Constrained Global Optimization with Radial Basis Functions

Response surface methods show promising results for global optimization of costly non convex objective functions, i.e. the problem of finding the global minimum when there are several local minima and each function value takes considerable CPU time to compute. Such problems often arise in industrial and financial applications, where a function value could be a … Read more

Optimizing Call Center Staffing using Simulation and Analytic Center Cutting Plane Methods

We present a simulation-based analytic center cutting plane method to solve a sample average approximation of a call center problem of minimizing staffing costs, while maintaining an acceptable level of service in multiple time periods. We establish convergence of the method when the service level functions are discrete pseudoconcave. An extensive numerical study of a … Read more

Aggregation in Stochastic Dynamic Programming

We present a general aggregation method applicable to all finite-horizon Markov decision problems. States of the MDP are aggregated into macro-states based on a pre-selected collection of “distinguished” states which serve as entry points into macro-states. The resulting macro-problem is also an MDP, whose solution approximates an optimal solution to the original problem. The aggregation … Read more

A fictitious play approach to large-scale optimization

In this paper we investigate the properties of the sampled version of the fictitious play algorithm, familiar from game theory, for games with identical payoffs, and propose a heuristic based on fictitious play as a solution procedure for discrete optimization problems of the form $\max\{u(y):y=(y^1,\ldots,y^n)\in\setY^1\times\cdots\times\setY^n\}$, i.e., in which the feasible region is a Cartesian product … Read more

A moment approach to analyze zeros of triangular polynomial sets

Let $I=(g_1,…, g_n)$ be a zero-dimensional ideal of $ \R[x_1,…,x_n]$ such that its associated set $G$ of polynomial equations $g_i(x)=0$ for all $i=1,…,n$, is in triangular form. By introducing multivariate Newton sums we provide a numerical characterization of polynomials in the radical ideal of $I$. We also provide a necessary and sufficient (numerical) condition for … Read more

An Efficient Interior-Point Method for Convex Multicriteria Optimization Problems

In multicriteria optimization, several objective functions, conflicting with each other, have to be minimized simultaneously. We propose a new efficient method for approximating the solution set of a multiobjective programming problem, where the objective functions involved are arbitary convex functions and the set of feasible points is convex. The method is based on generating warm-start … Read more

Linear-quadratic control problem with a linear term on semiinfinite interval:theory and applications

We describe a complete solution of the linear-quaratic control problem with the linear term in the objective function on a semiinfinite interval. This problem has important applications to calculation of Nesterov-Todd and other primal-dual directions in infinite-dimensional setting. Citation Technical report, University of Notre Dame, December, 2003 Article Download View Linear-quadratic control problem with a … Read more