Probabilistic Variational Formulation of Binary Programming

A probabilistic framework for large classes of binary integer programming problems is constructed. The approach is given by a mean field annealing scheme where the annealing phase is substituted by the solution of a dual problem that gives a lower (upper) bound for the original minimization (maximization) integer task. This bound has an information theoretic … Read more

Robust Optimization for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Deliverymen

This paper studies the vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple deliverymen in which customer demands are uncertain and belong to a predetermined polytope. In addition to the routing decisions, this problem aims to define the number of deliverymen used to provide the service to the customers on each route. A new mathematical formulation … Read more

Polynomial-Time Methods to Solve Unimodular Quadratic Programs With Performance Guarantees

We develop polynomial-time heuristic methods to solve unimodular quadratic programs (UQPs) approximately, which are known to be NP-hard. In the UQP framework, we maximize a quadratic function of a vector of complex variables with unit modulus. Several problems in active sensing and wireless communication applications boil down to UQP. With this motivation, we present three … Read more

Locality sensitive heuristics for solving the Data Mule Routing Problem

A usual way to collect data in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is by the support of a special agent, called data mule, that moves between sensor nodes and performs all communication between them. In this work, the focus is on the construction of the route that the data mule must follow to serve all … Read more

Mixed-integer Programming Based Approaches for the Movement Planner Problem: Model, Heuristics and Decomposition

This is the first prize winning report for the 2012 INFORMS Railway Application Section Problem Solving Competition (https://www.informs.org/Community/RAS/Problem-Solving-Competition/2012-RAS-Problem-Solving-Competition). Article Download View Mixed-integer Programming Based Approaches for the Movement Planner Problem: Model, Heuristics and Decomposition

New solution methods for the block relocation problem

This technical report presents new solution methods for the block relocation problem (BRP). Although most of the existing work focuses on the restricted BRP, we tackle the unrestricted BRP, which yields more opportunities for optimisation. Our contributions include fast heuristics able to tackle very large instances within seconds, fast metaheuristics that provide very competitive performance … Read more

Divisive heuristic for modularity density maximization

In this paper we consider a particular method of clustering for graphs, namely the modularity density maximization. We propose a hierarchical divisive heuristic which works by splitting recursively a cluster into two new clusters by maximizing the modularity density, and we derive four reformulations for the mathematical programming model used to obtain the optimal splitting. … Read more

Algorithms for the power-$ Steiner tree problem in the Euclidean plane

We study the problem of constructing minimum power-$p$ Euclidean $k$-Steiner trees in the plane. The problem is to find a tree of minimum cost spanning a set of given terminals where, as opposed to the minimum spanning tree problem, at most $k$ additional nodes (Steiner points) may be introduced anywhere in the plane. The cost … Read more

A Stabilised Scenario Decomposition Algorithm Applied to Stochastic Unit Commitment Problems

In recent years the expansion of energy supplies from volatile renewable sources has triggered an increased interest in stochastic optimization models for hydro-thermal unit commitment. Several studies have modelled this as a two-stage or multi-stage stochastic mixed-integer optimization problem. Solving such problems directly is computationally intractable for large instances, and alternative approaches are required. In … Read more

What Works Best When? A Systematic Evaluation of Heuristics for Max-Cut and QUBO

Though empirical testing is broadly used to evaluate heuristics, there are shortcomings with how it is often applied in practice. In a systematic review of Max-Cut and Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) heuristics papers, we found only 4% publish source code, only 14% compare heuristics with identical termination criteria, and most experiments are performed with … Read more