"Highways, telephone lines, electric power systems, computer chips,
water delivery systems, and rail lines: these physical networks, and
many others, are familiar to all of us. In each of these problem settings,
we often wish to send some good(s) (vehicles, messages, electricity, or
water) from one point to another, typicaly as efficiently as possible ---
that is, along a shortest route or via some minimum cost flow
pattern."
Fonte: Ahuja, Magnati, Orlin, and Reddy,
Applications of network optimization,
Handbook in Operations Research and Management Sciences, 7 (1995) 1-83.