Urged by the outbreak of the COVID-19 in Italy, this study aims at helping to tackle the spread of the disease by resorting to operations research techniques. In particular, we propose a mathematical program to model the problem of establishing how many diagnostic tests the Italian regions must perform in order to maximize the overall … Read more
We introduce a new facility layout problem, the so-called T-Row Facility Layout Problem (TRFLP). The TRFLP consists of a set of one-dimensional departments with pairwise transport weights between them and two orthogonal rows which form a T such that departments in different rows cannot overlap. The aim is to find a non-overlapping assignment of the … Read more
We consider optimization problems involving the multiplication of variable matrices to be selected from a given family, which might be a discrete set, a continuous set or a combination of both. Such nonlinear, and possibly discrete, optimization problems arise in applications from biology and material science among others, and are known to be NP-Hard for … Read more
This paper concentrates on the recovery of block-sparse signals, which is not only sparse but also nonzero elements are arrayed into some blocks (clusters) rather than being arbitrary distributed all over the vector, from linear measurements. We establish high-order sufficient conditions based on block RIP to ensure the exact recovery of every block $s$-sparse signal … Read more
We give safe screening rules to eliminate variables from regression with L0 regularization or cardinality constraint. These rules are based on guarantees that a feature may or may not be selected in an optimal solution. The screening rules can be computed from a convex relaxation solution in linear time, without solving the L0 optimization problem. … Read more
We consider the problem of learning optimal binary classification trees. Literature on the topic has burgeoned in recent years, motivated both by the empirical suboptimality of heuristic approaches and the tremendous improvements in mixed-integer programming (MIP) technology. Yet, existing approaches from the literature do not leverage the power of MIP to its full extent. Indeed, … Read more
This paper proposes an optimization framework for retailers that are involved in demand response (DR) programs. In a first phase responsive users optimize their own household consumption, characterizing not only their appliances and equipment but also their comfort preferences. Then, the retailer exploits in a second phase this preliminary non-coordinated solution to implement a strategy … Read more
Solving mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problems (MINLPs) to global optimality is extremely challenging. An important step for enabling their solution consists in the design of convex relaxations of the feasible set. Known solution approaches based on spatial branch-and-bound become more effective the tighter the used relaxations are. Relaxations are commonly established by convex underestimators, where each … Read more
A frequent challenge encountered by manufacturers of mechanical assemblies consists of the definition of quality criteria for the assembly lines of the subcomponents which are mounted into the final product. The rollout of Industry 4.0 standards paves the way for the usage of data-driven, intelligent approaches towards this goal. In this work, we investigate such … Read more