What is the difference between bounding and pruning in branch-and-bound algorithms?

Could anybody please explain what the difference between "bounding" and "pruning" in branch and bound algorithms is?

I'd also appreciate references (preferably books), where this distinction is made clear.

In branch and bound algorithms, you essentially partition the original problem to be solved in a number of subproblems whose union is equivalent to the original problem you started with. The process of deriving new subproblems is called branching and leads to the so-called branch decision tree. Now, when you need to solve a subproblem, you can either determine its optimal solution, show that the subproblem is infeasible (so that you can discard it), or you can show that the subproblem solution is no better than the best known solution for the original problem. If you are not able to solve a subproblem, you branch again, partitioning it into sub-subproblems. Now, for each subproblem you can derive a lower bound for its solution and, if the lower bound is greater than or equal to the best known solution for the original problem, you can discard the subproblem since the best solution you can obtain for the subproblem is certainly worst with regard to the feasible solution of the original problem.
In order to get a lower bound you must relax the problem. The relaxation may be continuous, lagrangian etc.

Therefore, the word bound in branch and bound refers to the process of determining lower bounds for subproblems. Pruning refers instead to the process of discarding subtrees in the branch decision tree rooted at subproblems whose solution is impossible or worst with regard to the feasible solution of the original problem.

StackExchange Computer Science Q#5040, answer score: 12