A First Course in Linear Optimization, version 3.0

This is the “front matter” of a new open-source book on Linear Optimization. The book and associated Matlab/AMPL/Mathematica programs are freely available from: https://sites.google.com/site/jonleewebpage/home/publications/#book Citation Jon Lee, “A First Course in Linear Optimization”, Third Edition, Reex Press, 2013-2017. Article Download View A First Course in Linear Optimization, version 3.0

Multiple-choice Vector Bin Packing: Arc-flow Formulation with Graph Compression

The vector bin packing problem (VBP) is a generalization of bin packing with multiple constraints. In this problem we are required to pack items, represented by p-dimensional vectors, into as few bins as possible. The multiple-choice vector bin packing (MVBP) is a variant of the VBP in which bins have several types and items have … Read more

Lagrangean Decomposition for Mean-Variance Combinatorial Optimization

We address robust versions of combinatorial optimization problems, focusing on the uncorrelated ellipsoidal uncertainty case, which corresponds to so-called mean-variance optimization. We present a branch and bound-algorithm for such problems that uses lower bounds obtained from Lagrangean decomposition. This approach allows to separate the uncertainty aspect in the objective function from the combinatorial structure of … Read more

Finding the Most Likely Infection Path in Networks with Limited Information

In this paper we address the problem of identifying the most likely infection pattern responsible for the spread of a disease in a network. In particular, we focus on the scenario where limited information (i.e. infection reports) is available during an ongoing outbreak. For this problem we propose a maximum likelihood model and present an … Read more

An inexact block-decomposition method for extra large-scale conic semidefinite programming

In this paper, we present an inexact block-decomposition (BD) first-order method for solving standard form conic semidefinite programming (SDP) which avoids computations of exact projections onto the manifold defined by the affine constraints and, as a result, is able to handle extra large SDP instances. The method is based on a two-block reformulation of the … Read more

Benders, Nested Benders and Stochastic Programming: An Intuitive Introduction

This article aims to explain the Nested Benders algorithm for the solution of large-scale stochastic programming problems in a way that is intelligible to someone coming to it for the first time. In doing so it gives an explanation of Benders decomposition and of its application to two-stage stochastic programming problems (also known in this … Read more

Active Set Methods with Reoptimization for Convex Quadratic Integer Programming

We present a fast branch-and-bound algorithm for solving convex quadratic integer programs with few linear constraints. In each node, we solve the dual problem of the continuous relaxation using an infeasible active set method proposed by Kunisch and Rendl to get a lower bound; this active set algorithm is well suited for reoptimization. Our algorithm … Read more

Penalty Methods with Stochastic Approximation for Stochastic Nonlinear Programming

In this paper, we propose a class of penalty methods with stochastic approximation for solving stochastic nonlinear programming problems. We assume that only noisy gradients or function values of the objective function are available via calls to a stochastic first-order or zeroth-order oracle. In each iteration of the proposed methods, we minimize an exact penalty … Read more

On the Convergence of Alternating Minimization for Convex Programming with Applications to Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares and Decomposition Schemes

This paper is concerned with the alternating minimization (AM) for solving convex minimization problems where the decision variables vector is split into two blocks. The objective function is a sum of a differentiable convex function and a separable (possible) nonsmooth extended real-valued convex function, and consequently constraints can be incorporated. We analyze the convergence rate … Read more

A strongly convergent proximal bundle method for convex minimization in Hilbert spaces

A key procedure in proximal bundle methods for convex minimization problems is the definition of stability centers, which are points generated by the iterative process that successfully decrease the objective function. In this paper we study a different stability-center classification rule for proximal bundle methods. We show that the proposed bundle variant has three particularly … Read more