On the Power of Robust Solutions in Two-Stage Stochastic and Adaptive Optimization Problems

We consider a two-stage mixed integer stochastic optimization problem and show that a static robust solution is a good approximation to the fully-adaptable two-stage solution for the stochastic problem under fairly general assumptions on the uncertainty set and the probability distribution. In particular, we show that if the right hand side of the constraints is … Read more

Alternating Direction Methods for Sparse Covariance Selection

The mathematical model of the widely-used sparse covariance selection problem (SCSP) is an NP-hard combinatorial problem, whereas it can be well approximately by a convex relaxation problem whose maximum likelihood estimation is penalized by the $L_1$ norm. This convex relaxation problem, however, is still numerically challenging, especially for large-scale cases. Recently, some efficient first-order methods … Read more

Applying a global optimisation algorithm to Fund of Hedge Funds portfolio optimisation

Portfolio optimisation for a Fund of Hedge Funds (“FoHF”) has to address the asymmetric, non-Gaussian nature of the underlying returns distributions. Furthermore, the objective functions and constraints are not necessarily convex or even smooth. Therefore traditional portfolio optimisation methods such as mean-variance optimisation are not appropriate for such problems and global search optimisation algorithms could … Read more

The Delivery Man Problem with Time Windows

In this paper, a variant of the Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows is considered, which consists in minimizing the sum of travel durations between a depot and several customer locations. Two mixed integer linear programming formulations are presented for this problem: a classical arc flow model and a sequential assignment model. Several polyhedral results … Read more

On the Central Paths and Cauchy Trajectories in Semidefinite Programming

In this work, we study the properties of central paths, defined with respect to a large class of penalty and barrier functions, for convex semidefinite programs. The type of programs studied here is characterized by the minimization of a smooth and convex objective function subject to a linear matrix inequality constraint. So, it is a … Read more

All roads lead to Newton: Feasible second-order methods for equality-constrained optimization

This paper considers the connection between the intrinsic Riemannian Newton method and other more classically inspired optimization algorithms for equality-constrained optimization problems. We consider the feasibly-projected sequential quadratic programming (FP-SQP) method and show that it yields the same update step as the Riemannian Newton, subject to a minor assumption on the choice of multiplier vector. … Read more

Risk-Averse Two-Stage Stochastic Linear Programming: Modeling and Decomposition

We formulate a risk-averse two-stage stochastic linear programming problem in which unresolved uncertainty remains after the second stage. The objective function is formulated as a composition of conditional risk measures. We analyze properties of the problem and derive necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. Next, we construct two decomposition methods for solving the problem. The first … Read more

Compressed Sensing: How sharp is the RIP?

Consider a measurement matrix A of size n×N, with n < N, y a signal in R^N, and b = Ay the observed measurement of the vector y. From knowledge of (b,A), compressed sensing seeks to recover the k-sparse x, k < n, which minimizes ||b-Ax||. Using various methods of analysis — convex polytopes, geometric … Read more

Phase Transitions for Greedy Sparse Approximation Algorithms

A major enterprise in compressed sensing and sparse approximation is the design and analysis of computationally tractable algorithms for recovering sparse, exact or approximate, solutions of underdetermined linear systems of equations. Many such algorithms have now been proven using the ubiquitous Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) [9] to have optimal-order uniform recovery guarantees. However, it is … Read more

Finite Disjunctive Programming Characterizations for General Mixed-Integer Linear Programs

In this paper, we give a finite disjunctive programming procedure to obtain the convex hull of general mixed-integer linear programs (MILP) with bounded integer variables. We propose a finitely convergent convex hull tree algorithm which constructs a linear program that has the same optimal solution as the associated MILP. In addition, we combine the standard … Read more