A new interior-point approach for large two-stage stochastic problems

Two-stage stochastic models give rise to very large optimization problems. Several approaches have been devised for efficiently solving them, including interior-point methods (IPMs). However, using IPMs, the linking columns associated to first-stage decisions cause excessive fill-in for the solution of the normal equations. This downside is usually alleviated if variable splitting is applied to first-stage … Read more

Stochastic Variance-Reduced Prox-Linear Algorithms for Nonconvex Composite Optimization

We consider minimization of composite functions of the form $f(g(x))+h(x)$, where $f$ and $h$ are convex functions (which can be nonsmooth) and $g$ is a smooth vector mapping. In addition, we assume that $g$ is the average of finite number of component mappings or the expectation over a family of random component mappings. We propose … Read more

Inexact cuts in SDDP applied to multistage stochastic nondifferentiable problems

In [13], an Inexact variant of Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming (SDDP) called ISDDP was introduced which uses approximate (instead of exact with SDDP) primal dual solutions of the problems solved in the forward and backward passes of the method. That variant of SDDP was studied in [13] for linear and for differentiable nonlinear Multistage Stochastic … Read more

Dual Decomposition of Two-Stage Distributionally Robust Mixed-Integer Programming under the Wasserstein Ambiguity Set

We develop a dual decomposition of two-stage distributionally robust mixed-integer programming (DRMIP) under the Wasserstein ambiguity set. The dual decomposition is based on the Lagrangian dual of DRMIP, which results from the Lagrangian relaxation of the nonanticipativity constraints and min-max inequality. We present two Lagrangian dual problem formulations, each of which is based on different principle. We show … Read more

A Model of Supply-Chain Decisions for Resource Sharing with an Application to Ventilator Allocation to Combat COVID-19

We present a stochastic optimization model for allocating and sharing a critical resource in the case of a pandemic. The demand for different entities peaks at different times, and an initial inventory for a central agency is to be allocated. The entities (states) may share the critical resource with a different state under a risk-averse … Read more

On a class of stochastic programs with exponentially many scenarios

We consider a class of stochastic programs whose uncertain data has an exponential number of possible outcomes, where scenarios are affinely parametrized by the vertices of a tractable binary polytope. Under these conditions, we propose a novel formulation that introduces a modest number of additional variables and a class of inequalities that can be efficiently … Read more

Distributionally Robust Optimization under Distorted Expectations

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) has arose as an important paradigm to address the issue of distributional ambiguity in decision optimization. In its standard form, DRO seeks an optimal solution against the worst-possible expected value evaluated based on a set of candidate distributions. In the case where a decision maker is not risk neutral, the most … Read more

Distributionally Robust Chance-Constrained Programs with Right-Hand Side Uncertainty under Wasserstein Ambiguity

We consider exact deterministic mixed-integer programming (MIP) reformulations of distributionally robust chance-constrained programs (DR-CCP) with random right-hand sides over Wasserstein ambiguity sets. The existing MIP formulations are known to have weak continuous relaxation bounds, and, consequently, for hard instances with small radius, or with a large number of scenarios, the branch-and-bound based solution processes suffer … Read more

Chi-Optimization – Novel Approach for Optimization under Uncertainty with Application on Forecast- and Decision Problems

We propose a novel approach for optimization and decision problems under uncertainty. We first describe it for stochastic optimization under distributional ambiguity with and without data for the random parameter. Distributional ambiguity means that an entire family $P$ of distributions is considered instead of a single one. For our approach, which avoids non-verifiable assumptions and … Read more

Optimal Power Flow in Distribution Networks under N-1 Disruptions: A Multi-stage Stochastic Programming Approach

Contingency research to find optimal operations and post-contingency recovery plans in distribution networks has gained a major attention in recent years. To this end, we consider a multi-period optimal power flow (OPF) problem in distribution networks, subject to the N-1 contingency where a line or distributed energy resource fails. The contingency can be modeled as … Read more