A Cooperative Approach to Sequencing and Connection Problems A Cooperative Approach to Sequencing and Connection Problems

Acknowledgments This thesis summarizes most of my research efforts of the past four years. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me for the completion of this work. I must begin with an expression of my debt to my advisors, Peter and Herbert, for their guidance and the valuable comments they gave during the preparation of this thesis. Peter's " I don't believe you " followed by Herbert's " Prove " will continue to stimulate my self criticism as long as I do research. I also thank Tilburg University, its staff and faculty members for providing me with a great environment to work on this thesis. I would like to thank to Semih Koray for teaching me the basics of microeconomic theory and game theory, supervising me when I was a Ph.D. student at Bilkent University and most importantly introducing me the beauty of the challenge of explaining the choices and values of the society and the individual by intelligent handling of mathematics. I would also like to thank Tarık Kara and Taner Yi˘ git for their support and encouragement. As far as the results of my research are concerned, I profited most from my co-authors Stef Tijs, Marco Slikker and Dinko Dimitrov. I want to thank them all for that. My special thanks go to Stef Tijs for affecting me with his enthusiasm and intellectuality. I would like to thank also to Rodica Branzei, Stefano Moretti, Yuan Ju and Manuel Mosquera for sharing their thoughts and suggesting the way forward at some points during my research. My thanks also go to my committee members, Stef Tijs, Carles Rafels Pallarola, Flip Klijn and Jeroen Kuipers, for the time and effort spent on the manuscript and also for their insightful comments. I am most grateful to my parents for their continuing love, support and encouragement. I would like to use this opportunity to express my gratitude and to dedicate this thesis to them. My thanks also go to my sisters Aslı and Bilge, my grandma Hakiye, my parents-in-law, my brother-in-law, Batur and his family and my cousins Umut and Utku for their care, encouragement and support. My warmest thanks go to my friends and my fellow PhD students. Firstly, many v thanks go to Tunga for being a " gerçek dost ". I thank Gerwald for all the good time we had at the office. John for …