Lifting is a procedure for deriving valid inequalities for mixed-integer sets from valid inequalities for suitable restrictions of those sets. Lifting has been shown to be very effective in developing strong valid inequalities for linear integer programming and it has been successfully used to solve such problems with branch-and-cut algorithms. Here we generalize the theory … Read more
The aim of this paper is to provide new efficient methods for solving general chance-constrained integer linear programs to optimality. Valid linear inequalities are given for these problems. They are proved to characterize properly the set of solutions. They are based on a specific scenario, whose definition impacts strongly on the quality of the linear … Read more
We consider optimization problems with some binary variables, where the objective function is linear in these variables. The stability region of a given solution of such a problem is the polyhedral set of objective coefficients for which the solution is optimal. A priori knowledge of this set provides valuable information for sensitivity analysis and re-optimization … Read more
In this work we present an algorithm for solving the Prize-collecting Rural Postman Problem. This problem was recently defined and is a generalization of other arc routing problems like, for instance, the Rural Postman Problem. The main difference is that there are no required edges. Instead, there is a profit function on the edges that … Read more
This paper proposes a Benders-like partitioning algorithm to solve the network loading problem. The effort of computing integer solutions is entirely left to a pure integer programming solver while valid inequalities are generated by solving standard nonlinear multicommodity flow problems. The method is compared to alternative approaches proposed in the literature and appears to be … Read more
This paper describes a new primal relaxation for nonlinear integer programming problems with linear constraints. This relaxation, contrary to the standard Lagrangean relaxation, can be solved efficiently. It requires the solution of a nonlinear penalized problem whose linear constraint set is known only implicitly, but whose solution is made possible by the use of a … Read more
In this paper, we discuss the challenges that arise in parallelizing algorithms for solving mixed integer linear programs and introduce a software framework that aims to address these challenges. The framework was designed specifically with support for implementation of relaxation-based branch-and-bound algorithms in mind. Achieving efficiency for such algorithms is particularly challenging and involves a … Read more
We present a suite of tools for visualizing the status and progress of branch-and-bound algorithms for mixed integer programming. By integrating these tools with the open-source codes CBC, SYMPHONY, and GLPK, we demonstrate the potential usefulness of visual representations in helping a user predict future progress of the algorithm or analyzing the algorithm’s performance. We … Read more
In this paper we present a cutting plane algorithm for the Set Covering problem. Cutting planes are generated by a “general” (i.e. not based on the “template paradigm”) separation algorithm based on the following idea: i) identify a suitably small subproblem defined by a subset of the constraints of the formulation; ii) run an exact … Read more
In this paper, we propose lifting techniques for generating strong cuts for nonlinear programs that are globally-valid. The theory is geometric and provides intuition into lifting-based cut generation procedures. As a special case, we find short proofs of earlier results on lifting techniques for mixed-integer programs. Using convex extensions, we obtain conditions that allow sequence-independent … Read more