Verifying Integer Programming Results

Software for mixed-integer linear programming can return incorrect results for a number of reasons, one being the use of inexact floating-point arithmetic. Even solvers that employ exact arithmetic may suffer from programming or algorithmic errors, motivating the desire for a way to produce independently verifiable certificates of claimed results. Due to the complex nature of … Read more

Tackling Industrial-Scale Supply Chain Problems by Mixed-Integer Programming

SAP’s decision support systems for optimized supply network planning rely on mixed-integer programming as the core engine to compute optimal or near-optimal solutions. The modeling flexibility and the optimality guarantees provided by mixed-integer programming greatly aid the design of a robust and future-proof decision support system for a large and diverse customer base. In this … Read more

Experiments with Conflict Analysis in Mixed Integer Programming

The analysis of infeasible subproblems plays an import role in solving mixed integer programs (MIPs) and is implemented in most major MIP solvers. There are two fundamentally different concepts to generate valid global constraints from infeasible subproblems. The first is to analyze the sequence of implications obtained by domain propagation that led to infeasibility. The … Read more

On the notions of facets, weak facets, and extreme functions of the Gomory-Johnson infinite group problem

We investigate three competing notions that generalize the notion of a facet of finite-dimensional polyhedra to the infinite-dimensional Gomory–Johnson model. These notions were known to coincide for continuous piecewise linear functions with rational breakpoints. We show that two of the notions, extreme functions and facets, coincide for the case of continuous piecewise linear functions, removing … Read more

Path Cover and Path Pack Inequalities for the Capacitated Fixed-Charge Network Flow Problem

Capacitated fixed-charge network flows are used to model a variety of problems in telecommunication, facility location, production planning and supply chain management. In this paper, we investigate capacitated path substructures and derive strong and easy-to-compute path cover and path pack inequalities. These inequalities are based on an explicit characterization of the submodular inequalities through a … Read more

Generalized average shadow prices and bottlenecks

We present a generalization of the average shadow price in 0-1-Mixed Integer Linear Programming problems and its relation with bottlenecks including the analysis relative to the coefficients matrix of resource constraints. A mathematical programming approach to find the strategy for investment in resources is presented. Citation Escuela de Computación, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de … Read more

The (not so) Trivial Lifting in Two Dimensions

When generating cutting-planes for mixed-integer programs from multiple rows of the simplex tableau, the usual approach has been to relax the integrality of the non-basic variables, compute an intersection cut, then strengthen the cut coefficients corresponding to integral non-basic variables using the so-called trivial lifting procedure. Although of polynomial-time complexity in theory, this lifting procedure … Read more

Extension Complexity Lower Bounds for Mixed-Integer Extended Formulations

We prove that any mixed-integer linear extended formulation for the matching polytope of the complete graph on $n$ vertices, with a polynomial number of constraints, requires $\Omega(\sqrt{\sfrac{n}{\log n}})$ many integer variables. By known reductions, this result extends to the traveling salesman polytope. This lower bound has various implications regarding the existence of small mixed-integer mathematical … Read more

Lattice closures of polyhedra

Given $P\subset\R^n$, a mixed-integer set $P^I=P\cap (\Z^{t}\times\R^{n-t}$), and a $k$-tuple of $n$-dimensional integral vectors $(\pi_1, \ldots, \pi_k)$ where the last $n-t$ entries of each vector is zero, we consider the relaxation of $P^I$ obtained by taking the convex hull of points $x$ in $P$ for which $ \pi_1^Tx,\ldots,\pi^T_kx$ are integral. We then define the $k$-dimensional … Read more

Novel formulations for general and security Stackelberg games

In this paper we analyze general Stackelberg games (SGs) and Stackelberg security games (SSGs). SGs are hierarchical adversarial games where players select actions or strategies to optimize their payoffs in a sequential manner. SSGs are a type of SGs that arise in security applications, where the strategies of the player that acts first consist in … Read more