A Robust Optimization Perspective of Stochastic Programming

In this paper, we introduce an approach for constructing uncertainty sets for robust optimization using new deviation measures for bounded random variables known as the forward and backward deviations. These deviation measures capture distributional asymmetry and lead to better approximations of chance constraints. We also propose a tractable robust optimization approach for obtaining robust solutions … Read more

Non-Linear Stochastic Fractional Programming Models of Financial Derivatives

Non-Linear Stochastic Fractional programming models provide numerous insights into a wide variety of areas such as in financial derivatives. Portfolio optimization has been one of the important research fields in modern finance. The most important character within this optimization problem is the uncertainty of the future returns on assets. The objective of this study is … Read more

Linear Stochastic Fractional Programming with Sum-of-Probabilistic-Fractional Objective

Fractional programming deals with the optimization of one or several ratios of functions subject to constraints. Most of these optimization problems are not convex while some of them are still generalised convex. After about forty years of research, well over one thousand articles have appeared on applications, theory and solution methods for various types of … Read more

Stochastic Mathematical Programs with Equilibrium Constraints, Modeling and Sample Average Approximation

In this paper, we discuss the sample average approximation (SAA) method applied to a class of stochastic mathematical programs with variational (equilibrium) constraints. To this end, we briefly investigate piecewise structure and directional differentiability of both — the lower level equilibrium solution and objective integrant. We show almost sure convergence of optimal values, optimal solutions … Read more

On Complexity of Multistage Stochastic Programs

In this paper we derive estimates of the sample sizes required to solve a multistage stochastic programming problem with a given accuracy by the (conditional sampling) sample average approximation method. The presented analysis is self contained and is based on a, relatively elementary, one dimensional Cramer’s Large Deviations Theorem. CitationWorking paper, Georgia Institute of Technology, … Read more

Two-Stage Stochastic Semidefinite Programming and Decomposition Based Interior Point Methods

We introduce two-stage stochastic semidefinite programs with recourse and present a Benders decomposition based linearly convergent interior point algorithms to solve them. This extends the results of Zhao, who showed that the logarithmic barrier associated with the recourse function of two-stage stochastic linear programs with recourse behaves as a strongly self-concordant barrier on the first … Read more

Convex Approximations of Chance Constrained Programs

We consider a chance constrained problem, where one seeks to minimize a convex objective over solutions satisfying, with a given (close to one) probability, a system of randomly perturbed convex constraints. Our goal is to build a computationally tractable approximation of this (typically intractable) problem, i.e., an explicitly given convex optimization program with the feasible … Read more

Re-Solving Stochastic Programming Models for Airline Revenue Management

We study some mathematical programming formulations for the origin-destination model in airline revenue management. In particular, we focus on the traditional probabilistic model proposed in the literature. The approach we study consists of solving a sequence of two-stage stochastic programs with simple recourse, which can be viewed as an approximation to a multi- stage stochastic … Read more

On complexity of stochastic programming problems

The main focus of this paper is discussion of complexity of stochastic programming problems. We argue that two-stage (linear) stochastic programming problems with recourse can be solved with a reasonable accuracy by using Monte Carlo sampling techniques, while multi-stage stochastic programs, in general, are intractable. We also discuss complexity of chance constrained problems and multi-stage … Read more

Portfolio Investment with the Exact Tax Basis via Nonlinear Programming

Computing the optimal portfolio policy of an investor facing capital gains tax is a challenging problem: because the tax to be paid depends on the price at which the security was purchased (the tax basis), the optimal policy is path dependent and the size of the problem grows exponentially with the number of time periods. … Read more