In the context of augmented Lagrangian approaches for solving semidefinite programming problems, we investigate the possibility of eliminating the positive semidefinite constraint on the dual matrix by employing a factorization. Hints on how to deal with the resulting unconstrained maximization of the augmented Lagrangian are given. We further propose to use the approximate maximum of … Read more
Multi-stage stochastic optimization is a well-known quantitative tool for decision-making under uncertainty, which applications include financial and investment planning, inventory control, energy production and trading, electricity generation planning, supply chain management and similar fields. Theoretical solution of multi-stage stochastic programs can be found explicitly only in very exceptional cases due to the complexity of the … Read more
We study pseudo-polynomial formulations for the classical bin packing and cutting stock problems. We first propose an overview of dominance and equivalence relations among the main pattern-based and pseudo-polynomial formulations from the literature. We then introduce reflect, a new formulation that uses just half of the bin capacity to model an instance and needs significantly … Read more
This is the online external supplement for paper “Shared Mobility for Last-Mile Delivery: Design, Operational Prescriptions and Environmental Impact”. ArticleDownload View PDF
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
We consider the generalized alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for linearly constrained convex optimization. Many problems derived from practical applications have showed that usually one of the subproblems in the generalized ADMM is hard to solve, thus a special proximal term is added. In the literature, the proximal term can be inde nite which plays … Read more
The usual approach to developing and analyzing first-order methods for non-smooth (stochastic or deterministic) convex optimization assumes that the objective function is uniformly Lipschitz continuous with parameter $M_f$. However, in many settings the non-differentiable convex function $f(\cdot)$ is not uniformly Lipschitz continuous — for example (i) the classical support vector machine (SVM) problem, (ii) the … Read more
The accelerated gradient algorithm is known to have non-monotonic, periodic convergence behavior in the high momentum regime. If important function parameters like the condition number are known, the momentum can be adjusted to get linear convergence. Unfortunately these parameters are usually not accessible, so instead heuristics are used for deciding when to restart. One of … Read more
In this work we introduce the concept of an Underestimate Sequence (UES), which is a natural extension of Nesterov’s estimate sequence. Our definition of a UES utilizes three sequences, one of which is a lower bound (or under-estimator) of the objective function. The question of how to construct an appropriate sequence of lower bounds is … Read more
Two-stage robust optimization problems, in which decisions are taken both in anticipation of and in response to the observation of an unknown parameter vector from within an uncertainty set, are notoriously challenging. In this paper, we develop convergent hierarchies of primal (conservative) and dual (progressive) bounds for these problems that trade off the competing goals … Read more