Adaptable Energy Management System for Smart Buildings

This paper presents a novel adaptable energy management system for smart buildings. In this framework we model the energy consumption of a living unit, and its energy exchange with the surroundings. We explicitly consider the impact of the outside environment and design features such as building orientation, automatic shading, and double facade. We formulate this … Read more

Largest small polygons: A sequential convex optimization approach

A small polygon is a polygon of unit diameter. The maximal area of a small polygon with $n=2m$ vertices is not known when $m\ge 7$. Finding the largest small $n$-gon for a given number $n\ge 3$ can be formulated as a nonconvex quadratically constrained quadratic optimization problem. We propose to solve this problem with a … Read more

Decomposition and Adaptive Sampling for Data-Driven Inverse Linear Optimization

This work addresses inverse linear optimization where the goal is to infer the unknown cost vector of a linear program. Specifically, we consider the data-driven setting in which the available data are noisy observations of optimal solutions that correspond to different instances of the linear program. We introduce a new formulation of the problem that, … Read more

Global Dynamic Optimization with Hammerstein-Wiener Models Embedded

Hammerstein-Wiener models constitute a significant class of block-structured dynamic models, as they approximate process nonlinearities on the basis of input-output data without requiring identification of a full nonlinear process model. Optimization problems with Hammerstein-Wiener models embedded are nonconvex, and thus local optimization methods may obtain suboptimal solutions. In this work, we develop a deterministic global … Read more

On strong duality, theorems of the alternative, and projections in conic optimization

A conic program is the problem of optimizing a linear function over a closed convex cone intersected with an affine preimage of another cone. We analyse three constraint qualifications, namely a Closedness CQ, Slater CQ, and Boundedness CQ (also called Clark- Duffin theorem), that are sufficient for achieving strong duality and show that the first … Read more

Distributionally Robust Facility Location with Bimodal Random Demand

In this paper, we consider a decision-maker who wants to determine a subset of locations from a given set of candidate sites to open facilities and accordingly assign customer demand to these open facilities. Unlike classical facility location settings, we focus on a new setting where customer demand is bimodal, i.e., display, or belong to, … Read more

Mixed-integer Linear Programming Models and Algorithms for Generation and Transmission Expansion Planning of Power Systems

With the increasing penetration of renewable generating units, especially in remote areas not well connected with load demand, there are growing interests to co-optimize generation and transmission expansion planning (GTEP) in power systems. Due to the volatility in renewable generation, a planner needs to include the operating decisions into the planning model to guarantee feasibility. … Read more

Naive constant rank-type constraint qualifications for multifold second-order cone programming and semidefinite programming

The constant rank constraint qualification, introduced by Janin in 1984 for nonlinear programming, has been extensively used for sensitivity analysis, global convergence of first- and second-order algorithms, and for computing the derivative of the value function. In this paper we discuss naive extensions of constant rank-type constraint qualifications to second-order cone programming and semidefinite programming, … Read more

Finite-Sample Guarantees for Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Optimization: Breaking the Curse of Dimensionality

Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization (DRO) aims to find robust and generalizable solutions by hedging against data perturbations in Wasserstein distance. Despite its recent empirical success in operations research and machine learning, existing performance guarantees for generic loss functions are either overly conservative due to the curse of dimensionality, or plausible only in large sample asymptotics. … Read more

Dual Randomized Coordinate Descent Method for Solving a Class of Nonconvex Problems

We consider a nonconvex optimization problem consisting of maximizing the difference of two convex functions. We present a randomized method that requires low computational effort at each iteration. The described method is a randomized coordinate descent method employed on the so-called Toland-dual problem. We prove subsequence convergence to dual stationarity points, a new notion that … Read more