Analysis of a Belgian Chocolate Stabilization Problem

We give a detailed numerical and theoretical analysis of a stabilization problem posed by V. Blondel in 1994. Our approach illustrates the effectiveness of a new gradient sampling algorithm for finding local optimizers of nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization problems arising in control, as well as the power of nonsmooth analysis for understanding variational problems involving polynomial … Read more

An Optimization Approach to Computing the Implied Volatility of American Options

We present a method to compute the implied volatility of American options as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints. The formulation we present is new, as are the convergence results we prove. The algorithm holds the promise of being practical to implement, and we demonstrate some preliminary numerical results to this end. CitationPrinceton University working … Read more

Global Optimization Toolbox for Maple: An Introduction with Illustrative Applications

This article presents a concise review of the scientific–technical computing system Maple and its application potentials in Operations Research, systems modeling and optimization. The primary emphasis is placed on nonlinear optimization models that may involve complicated functions, and/or may have multiple – global and local – optima. We introduce the Global Optimization Toolbox to solve … Read more

Towards a practical parallelisation of the simplex method

The simplex method is frequently the most efficient method of solving linear programming (LP) problems. This paper reviews previous attempts to parallelise the simplex method in relation to efficient serial simplex techniques and the nature of practical LP problems. For the major challenge of solving general large sparse LP problems, there has been no parallelisation … Read more

Some Disadvantages of a Mehrotra-Type Primal-Dual Corrector Interior Point Algorithm for Linear Programming

The Primal-Dual Corrector (PDC) algorithm that we propose computes on each iteration a corrector direction in addition to the direction of the standard primal-dual path-following interior point method (Kojima et al., 1989) for Linear Programming (LP), in an attempt to improve performance. The new iterate is chosen by moving along the sum of these directions, … Read more

Finding optimal realignments in sports leagues using a branch-and-cut-and-price approach

The sports team realignment problem can be modelled as $k$-way equipartition: given a complete graph $K_{n}=(V,E)$, with edge weight $c_{e}$ on each edge, partition the vertices $V$ into $k$ divisions that have exactly $S$ vertices, so as to minimize the total weight of the edges that have both endpoints in the same division. In this … Read more

NONLINEAR OPTIMIZATION IN MODELING ENVIRONMENTS: Software Implementations for Compilers, Spreadsheets, Modeling Languages, and Integrated Computing Systems

We present a review of several professional software products that serve to analyze and solve nonlinear (global and local) optimization problems across a variety of hardware and software environments. The product versions discussed have been implemented for compiler platforms, spreadsheets, algebraic (optimization) modeling languages, and for integrated scientific-technical computing systems. The discussion highlights some of … Read more

Active Set Identification in Nonlinear Programming

Techniques that identify the active constraints at a solution of a nonlinear programming problem from a point near the solution can be a useful adjunct to nonlinear programming algorithms. They have the potential to improve the local convergence behavior of these algorithms, and in the best case can reduce an inequality constrained problem to an … Read more

A Full-Newton Step (n)$ Infeasible Interior-Point Algorithm for Linear Optimization

We present a full-Newton step infeasible interior-point algorithm. It is shown that at most $O(n)$ (inner) iterations suffice to reduce the duality gap and the residuals by the factor $\frac1{e}$. The bound coincides with the best known bound for infeasible interior-point algorithms. It is conjectured that further investigation will improve the above bound to $O(\sqrt{n})$. … Read more

A Population Based Approach for Hard Global Optimization Problems Based on Dissimilarity Measures

When dealing with extremely hard global optimization problems, i.e. problems with a large number of variables and a huge number of local optima, heuristic procedures are the only possible choice. In this situation, lacking any possibility of guaranteeing global optimality for most problem instances, it is quite difficult to establish rules for discriminating among different … Read more