Maximizing a class of submodular utility functions with constraints

Motivated by stochastic 0-1 integer programming problems with an expected utility objective, we study the mixed-integer nonlinear set: $P = \cset{(w,x)\in \reals \times \set{0,1}^N}{w \leq f(a’x + d), b’x \leq B}$ where $N$ is a positive integer, $f:\reals \mapsto \reals$ is a concave function, $a, b \in \reals^N$ are nonnegative vectors, $d$ is a real … Read more

A branch and cut algorithm for minimum spanning trees under conflict constraints

We study approaches for the exact solution of the \NP–hard minimum spanning tree problem under conflict constraints. Given a graph $G(V,E)$ and a set $C \subset E \times E$ of conflicting edge pairs, the problem consists of finding a conflict-free minimum spanning tree, i.e. feasible solutions are allowed to include at most one of the … Read more

Branch-and-Cut for Complementarity-Constrained Optimization

We report and analyze the results of our computational testing of branch-and-cut for the complementarity-constrained optimization problem (CCOP). Besides the MIP cuts commonly present in commercial optimization software, we used inequalities that explore complementarity constraints. To do so, we generalized two families of cuts proposed earlier by de Farias, Johnson, and Nemhauser that had never … Read more

Hybrid LP/SDP Bounding Procedure

The principal idea of this paper is to exploit Semidefinite Programming (SDP) relaxation within the framework provided by Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) solvers when tackling Binary Quadratic Problems (BQP). SDP relaxation is well-known to provide strong bounds for BQP in practice. However, the method is not typically implemented in many state-of-the-art MINLP solvers based … Read more

On the hop-constrained survivable network design problem with reliable edges

In this paper, we study the hop-constrained survivable network design problem with reliable edges. Given a graph with non-negative edge weights and node pairs Q, the hop-constrained survivable network design problem consists of constructing a minimum weight set of edges so that the induced subgraph contains at least K edge-disjoint paths containing at most L … Read more

Interdiction Branching

This paper introduces interdiction branching, a new branching method for binary integer programs that is designed to overcome the difficulties encountered in solving problems for which branching on variables is inherently weak. Unlike traditional methods, selection of the disjunction in interdiction branching takes into account the best feasible solution found so far. In particular, the … Read more

Branch and cut algorithms for detecting critical nodes in undirected graphs

In this paper we deal with the critical node problem, where a given number of nodes has to be removed from an undirected graph in order to maximize the disconnections between the node pairs of the graph. We propose an integer linear programming model with a non-polynomial number of constraints but whose linear relaxation can … Read more

A Polyhedral Study of the Semi-Continuous Knapsack Problem

We study the convex hull of the feasible set of the semi-continuous knapsack problem, in which the variables belong to the union of two intervals. Besides being important in its own right, the semi-continuous knapsack problem arises in a number of other contexts, e.g. it is a relaxation of general mixed-integer programming. We show how … Read more

Branch-and-Cut for Separable Piecewise Linear Optimization: New Inequalities and Intersection with Semi-Continuous Constraints

We give new facets and valid inequalities for the separable piecewise linear optimization knapsack polytope. We also extend the inequalities to the case in which some of the variables are semi-continuous. In a companion paper (de Farias, Gupta, Kozyreff, Zhao, 2011) we demonstrate the efficiency of the inequalities when used as cuts in a branch-and-cut … Read more

Branch-and-Cut for Separable Piecewise Linear Optimization: Computation

We report and analyze the results of our extensive computational testing of branch-and-cut for piecewise linear optimization using the cutting planes given recently by Zhao and de Farias. Besides analysis of the performance of the cuts, we also analyze the effect of formulation on the performance of branch-and-cut. Finally, we report and analyze initial results … Read more