Distributionally robust simple integer recourse

The simple integer recourse (SIR) function of a decision variable is the expectation of the integer round-up of the shortage/surplus between a random variable with a known distribution and the decision variable. It is the integer analogue of the simple (continuous) recourse function in two stage stochastic linear programming. Structural properties and approximations of SIR … Read more

A Data-Driven Distributionally Robust Bound on the Expected Optimal Value of Uncertain Mixed 0-1 Linear Programming

This paper studies the expected optimal value of a mixed 0-1 programming problem with uncertain objective coefficients following a joint distribution. We assume that the true distribution is not known exactly, but a set of independent samples can be observed. Using the Wasserstein metric, we construct an ambiguity set centered at the empirical distribution from … Read more

Portfolio Optimization with Entropic Value-at-Risk

The entropic value-at-risk (EVaR) is a new coherent risk measure, which is an upper bound for both the value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). As important properties, the EVaR is strongly monotone over its domain and strictly monotone over a broad sub-domain including all continuous distributions, while well-known monotone risk measures, such as VaR and … Read more

New solution approaches for the maximum-reliability stochastic network interdiction problem

We investigate methods to solve the maximum-reliability stochastic network interdiction problem (SNIP). In this problem, a defender interdicts arcs on a directed graph to minimize an attacker’s probability of undetected traversal through the network. The attacker’s origin and destination are unknown to the defender and assumed to be random. SNIP can be formulated as a … Read more

A Scalable Global Optimization Algorithm for Stochastic Nonlinear Programs

We propose a global optimization algorithm for stochastic nonlinear programs that uses a specialized spatial branch and bound (BB) strategy to exploit the nearly decomposable structure of the problem. In particular, at each node in the BB scheme, a lower bound is constructed by relaxing the so-called non-anticipativity constraints and an upper bound is constructed … 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

A deterministic algorithm for solving multistage stochastic programming problems

Multistage stochastic programming problems are an important class of optimisation problems, especially in energy planning and scheduling. These problems and their solution methods have been of particular interest to researchers in stochastic programming recently. Because of the large scenario trees that these problems induce, current solution methods require random sampling of the tree in order … Read more

Dynamic Stochastic Approximation for Multi-stage Stochastic Optimization

In this paper, we consider multi-stage stochastic optimization problems with convex objectives and conic constraints at each stage. We present a new stochastic first-order method, namely the dynamic stochastic approximation (DSA) algorithm, for solving these types of stochastic optimization problems. We show that DSA can achieve an optimal ${\cal O}(1/\epsilon^4)$ rate of convergence in terms … Read more

An enhanced L-Shaped method for optimizing periodic-review inventory control problems modeled via two-stage stochastic programming

This paper presents the development of an enhanced L-Shaped method applied to an inventory management problem that considers a replenishment control system based on the periodic review (R,S) policy. We consider single-item one-echelon problems with uncertain demands and partial backorder that are modeled using two-stage stochastic programming. To enable the consideration of large-scale problems, the … 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