The Gomory-Chvatal closure of a non-rational polytope is a rational polytope

The question as to whether the Gomory-Chvatal closure of a non-rational polytope is a polytope has been a longstanding open problem in integer programming. In this paper, we answer this question in the affirmative, by combining ideas from polyhedral theory and the geometry of numbers. ArticleDownload View PDF

Facets of the minimum-adjacency vertex coloring polytope

In this work we study a particular way of dealing with interference in combinatorial optimization models representing wireless communication networks. In a typical wireless network, co-channel interference occurs whenever two overlapping antennas use the same frequency channel, and a less critical interference is generated whenever two overlapping antennas use adjacent channels. This motivates the formulation … Read more

Semidefinite Relaxations for Non-Convex Quadratic Mixed-Integer Programming

We present semidefinite relaxations for unconstrained non-convex quadratic mixed-integer optimization problems. These relaxations yield tight bounds and are computationally easy to solve for medium-sized instances, even if some of the variables are integer and unbounded. In this case, the problem contains an infinite number of linear constraints; these constraints are separated dynamically. We use this … Read more

Truss topology design with integer variables made easy

We propose a new look at the problem of truss topology optimization with integer or binary variables. We show that the problem can be equivalently formulated as an integer \emph{linear} semidefinite optimization problem. This makes its numerical solution much easier, compared to existing approaches. We demonstrate that one can use an off-the-shelf solver with default … Read more

A branch-and-price algorithm for multi-mode resource leveling

Resource leveling is a variant of resource-constrained project scheduling in which a non-regular objective function, the resource availability cost, is to be minimized. We present a branch-and-price approach together with a new heuristic to solve the more general turnaround scheduling problem. Besides precedence and resource constraints, also availability periods and multiple modes per job have … Read more

Fenchel Decomposition for Stochastic Mixed-Integer Programming

This paper introduces a new cutting plane method for two-stage stochastic mixed-integer programming (SMIP) called Fenchel decomposition (FD). FD uses a class of valid inequalities termed, FD cuts, which are derived based on Fenchel cutting planes from integer programming. First, we derive FD cuts based on both the first and second-stage variables, and devise an … Read more

Clique-based facets for the precedence constrained knapsack problem

We consider a knapsack problem with precedence constraints imposed on pairs of items, known as the precedence constrained knapsack problem (PCKP). This problem has applications in manufacturing and mining, and also appears as a subproblem in decomposition techniques for network design and related problems. We present a new approach for determining facets of the PCKP … Read more

Solving Large Steiner Triple Covering Problems

Computing the 1-width of the incidence matrix of a Steiner Triple System gives rise to small set covering instances that provide a computational challenge for integer programming techniques. One major source of difficulty for instances of this family is their highly symmetric structure, which impairs the performance of most branch-and-bound algorithms. The largest instance in … Read more

A new LP algorithm for precedence constrained production scheduling

We present a number of new algorithmic ideas for solving LP relaxations of extremely large precedence constrained production scheduling problems. These ideas are used to develop an implementation that is tested on a variety of real-life, large scale instances; yielding optimal solutions in very practicable CPU time. CitationUnpublished. Columbia University, BHP Billiton, August 2009.ArticleDownload View … Read more

Basis Reduction, and the Complexity of Branch-and-Bound

The classical branch-and-bound algorithm for the integer feasibility problem has exponential worst case complexity. We prove that it is surprisingly efficient on reformulations, in which the columns of the constraint matrix are short, and near orthogonal, i.e. a reduced basis of the generated lattice; when the entries of A (i.e. the dense part of the … Read more