Branch-and-Bound Library: A Free C++ Framework for Parallel Branch-and-Bound Algorithm Implementation

In this work, we present a framework for the implementation of Branch-and-Bound algorithms called \textit{Branch-and-Bound Library} or BBL. BBL is developed using the object-oriented paradigm and can be used to build methodologies based on Branch-and-Bound for integer optimization, for both linear and nonlinear cases, and for global optimization by means of spatial Branch-and-Bound. BBL is released under the MIT free software license; it has several parameters for customization and it allows derivation of its data structures (classes), thereby enabling a high level of specialization in the developed approaches. As a result of this work, we hope to support research and development of specialized applications of Branch-and-Bound in both continuous and discrete domains.