrating the function of this approach, is included.