Improving the LP bound of a MILP by dual concurrent branching and the relationship to cut generation methods

In this paper branching for attacking MILP is investigated. Under certain circumstances branches can be done concurrently. By introducing a new calculus it is shown there are restrictions for dual values. As a second result of this study a new class of cuts for MILP is found, which are defined by those values. This class … Read more

A fix-and-relax heuristic for controlled tabular adjustment

Controlled tabular adjustment (CTA) is an emerging protection technique for tabular data protection. CTA formulates a mixed integer linear programming problem, which is tough for tables of moderate size. Finding a feasible initial solution may even be a challenging task for large instances. On the other hand, end users of tabular data protection techniques give … Read more

The Freight Train Routing Problem

We consider the following freight train routing problem (FTRP). Given is a transportation network with fixed routes for passenger trains and a set of freight trains (requests), each defined by an origin and destination station pair. The objective is to calculate a feasible route for each freight train such that a sum of all expected … Read more

Exploiting total unimodularity for classes of random network problems

Network analysis is of great interest for the study of social, biological and technological networks, with applications, among others, in business, marketing, epidemiology and telecommunications. Researchers are often interested in assessing whether an observed feature in some particular network is expected to be found within families of networks under some hypothesis (named conditional random networks, … Read more

A scenario decomposition algorithm for 0-1 stochastic programs

We propose a scenario decomposition algorithm for stochastic 0-1 programs. The algorithm recovers an optimal solution by iteratively exploring and cutting-off candidate solutions obtained from solving scenario subproblems. The scheme is applicable to quite general problem structures and can be implemented in a distributed framework. Illustrative computational results on standard two-stage stochastic integer programming and … Read more

On the Separation of Split Inequalities for Non-Convex Quadratic Integer Programming

We investigate the computational potential of split inequalities for non-convex quadratic integer programming, first introduced by Letchford and further examined by Burer and Letchford. These inequalities can be separated by solving convex quadratic integer minimization problems. For small instances with box-constraints, we show that the resulting dual bounds are very tight; they can close a … Read more

A Unified View on Relaxations for a Nonlinear Network Flow Problem

We consider a nonlinear nonconvex network flow problem that arises, for example, in natural gas or water transmission networks. Given is such network with active and passive components, that is, valves, compressors, pressure regulators (active) and pipelines (passive), and a desired amount of flow at certain specified entry and exit nodes of the network. Besides … Read more

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

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