Projection Results for the k-Partition Problem

The k-partition problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimisation problem with many applications. Chopra and Rao introduced two integer programming formulations of this problem, one having both node and edge variables, and the other having only edge variables. We show that, if we take the polytopes associated with the `edge-only’ formulation, and project them into a … Read more

A doubly nonnegative relaxation for modularity density maximization

Modularity proposed by Newman and Girvan is the most commonly used measure when the nodes of a graph are grouped into communities consisting of tightly connected nodes. However, some authors pointed out drawbacks of the modularity, the main issue of which is resolution limit. Resolution limit refers to the sensitivity of the modularity to the … Read more

Exact Solution Methods for the hBcitem Quadratic Knapsack Problem

The purpose of this paper is to solve the 0-1 k-item quadratic knapsack problem (kQKP), a problem of maximizing a quadratic function subject to two linear constraints.We propose an exact method based on semide nite optimization. The semide nite relaxation used in our approach includes simple rank one constraints, which can be handled efficiently by interior point … Read more

A decomposition approach for single allocation hub location problems with multiple capacity levels

In this paper we consider an extended version of the classical capacitated single allocation hub location problem in which the size of the hubs must be chosen from a finite and discrete set of allowable capacities. We develop a Lagrangian relaxation approach that exploits the problem structure and decomposes the problem into a set of … Read more

The Quadratic Shortest Path Problem: Complexity, Approximability, and Solution Methods

We consider the problem of finding a shortest path in a directed graph with a quadratic objective function (the QSPP). We show that the QSPP cannot be approximated unless P=NP. For the case of a convex objective function, an n-approximation algorithm is presented, where n is the number of nodes in the graph, and APX-hardness … Read more

Worst-Case Hardness of Approximation for Sparse Optimization with L0 Norm

In this paper, we consider sparse optimization problems with L0 norm penalty or constraint. We prove that it is strongly NP-hard to find an approximate optimal solution within certain error bound, unless P = NP. This provides a lower bound for the approximation error of any deterministic polynomial-time algorithm. Applying the complexity result to sparse … Read more

An O(nm) time algorithm for finding the min length directed cycle in a graph

In this paper, we introduce an $O(nm)$ time algorithm to determine the minimum length directed cycle in a directed network with $n$ nodes and $m$ arcs and with no negative length directed cycles. This result improves upon the previous best time bound of $O(nm + n^2 \log\log n)$. Our algorithm first determines the cycle with … Read more

Exploiting Optimization for Local Graph Clustering

Local graph clustering methods aim to identify well-connected clusters around a given “seed set” of reference nodes. The main focus of prior theoretical work has been on worst-case running time properties or on implicit statistical regularization; and the focus of prior empirical work has been to identify structure in large social and information networks. Here, … Read more

Min-max-min Robust Combinatorial Optimization Subject to Discrete Uncertainty

We consider combinatorial optimization problems with uncertain objective functions. In the min-max-min robust optimization approach, a fixed number k of feasible solutions is computed such that the respective best of them is optimal in the worst case. The idea is to calculate a set of candidate solutions in a potentially expensive preprocessing and then select … Read more

Online Learning for Strong Branching Approximation in Branch-and-Bound

We present an online learning approach to variable branching in branch-and-bound for mixed-integer linear problems. Our approach consists in learning strong branching scores in an online fashion and in using them to take branching decisions. More specifically, numerical scores are used to rank the branching candidates. If, for a given variable, the learned approximation is … Read more