Extended formulations for convex hulls of some bilinear functions

We consider the problem of characterizing the convex hull of the graph of a bilinear function $f$ on the $n$-dimensional unit cube $[0,1]^n$. Extended formulations for this convex hull are obtained by taking subsets of the facets of the Boolean Quadric Polytope (BQP). Extending existing results, we propose the systematic study of properties of $f$ … Read more

The SCIP Optimization Suite 5.0

This article describes new features and enhanced algorithms made available in version 5.0 of the SCIP Optimization Suite. In its central component, the constraint integer programming solver SCIP, remarkable performance improvements have been achieved for solving mixed-integer linear and nonlinear programs. On MIPs, SCIP 5.0 is about 41 % faster than SCIP 4.0 and over … Read more

Mixed-Integer PDE-Constrained Optimal Control of Gas Networks

We develop a mixed-integer optimal control model with partial differential equation (PDE) constraints for gas transport networks, designed for controlling extreme state transitions, such as flow reversals. Our model shows how to combine binary compressor controls with PDE flow models. We model the flow of gas using a variant of the Euler equations, which we … Read more

Maximum-Entropy Sampling and the Boolean Quadric Polytope

We consider a bound for the maximum-entropy sampling problem (MESP) that is based on solving a max-det problem over a relaxation of the Boolean Quadric Polytope (BQP). This approach to MESP was first suggested by Christoph Helmberg over 15 years ago, but has apparently never been further elaborated or computationally investigated. We find that the … Read more

Granularity in nonlinear mixed-integer optimization

We study a deterministic technique to check the existence of feasible points for mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problems which satisfy a structural requirement that we call granularity. We show that solving certain purely continuous optimization problems and rounding their optimal points leads to feasible points of the original mixed-integer problem, as long as the latter is … Read more

Sparse principal component analysis and its l1-relaxation

Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most widely used dimensionality reduction methods in scientific data analysis. In many applications, for additional interpretability, it is desirable for the factor loadings to be sparse, that is, we solve PCA with an additional cardinality (l0) constraint. The resulting optimization problem is called the sparse principal component … Read more

Network-based Approximate Linear Programming for Discrete Optimization

We develop a new class of approximate linear programs (ALPs) that project the high-dimensional value function of dynamic programs onto a class of basis functions, each defined as a network that represents aggregrations over the state space. The resulting ALP is a minimum-cost flow problem over an extended variable space that synchronizes flows across multiple … Read more

A partial outer convexification approach to control transmission lines

In this paper we derive an efficient optimization approach to calculate optimal controls of electric transmission lines. These controls consist of time-dependent inflows and switches that temporarily disable single arcs or whole subgrids to reallocate the flow inside the system. The aim is then to find the best energy input in terms of boundary controls … Read more

Minotaur: A Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization Toolkit

We present a flexible framework for general mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), called Minotaur, that enables both algorithm exploration and structure exploitation without compromising computational efficiency. This paper documents the concepts and classes in our framework and shows that our implementations of standard MINLP techniques are efficient compared with other state-of-the-art solvers. We then describe structure-exploiting … Read more

Convexification of Queueing Formulas by Mixed-Integer Second-Order Cone Programming: An Application to a Discrete Location Problem with Congestion

Mixed-Integer Second-Order Cone Programs (MISOCPs) form a nice class of mixed-inter convex programs, which can be solved very efficiently due to the recent advances in optimization solvers. Our paper bridges the gap between modeling a class of optimization problems and using MISOCP solvers. It is shown how various performance metrics of M/G/1 queues can be … Read more