Solving large p-median problems using a Lagrangean heuristic

The p-median problem consists in locating p medians in a given graph, such that the total cost of assigning each demand to the closest median is minimized. In this work, a Lagrangean heuristic is proposed and it uses two dual information to build primal solutions. It outperforms a classic heuristic based on the same Lagrangean … Read more

A VaR Black-Litterman Model for the Construction of Absolute Return Fund-of-Funds

The objective of this study is to construct fund-of-funds (FoF) that follow an absolute return strategy and meet the requirements imposed by the Value-at-Risk (VaR) market risk measure. We propose the VaR-Black Litterman model which accounts for the VaR and trading (diversification, buy-in threshold, liquidity, currency) requirements. The model takes the form of a probabilistic … Read more

Option – Alloction funds- Transaction costs

The present article studies the efficiency of a strategy, incorporating some options and seeking to super-duplicate a standard allocation policy. The replication strategy allows reducing transaction cost effects. The replication means optimizing two objective-functions: MSE (Mean-squared Errors) and WMSE (Weighted Mean-squared Errors). Tests on portfolio efficiency concern, at first time, a long-term investor with Out-The-Country … Read more

Optimal placement of communications relay nodes

We consider a constrained optimization problem with mixed integer and real variables. It models optimal placement of communications relay nodes in the presence of obstacles. This problem is widely encountered, for instance, in robotics, where it is required to survey some target located in one point and convey the gathered information back to a base … Read more

Optimal Security Response to Attacks on Open Science Grids

Cybersecurity is a growing concern, especially in open grids, where attack propagation is easy because of prevalent collaborations among thousands of users and hundreds of institutions. The collaboration rules that typically govern large science experiments as well as social networks of scientists span across the institutional security boundaries. A common concern is that the increased … Read more

Solving the Sensor Network Localization Problem using an Heuristic Multistage Approach

The Sensor Network Localization Problem (SNLP), arising from many applied fields related with environmental monitoring, has attracted much research during the last years. Solving the SNLP deals with the reconstruction of a geometrical structure from incomplete pairwise distances between sensors. In this paper we present an heuristic multistage approach in which the solving strategy is … Read more

A Biased Random-Key Genetic Algorithm with Forward-Backward Improvement for the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

This paper presents a biased random-keys genetic algorithm for the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem. The chromosome representation of the problem is based on random keys. Active schedules are constructed using a priority-rule heuristic in which the priorities of the activities are defined by the genetic algorithm. A forward-backward improvement procedure is applied to all … Read more

On the Role of the Norm Constraint in Portfolio Selection

Recently, several optimization approaches for portfolio selection have been proposed in order to alleviate the estimation error in the optimal portfolio. Among such are the norm-constrained variance minimization and the robust portfolio models. In this paper, we examine the role of the norm constraint in the portfolio optimization from several directions. First, it is shown … Read more

Modeling the Mobile Oil Recovery Problem as a Multiobjective Vehicle Routing Problem

The Mobile Oil Recovery (MOR) unit is a truck able to pump marginal wells in a petrol field. The goal of the MOR optimization Problem (MORP) is to optimize both the oil extraction and the travel costs. We describe several formulations for the MORP using a single vehicle or a fleet of vehicles. We have … Read more

High accuracy semidefinite programming bounds for kissing numbers

The kissing number in n-dimensional Euclidean space is the maximal number of non-overlapping unit spheres which simultaneously can touch a central unit sphere. Bachoc and Vallentin developed a method to find upper bounds for the kissing number based on semidefinite programming. This paper is a report on high accuracy calculations of these upper bounds for … Read more