A branch and cut algorithm for minimum spanning trees under conflict constraints

We study approaches for the exact solution of the \NP–hard minimum spanning tree problem under conflict constraints. Given a graph $G(V,E)$ and a set $C \subset E \times E$ of conflicting edge pairs, the problem consists of finding a conflict-free minimum spanning tree, i.e. feasible solutions are allowed to include at most one of the … Read more

Extended Linear Formulation for Binary Quadratic Problems

In this work we propose and test a new linearisation technique for Binary Quadratic Problems (BQP). We computationally prove that the new formulation, called Extended Linear Formulation, performs much better than the standard one in practice, despite not being stronger in terms of Linear Programming relaxation (LP). We empirically prove that this behaviour is due … Read more

Finitely Convergent Decomposition Algorithms for Two-Stage Stochastic Pure Integer Programs

We study a class of two-stage stochastic integer programs with general integer variables in both stages and finitely many realizations of the uncertain parameters. Based on Benders’ method, we propose a decomposition algorithm that utilizes Gomory cuts in both stages. The Gomory cuts for the second-stage scenario subproblems are parameterized by the first-stage decision variables, … Read more

On Minimal Valid Inequalities for Mixed Integer Conic Programs

We study mixed integer conic sets involving a general regular (closed, convex, full dimensional, and pointed) cone K such as the nonnegative orthant, the Lorentz cone or the positive semidefinite cone. In a unified framework, we introduce K-minimal inequalities and show that under mild assumptions, these inequalities together with the trivial cone-implied inequalities are sufficient … Read more

Mixed Integer Second-Order Cone Programming Formulations for Variable Selection

This paper concerns the method of selecting the best subset of explanatory variables in a multiple linear regression model. To evaluate a subset regression model, some goodness-of-fit measures, e.g., adjusted R^2, AIC and BIC, are generally employed. Although variable selection is usually handled via a stepwise regression method, the method does not always provide the … Read more

Robust Optimization of Sums of Piecewise Linear Functions with Application to Inventory Problems

Robust optimization is a methodology that has gained a lot of attention in the recent years. This is mainly due to the simplicity of the modeling process and ease of resolution even for large scale models. Unfortunately, the second property is usually lost when the cost function that needs to be robustified is not concave … Read more

A Penalized Quadratic Convex Reformulation Method for Random Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization

The Quadratic Convex Reformulation (QCR) method is used to solve quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems. In this method, the semidefinite relaxation is used to reformulate it to a convex binary quadratic program which is solved using mixed integer quadratic programming solvers. We extend this method to random quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems. We develop a … Read more

A Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming Framework for Fixed Path Coordination of Multiple Underwater Vehicles under Acoustic Communication Constraints

Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) techniques are increasingly used to address challenging problems in robotics, especially Multi-Vehicle Motion Planning (MVMP). The main contribution of this paper is a discrete time-distributed Receding Horizon Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (RH-MINLP) formulation of the underwater multi-vehicle path coordination problem with constraints on kinematics, dynamics, collision avoidance, and acoustic communication … Read more

Closedness of Integer Hulls of Simple Conic Sets

Let $C$ be a full-dimensional pointed closed convex cone in $R^m$ obtained by taking the conic hull of a strictly convex set. Given $A \in Q^{m \times n_1}$, $B \in Q^{m \times n_2}$ and $b \in Q^m$, a simple conic mixed-integer set (SCMIS) is a set of the form $\{(x,y)\in Z^{n_1} \times R^{n_2}\,|\,\ Ax +By … Read more

Using diversification, communication and parallelism to solve mixed-integer linear programs

Performance variability of modern mixed-integer programming solvers and possible ways of exploiting this phenomenon present an interesting opportunity in the development of algorithms to solve mixed-integer linear programs (MILPs). We propose a framework using multiple branch-and-bound trees to solve MILPs while allowing them to share information in a parallel execution. We present computational results on … Read more