A proximal gradient method for ensemble density functional theory

The ensemble density functional theory is valuable for simulations of metallic systems due to the absence of a gap in the spectrum of the Hamiltonian matrices. Although the widely used self-consistent field iteration method can be extended to solve the minimization of the total energy functional with respect to orthogonality constraints, there is no theoretical … Read more

An MILP-MINLP decomposition method for the global optimization of a source based model of the multiperiod blending problem

The multiperiod blending problem involves binary variables and bilinear terms, yielding a nonconvex MINLP. In this work we present two major contributions for the global solution of the problem. The rst one is an alternative formulation of the problem. This formulation makes use of redundant constraints that improve the MILP relaxation of the MINLP. The … Read more

Exactly solving packing problems with fragmentation

In packing problems with fragmentation a set of items of known weight is given, together with a set of bins of limited capacity; the task is to find an assignment of items to bins such that the sum of items assigned to the same bin does not exceed its capacity. As a distinctive feature, items … Read more

Sparse optimization for inverse problems in atmospheric modelling

We consider inverse problems in atmospheric modelling. Instead of using the ordinary least squares, we add a weighting matrix based on the topology of measurement points and show the connection with Bayesian modelling. Since the source–receptor sensitivity matrix is usually ill-conditioned, the problem is often regularized, either by perturbing the objective function or by modifying … Read more

An extension of the projected gradient method to a Banach space setting with application in structural topology optimization

For the minimization of a nonlinear cost functional under convex constraints the relaxed projected gradient process is a well known method. The analysis is classically performed in a Hilbert space. We generalize this method to functionals which are differentiable in a Banach space. The search direction is calculated by a quadratic approximation of the cost … Read more

New Improved Penalty Methods for Sparse Reconstruction Based on Difference of Two Norms

In this paper, we further establish two types of DC (Difference of Convex functions) programming for $l_0$ sparse reconstruction. Our DC objective functions are specified to the difference of two norms. One is the difference of $l_1$ and $l_{\sigma_q}$ norms (DC $l_1$-$l_{\sigma_q}$ for short) where $l_{\sigma_q}$ is the $l_1$ norm of the $q$-term ($q\geq1$) best … Read more

Optimization of multiple receivers solar power tower systems

In this article a new procedure to optimize the design of a solar power tower system with multiple receivers is presented. The variables related to the receivers (height, aperture tilt angle, azimuth angle and aperture size) as well as the heliostat field layout are optimized seeking to minimize the levelized cost of thermal energy. This … Read more

Machine Learning to Balance the Load in Parallel Branch-and-Bound

We describe in this paper a new approach to parallelize branch-and-bound on a certain number of processors. We propose to split the optimization of the original problem into the optimization of several subproblems that can be optimized separately with the goal that the amount of work that each processor carries out is balanced between the … Read more

Real-Time Dispatchability of Bulk Power Systems with Volatile Renewable Generations

The limited predictability and high variability of renewable generations has brought significant challenges on the real-time operation of bulk power systems. This paper proposes the concept of real-time dispatchability (RTDA) of power systems with variable energy resources, which focuses on investigating the impact of operating constraints and the cost of corrective actions on the flexibility … Read more

Robust Testing for Causal Inference in Observational Studies

A vast number of causal inference studies use matching techniques, where treatment cases are matched with similar control cases. For observational data in particular, we claim there is a major source of uncertainty that is essentially ignored in these tests, which is the way the assignments of matched pairs are constructed. It is entirely possible, … Read more