Column Generation for Extended Formulations

Working in an extended variable space allows one to develop tight reformulations for mixed integer programs. However, the size of the extended formulation grows rapidly too large for a direct treatment by a MIP-solver. Then, one can use projection tools and derive valid inequalities for the original formulation, or consider an approximate extended formulation (f.i., … Read more

Fast First-Order Methods for Stable Principal Component Pursuit

The stable principal component pursuit (SPCP) problem is a non-smooth convex optimization problem, the solution of which has been shown both in theory and in practice to enable one to recover the low rank and sparse components of a matrix whose elements have been corrupted by Gaussian noise. In this paper, we first show how … Read more

Line search methods with variable sample size for unconstrained optimization

Minimization of unconstrained objective function in the form of mathematical expectation is considered. Sample Average Approximation – SAA method transforms the expectation objective function into a real-valued deterministic function using large sample and thus deals with deterministic function minimization. The main drawback of this approach is its cost. A large sample of the random variable … Read more

The mesh adaptive direct search algorithm with treed Gaussian process surrogates

This work introduces the use of the treed Gaussian process (TGP) as a surrogate model within the mesh adaptive direct search (MADS) framework for constrained blackbox optimization. It extends the surrogate management framework (SMF) to nonsmooth optimization under general constraints. MADS uses TGP in two ways: one, as a surrogate for blackbox evaluations; and two, … Read more

Iteration Complexity of Randomized Block-Coordinate Descent Methods for Minimizing a Composite Function

In this paper we develop a randomized block-coordinate descent method for minimizing the sum of a smooth and a simple nonsmooth block-separable convex function and prove that it obtains an $\epsilon$-accurate solution with probability at least $1-\rho$ in at most $O(\tfrac{n}{\epsilon} \log \tfrac{1}{\rho})$ iterations, where $n$ is the number of blocks. For strongly convex functions … Read more

Quadratic order conditions for bang-singular extremals

This paper deals with optimal control problems for systems affine in the control variable. We consider nonnegativity constraints on the control, and finitely many equality and inequality constraints on the final state. First, we obtain second order necessary optimality conditions. Secondly, we derive a second order sufficient condition for the scalar control case. Citation NUMERICAL … Read more

Solving Mixed Integer Bilinear Problems using MILP formulations

In this paper, we examine a mixed integer linear programming (MIP) reformulation for mixed integer bilinear problems where each bilinear term involves the product of a nonnegative integer variable and a nonnegative continuous variable. This reformulation is obtained by first replacing a general integer variable with its binary expansion and then using McCormick envelopes to … Read more

How to generate weakly infeasible semidefinite programs via Lasserre’s relaxations for polynomial optimization

Examples of weakly infeasible semidefinite programs are useful to test whether semidefinite solvers can detect infeasibility. However, finding non trivial such examples is notoriously difficult. This note shows how to use Lasserre’s semidefinite programming relaxations for polynomial optimization in order to generate examples of weakly infeasible semidefinite programs. Such examples could be used to test … Read more

Real-Time Optimization Strategies for Building Systems

We propose real-time optimization strategies for energy management in building systems. We have found that exploiting building-wide multivariable interactions between CO2 and humidity, pressure, occupancy, and temperature leads to significant reductions of energy intensity compared with traditional strategies. Our analysis indicates that it is possible to obtain energy savings of more than 50% compared with … Read more

The optimal harvesting problem with price uncertainty

In this paper we study the exploitation of a one species forest plantation when timber price is governed by a stochastic process. The work focuses on providing closed expressions for the optimal harvesting policy in terms of the parameters of the price process and the discount factor. We assume that harvest is restricted to mature … Read more