Co-optimization of Demand Response and Reserve Offers for a Major Consumer

In this paper we present a stochastic optimization problem for a strategic major consumer who has flexibility over its consumption and can offer reserve. Our model is a bi-level optimization model (reformulated as a mixed-integer program) that embeds the optimal power flow problem, in which electricity and reserve are co-optimized. We implement this model for … Read more

A hybrid approach for Bi-Objective Optimization

A large number of the real world planning problems which are today solved using Operations Research methods are actually multi-objective planning problems, but most of them are solved using single-objective methods. The reason for converting, i.e. simplifying, multi- objective problems to single-objective problems is that no standard multi-objective solvers exist and specialized algorithms need to … Read more

Random Sampling and Machine Learning to Understand Good Decompositions

Motivated by its implications in the development of general purpose solvers for decomposable Mixed Integer Programs (MIP), we address a fundamental research question, that is to assess if good decomposition patterns can be consistently found by looking only at static properties of MIP input instances, or not. We adopt a data driven approach, devising a … Read more

A Novel Matching Formulation for Startup Costs in Unit Commitment

We present a novel formulation for startup cost computation in the unit commitment problem (UC). Both the proposed formulation and existing formulations in the literature are placed in a formal, theoretical dominance hierarchy based on their respective linear programming relaxations. The proposed formulation is tested empirically against existing formulations on large-scale unit commitment instances drawn … Read more

Partial hyperplane activation for generalized intersection cuts

The generalized intersection cut (GIC) paradigm is a recent framework for generating cutting planes in mixed integer programming with attractive theoretical properties. We investigate this computationally unexplored paradigm and observe that a key hyperplane activation procedure embedded in it is not computationally viable. To overcome this issue, we develop a novel replacement to this procedure … Read more

Locality sensitive heuristics for solving the Data Mule Routing Problem

A usual way to collect data in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is by the support of a special agent, called data mule, that moves between sensor nodes and performs all communication between them. In this work, the focus is on the construction of the route that the data mule must follow to serve all … Read more

The Robust Uncapacitated Lot Sizing Model with Uncertainty Range

We study robust versions of the uncapacitated lot sizing problem, where the demand is subject to uncertainty. The robust models are guided by three parameters, namely, the total scaled uncertainty budget, the minimum number of periods in which one would like the demand to be protected against uncertainty, and the minimum scaled protection level per … Read more

Recent Progress Using Matheuristics for Strategic Maritime Inventory Routing

This paper presents an extensive computational study of simple, but prominent matheuristics (i.e., heuristics that rely on mathematical programming models) to fi nd high quality ship schedules and inventory policies for a class of maritime inventory routing problems. Our computational experiments are performed on a set of the publicly available MIRPLib instances. This class of inventory … Read more

Flow formulations for curriculum-based course timetabling

In this paper we present two mixed-integer programming formulations for the curriculum based course timetabling problem (CTT). We show that the formulations contain underlying network structures by dividing the CTT into two separate models and then connect the two models using flow formulation techniques. The first mixed-integer programming formulation is based on an underlying minimum … Read more

Mixed-integer linear representability, disjunctions, and Chvatal functions — modeling implications

Jeroslow and Lowe gave an exact geometric characterization of subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$ that are projections of mixed-integer linear sets, also known as MILP-representable or MILP-R sets. We give an alternate algebraic characterization by showing that a set is MILP-R {\em if and only if} the set can be described as the intersection of finitely many … Read more