On the Complexity of Separation From the Knapsack Polytope

We close three open problems in the separation complexity of valid inequalities for the knapsack polytope. Specifically, we establish that the separation problems for extended cover inequalities, (1,k)-configuration inequalities, and weight inequalities are all NP-complete. We also give a number of special cases where the separation problem can be solved in polynomial time. ArticleDownload View … Read more

On the Fairness of Aggregator’s Incentives in Residential Demand Response

The main motivation of this work is to provide an optimization-based tool for an aggregator involved in residential demand response (DR) programs. The proposed tool comply with the following requirements, which are widely accepted by the residential DR literature: (i) the aggregated consumption should be optimized under a particular utility’s target, such as the minimization … Read more

Exact Methods for Discrete Γ-Robust Interdiction Problems with an Application to the Bilevel Knapsack Problem

Developing solution methods for discrete bilevel problems is known to be a challenging task – even if all parameters of the problem are exactly known. Many real-world applications of bilevel optimization, however, involve data uncertainty. We study discrete min-max problems with a follower who faces uncertainties regarding the parameters of the lower-level problem. Adopting a … Read more

Mixed-Integer Optimization with Constraint Learning

We establish a broad methodological foundation for mixed-integer optimization with learned constraints. We propose an end-to-end pipeline for data-driven decision making in which constraints and objectives are directly learned from data using machine learning, and the trained models are embedded in an optimization formulation. We exploit the mixed-integer optimization-representability of many machine learning methods, including … Read more

Exact and Heuristic Solution Techniques for Mixed-Integer Quantile Minimization Problems

We consider mixed-integer linear quantile minimization problems that yield large-scale problems that are very hard to solve for real-world instances. We motivate the study of this problem class by two important real-world problems: a maintenance planning problem for electricity networks and a quantile-based variant of the classic portfolio optimization problem. For these problems, we develop … Read more

Simple odd beta-cycle inequalities for binary polynomial optimization

We consider the multilinear polytope which arises naturally in binary polynomial optimization. Del Pia and Di Gregorio introduced the class of odd beta-cycle inequalities valid for this polytope, showed that these generally have Chvátal rank 2 with respect to the standard relaxation and that, together with flower inequalities, they yield a perfect formulation for cycle … Read more

Compact extended formulations for low-rank functions with indicator variables

We study the mixed-integer epigraph of a special class of convex functions with non-convex indicator constraints, which are often used to impose logical constraints on the support of the solutions. The class of functions we consider are defined as compositions of low-dimensional nonlinear functions with affine functions Extended formulations describing the convex hull of such … Read more

A Graph-based Decomposition Method for Convex Quadratic Optimization with Indicators

In this paper, we consider convex quadratic optimization problems with indicator variables when the matrix Q defining the quadratic term in the objective is sparse. We use a graphical representation of the support of Q, and show that if this graph is a path, then we can solve the associated problem in polynomial time. This … Read more

A Branch & Bound Algorithm for Robust Binary Optimization with Budget Uncertainty

Since its introduction in the early 2000s, robust optimization with budget uncertainty has received a lot of attention. This is due to the intuitive construction of the uncertainty sets and the existence of a compact robust reformulation for (mixed-integer) linear programs. However, despite its compactness, the reformulation performs poorly when solving robust integer problems due … Read more

An Overview of Nested Decomposition for Multi-Level Optimization Problems

Nested multi-level structures are frequently encountered in many real-world optimization problems. Decomposition techniques are a commonly applied approach used to handle nested multi-level structures; however, the typical problem-specific focus of such techniques has led to numerous specialized formulations and solution methods. This lack of generalized results for nested multi-level optimization problems is addressed in this … Read more