Sensitivity analysis in linear semi-infinite programming via partitions

This paper provides sufficient conditions for the optimal value function of a given linear semi-infinite programming problem to depend linearly on the size of the perturbations, when these perturbations are directional, involve either the cost coefficients or the right-hand-side function or both, and they are sufficiently small. Two kinds of partitions are considered. The first … Read more

Extending Algebraic Modelling Languages for Stochastic Programming

Algebraic modelling languages have gained wide acceptance and use in Mathematical Programming by researchers and practitioners. At a basic level, stochastic programming models can be defined using these languages by constructing their deterministic equivalent. Unfortunately, this leads to very large model data instances. We propose a direct approach in which the random values of the … Read more

On the Closedness of the Linear Image of a Closed Convex Cone

When is the linear image of a closed convex cone closed? We present very simple, and intuitive necessary conditions, which 1) unify, and generalize seemingly disparate, classical sufficient conditions: polyhedrality of the cone, and “Slater” type conditions; 2) are necessary and sufficient, when the dual cone belongs to a class, that we call nice cones. … Read more

Kestrel: An Interface from Optimization Modeling Systems to the NEOS Server

The NEOS Server provides access to a variety of optimization resources via the Internet. The new Kestrel interface to the Server enables local modeling environments to request NEOS optimization services and retrieve the results for local visualization and analysis, so that users have the same convenient access to remote NEOS solvers as to those installed … Read more

StAMPL: A Filtration-Oriented Modeling Tool for Stochastic Programming

Every multistage stochastic programming problem with recourse (MSPR) contains a filtration process. In this research, we created a notation that makes the filtration process the central syntactic construction of the MSPR. As a result, we achieve lower redundancy and higher modularity than is possible with the mathematical notation commonly associated with stochastic programming. To experiment … Read more

Finding a point in the relative interior of a polyhedron

A new initialization or `Phase I’ strategy for feasible interior point methods for linear programming is proposed that computes a point on the primal-dual central path associated with the linear program. Provided there exist primal-dual strictly feasible points — an all-pervasive assumption in interior point method theory that implies the existence of the central path … Read more

Norm-induced densities and testing the boundedness of a convex set

In this paper we explore properties of a family of probability density functions, called norm-induced densities, defined as $$f_t(x) = \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \displaystyle \frac{ e^{-t\|x\|^p}dx}{\int_K e^{-t\|y\|^p}dy}, & x \in K \\ 0, & x \notin K,\\ \end{array}\right. $$ where $K$ is a $n$-dimensional convex set that contains the origin, parameters $t > 0$ and $p … Read more

A New Cone Programming Approach for Robust Portfolio Selection

The robust portfolio selection problems have recently been studied by several researchers (e.g., see \cite{GoIy03,ErGoIy04,HaTu04,TuKo04}). In their work, the “separable” uncertainty sets of the problem parameters (e.g., mean and covariance of the random returns) were considered. These uncertainty sets share two common drawbacks: i) the actual confidence level of the uncertainty set is unknown, and … Read more

Global convergence of slanting filter methods for nonlinear programming

In this paper we present a general algorithm for nonlinear programming which uses a slanting filter criterion for accepting the new iterates. Independently of how these iterates are computed, we prove that all accumulation points of the sequence generated by the algorithm are feasible. Computing the new iterates by the inexact restoration method, we prove … Read more

Cascading – An adjusted exchange method for robust conic programming

It is well known that the robust counterpart introduced by Ben-Tal and Nemirovski [2] increases the numerical complexity of the solution compared to the original problem. Kocvara, Nemirovski and Zowe therefore introduced in [9] an approximation algorithm for the special case of robust material optimization, called cascading. As the title already indicates, we will show … Read more