The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem is a much-studied (and strongly NP-hard) combinatorial optimization problem, for which many integer programming formulations have been proposed. We present some new multi-commodity flow (MCF) formulations, and show that they dominate all of the existing ones, in the sense that their continuous relaxations yield stronger lower bounds. Moreover, we show … Read more
Splitting schemes are a class of powerful algorithms that solve complicated monotone inclusions and convex optimization problems that are built from many simpler pieces. They give rise to algorithms in which the simple pieces of the decomposition are processed individually. This leads to easily implementable and highly parallelizable algorithms, which often obtain nearly state-of-the-art performance. … Read more
In this work we address a game theoretic variant of the shortest path problem, in which two decision makers (agents/players) move together along the edges of a graph from a given starting vertex to a given destination. The two players take turns in deciding in each vertex which edge to traverse next. The decider in … Read more
We analyze the regularization properties of two recently proposed gradient methods applied to discrete linear inverse problems. By studying their filter factors, we show that the tendency of these methods to eliminate first the eigencomponents of the gradient corresponding to large singular values allows to reconstruct the most significant part of the solution, thus yielding … Read more
Let $p_n$ denote the largest possible cp-rank of an $n\times n$ completely positive matrix. This matrix parameter has its significance both in theory and applications, as it sheds light on the geometry and structure of the solution set of hard optimization problems in their completely positive formulation. Known bounds for $p_n$ are $s_n=\binom{n+1}2-4$, the current … Read more
In this paper we discuss stochastic optimal path problems where the goal is to find a path that has minimal expected cost and at the same time is less risky (in terms of travel time) than a given benchmark path. The model is suitable for a risk-averse traveler, who prefers a path with a more … Read more
In this paper we provide a unified treatment of general two-term disjunctions on cross-sections of the second-order cone. We derive a closed-form expression for a convex inequality that is valid for such a disjunctive set and show that this inequality is sufficient to characterize the closed convex hull of all two-term disjunctions on ellipsoids and … Read more
In a general Hilbert framework, we consider continuous gradient-like dynamical systems for constrained multiobjective optimization involving non-smooth convex objective functions. Our approach is in the line of a previous work where was considered the case of convex di erentiable objective functions. Based on the Yosida regularization of the subdi erential operators involved in the system, we obtain … Read more
We study the convergence of general abstract descent methods applied to a lower semicontinuous nonconvex function f that satis es the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequality in a Hilbert space. We prove that any precompact sequence converges to a critical point of f and obtain new convergence rates both for the values and the iterates. The analysis covers alternating … Read more
This paper presents a novel application of operations research techniques to the analysis of HIV env gene sequences, aiming to identify key features that are possible vaccine targets. These targets are identified as being critical to the transmission of HIV by being present in early transmitted (founder) sequences and absent in later chronic sequences. Identifying … Read more