Numerically tractable optimistic bilevel problems

We consider fully convex lower level standard optimistic bilevel problems. We show that this class of mathematical programs is sufficiently broad to encompass significant real-world applications. We establish that the critical points of a relaxation of the original problem correspond to the equilibria of a suitably defined generalized Nash equilibrium problem. The latter game is … Read more

A New Exact Algorithm to Optimize a Linear Function Over the Set of Efficient Solutions for Bi-objective Mixed Integer Linear Programs

We present the first (criterion space search) algorithm for optimizing a linear function over the set of efficient solutions of bi-objective mixed integer linear programs. The proposed algorithm is developed based on the Triangle Splitting Method (Boland et al. 2015b) which can find a full representation of the nondominated frontier of any bi-objective mixed integer … Read more

Index Policies and Performance Bounds for Dynamic Selection Problems

We consider dynamic selection problems, where a decision maker repeatedly selects a set of items from a larger collection of available items. A classic example is the dynamic assortment problem with demand learning, where a retailer chooses items to offer for sale subject to a display space constraint. The retailer may adjust the assortment over … Read more

FPBH.jl: A Feasibility Pump Based Heuristic for Multi-objective Mixed Integer Linear Programming in Julia

Feasibility pump is one of the successful heuristic solution approaches developed almost a decade ago for computing high-quality feasible solutions of single-objective integer linear programs, and it is implemented in exact commercial solvers such as CPLEX and Gurobi. In this study, we present the first Feasibility Pump Based Heuristic (FPBH) approach for approximately generating nondominated … Read more

Dynamic Relaxations for Online Bipartite Matching

Online bipartite matching (OBM) is a fundamental model underpinning many important applications, including search engine advertisement, website banner and pop-up ads, and ride-hailing. We study the i.i.d. OBM problem, where one side of the bipartition is fixed and known in advance, while nodes from the other side appear sequentially as i.i.d. realizations of an underlying … Read more

Joint Inventory and Revenue Management with Removal Decisions

We study the problem of a retailer that maximizes profit through joint replenishment, pricing and removal decisions. This problem is motivated by the observation that retailers usually retain rights to remove inventory from their network either by returning it to the suppliers or through liquidation in the face of random demand and capacity constraints. We … Read more

Payment Mechanisms for Electricity Markets with Uncertain Supply

This paper provides a framework for deriving payment mechanisms for intermittent, flexible and inflexible electricity generators who are dispatched according to the optimal solution of a stochastic program that minimizes the expected cost of generation plus deviation. The first stage corresponds to a pre-commitment decision, and the second stage corresponds to real-time generation that adapts … Read more

Toward breaking the curse of dimensionality: an FPTAS for stochastic dynamic programs with multidimensional action and scalar state

We propose a Fully Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme (FPTAS) for stochastic dynamic programs with multidimensional action, scalar state, convex costs and linear state transition function. The action spaces are polyhedral and described by parametric linear programs. This type of problems finds applications in the area of optimal planning under uncertainty, and can be thought of as … Read more

Coordination of a two-level supply chain with contracts under complete or asymmetric information

We consider the coordination of planning decisions of a single product in a supply chain composed of one supplier and one retailer by using contracts. We assume that the retailer has the market power to impose his optimal replenishment plan to the supplier. Our concern is on the minimization of the supplier’s cost. In order … Read more

Inexact cuts for Deterministic and Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming applied to convex nonlinear optimization problems

We introduce an extension of Dual Dynamic Programming (DDP) to solve convex nonlinear dynamic programming equations. We call Inexact DDP (IDDP) this extension which applies to situations where some or all primal and dual subproblems to be solved along the iterations of the method are solved with a bounded error. We show that any accumulation … Read more