On Integrality in Semidefinite Programming for Discrete Optimization

It is well-known that by adding integrality constraints to the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation of the max-cut problem, the resulting integer semidefinite program is an exact formulation of the problem. In this paper we show similar results for a wide variety of discrete optimization problems for which SDP relaxations have been derived. Based on a … Read more

Using dual relaxations in multiobjective mixed-integer quadratic programming

We present a branch-and-bound method for multiobjective mixed-integer convex quadratic programs that computes a superset of efficient integer assignments and a coverage of the nondominated set. The method relies on outer approximations of the upper image set of continuous relaxations. These outer approximations are obtained addressing the dual formulations of specific subproblems where the values … Read more

Randomized Robust Price Optimization

The robust multi-product pricing problem is to determine the prices of a collection of products so as to maximize the worst-case revenue, where the worst case is taken over an uncertainty set of demand models that the firm expects could be realized in practice. A tacit assumption in this approach is that the pricing decision … Read more

Behavior of Newton-type methods near critical solutions of nonlinear equations with semismooth derivatives

Having in mind singular solutions of smooth reformulations of complementarity problems, arising unavoidably when the solution in question violates strict complementarity, we study the behavior of Newton-type methods near singular solutions of nonlinear equations, assuming that the operator of the equation possesses a strongly semismooth derivative, but is not necessarily twice differentiable. These smoothness restrictions … Read more

Accreditation, Performance, and Credit Risk in Electricity Capacity Markets

Many liberalized electricity markets use capacity mechanisms to ensure that sufficient resources will be available in advance of operations. Recent events have called into question the ability of capacity mechanisms to provide sufficient incentives for reliability. A core resource adequacy challenge is that, given the high value of reliable electricity, penalties for non-performance on capacity … Read more

Mixed-Integer Programming for a Class of Robust Submodular Maximization Problems

We consider robust submodular maximization problems (RSMs), where given a set of \(m\) monotone submodular objective functions, the robustness is with respect to the worst-case (scaled) objective function. The model we consider generalizes two variants of robust submodular maximization problems in the literature, depending on the choice of the scaling vector. On one hand, by using … Read more

Searching for Optimal Per-Coordinate Step-sizes with Multidimensional Backtracking

The backtracking line-search is an effective technique to automatically tune the step-size in smooth optimization. It guarantees similar performance to using the theoretically optimal step-size. Many approaches have been developed to instead tune per-coordinate step-sizes, also known as diagonal preconditioners, but none of the existing methods are provably competitive with the optimal per-coordinate stepsizes. We … Read more

End-to-End Learning for Stochastic Optimization: A Bayesian Perspective

We develop a principled approach to end-to-end learning in stochastic optimization. First, we show that the standard end-to-end learning algorithm admits a Bayesian interpretation and trains a posterior Bayes action map. Building on the insights of this analysis, we then propose new end-to-end learning algorithms for training decision maps that output solutions of empirical risk … Read more

Nonlinear Distributionally Robust Optimization

This article focuses on a class of distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems where, unlike the growing body of the literature, the objective function is potentially non-linear in the distribution. Existing methods to optimize nonlinear functions in probability space use the Frechet derivatives, which present both theoretical and computational challenges. Motivated by this, we propose an … Read more

Compressed Sensing: A Discrete Optimization Approach

We study the Compressed Sensing (CS) problem, which is the problem of finding the most sparse vector that satisfies a set of linear measurements up to some numerical tolerance. CS is a central problem in Statistics, Operations Research and Machine Learning which arises in applications such as signal processing, data compression, image reconstruction, and multi-label … Read more