Mixed-Integer Programming Techniques for the Minimum Sum-of-Squares Clustering Problem

The minimum sum-of-squares clustering problem is a very important problem in data mining and machine learning with very many applications in, e.g., medicine or social sciences. However, it is known to be NP-hard in all relevant cases and to be notoriously hard to be solved to global optimality in practice. In this paper, we develop … Read more

Integer programming column generation: Accelerating branch-and-price using a novel pricing scheme for finding high-quality solutions in set covering, packing, and partitioning problems

Large-neighbourhood search (LNS) heuristics are important mathematical programming techniques that search for primal feasible solutions by solving an auxiliary problem with a restricted feasible region. Extending such powerful generic LNS heuristics to the branch- and-price context is inherently challenging. The most prominent challenges arise from the fact that in branch-and-price algorithms, columns are generated with … Read more

An SDP Relaxation for the Sparse Integer Least Square Problem

In this paper, we study the polynomial approximability or solvability of sparse integer least square problem (SILS), which is the NP-hard variant of the least square problem, where we only consider sparse {0, ±1}-vectors. We propose an l1-based SDP relaxation to SILS, and introduce a randomized algorithm for SILS based on the SDP relaxation. In … Read more

Efficient Propagation Techniques for Handling Cyclic Symmetries in Binary Programs

The presence of symmetries of binary programs typically degrade the performance of branch-and-bound solvers. In this article, we derive efficient variable fixing algorithms to discard symmetric solutions from the search space based on propagation techniques for cyclic groups. Our algorithms come with the guarantee to find all possible variable fixings that can be derived from … Read more

The polytope of binary sequences with bounded variation

We investigate the problem of optimizing a linear objective function over the set of all binary vectors of length n with bounded variation, where the latter is defined as the number of pairs of consecutive entries with different value. This problem arises naturally in many applications, e.g., in unit commitment problems or when discretizing binary … Read more

A Novel Model for Transfer Synchronization in Transit Networks and a Lagrangian-based Heuristic Solution Method

To realize the benefits of network connectivity in transfer-based transit networks, it is critical to minimize transfer disutility for passengers by synchronizing timetables of intersecting routes. We propose a mixed-integer linear programming timetable synchronization model that incorporates new features, such as dwell time determination and vehicle capacity limit consideration, which have been largely overlooked in … Read more

Rank-one Boolean tensor factorization and the multilinear polytope

We consider the NP-hard problem of approximating a tensor with binary entries by a rank-one tensor, referred to as rank-one Boolean tensor factorization problem. We formulate this problem, in an extended space of variables, as the problem of minimizing a linear function over a highly structured multilinear set. Leveraging on our prior results regarding the … Read more

A solver for multiobjective mixed-integer convex and nonconvex optimization

This paper proposes a general framework for solving multiobjective nonconvex optimization problems, i.e., optimization problems in which multiple objective functions have to be optimized simultaneously. Thereby, the nonconvexity might come from the objective or constraint functions, or from integrality conditions for some of the variables. In particular, multiobjective mixed-integer convex and nonconvex optimization problems are … Read more

Solving Two-Trust-Region Subproblems using Semidefinite Optimization with Eigenvector Branching

Semidefinite programming (SDP) problems typically utilize the constraint that X-xx’ is PSD to obtain a convex relaxation of the condition X=xx’, where x is an n-vector. In this paper we consider a new hyperplane branching method for SDP based on using an eigenvector of X-xx’. This branching technique is related to previous work of Saxeena, … Read more

Theoretical Insights and a New Class of Valid Inequalities for the Temporal Bin Packing Problem with Fire-Ups

The temporal bin packing problem with fire-ups (TBPP-FU) is a two-dimensional packing problem where one geometric dimension is replaced by a time horizon. The given items (jobs) are characterized by a resource consumption, that occurs exclusively during an activity interval, and they have to be placed on servers so that the capacity constraint is respected … Read more