Library

Description: We present a time-dependent finite element model of the human knee joint of full 3D geometric complexity. Its efficient numerical simulation requires advanced numerical algorithms that have been developed just recently. Up to now, the model comprises bones, cartilage, and the major ligaments (patella and menisci are still missing). Bones (femur, tibia, and fibula) are modelled by linear elastic materials, cartilage by viscoelastic materials, ligaments by one-dimensional so-called Cosserat rods. In order to capture the dynamical contact problems correctly, we solve the full PDEs of elasticity in the presence of strict contact inequalities. For the total spatio-temporal discretization we apply a method of layers approach (first time, then space discretization). For the time discretization of the elastic and viscoelastic parts, we apply a new contact-stabilized Newmark method, while for the Cosserat rods we choose an energy-momentum method. For the space discretization, we use linear finite elements for the elastic and viscoelastic parts and novel geodesic finite elements for the Cosserat rods. The coupled system is solved by a Dirichlet-Neumann method, and the arising large algebraic systems are solved by a recent fast multigrid solver, the truncated non-smooth Newton multigrid method.

Description: Vehicle rotation planning is a fundamental problem in rail transport. It decides how the railcars, locomotives, and carriages are operated in order to implement the trips of the timetable. One important planning requirement is operational regularity, i.e., using the rolling stock in the same way on every day of operation. We propose to take regularity into account by modeling the vehicle rotation planning problem as a minimum cost hyperassignment problem (HAP). Hyperassignments are generalizations of assignments from directed graphs to directed hypergraphs. Finding a minimum cost hyperassignment is NP-hard. Most instances arising from regular vehicle rotation planning, however, can be solved well in practice. We show that, in particular, clique inequalities strengthen the canonical LP relaxation substantially.

Description: Despite the success of constraint programming (CP) for scheduling, the much wider penetration of mixed integer programming (MIP) technology into business applications means that many practical scheduling problems are being addressed with MIP, at least as an initial approach. Furthermore, there has been impressive and well-documented improvements in the power of generic MIP solvers over the past decade. We empirically demonstrate that on an existing set of resource allocation and scheduling problems standard MIP and CP models are now competitive with the state-of-the-art manual decomposition approach. Motivated by this result, we formulate two tightly coupled hybrid models based on constraint integer programming (CIP) and demonstrate that these models, which embody advances in CP and MIP, are able to out-perform the CP, MIP, and decomposition models. We conclude that both MIP and CIP are technologies that should be considered along with CP for solving scheduling problems.

Description: The Steiner tree packing problem (STPP) in graphs is a long studied problem in combinatorial optimization. In contrast to many other problems, where there have been tremendous advances in practical problem solving, STPP remains very difficult. Most heuristics schemes are ineffective and even finding feasible solutions is already NP-hard. What makes this problem special is that in order to reach the overall optimal solution non-optimal solutions to the underlying NP-hard Steiner tree problems must be used. Any non-global approach to the STPP is likely to fail. Integer programming is currently the best approach for computing optimal solutions. In this paper we review some “classical” STPP instances which model the underlying real world application only in a reduced form. Through improved modelling, including some new cutting planes, and by emplyoing recent advances in solver technology we are for the first time able to solve those instances in the original 3D grid graphs to optimimality.

Description: We propose duty templates as a novel concept to produce similar duty schedules for similar days of operation in public transit. Duty templates can conveniently handle various types of similarity requirements, and they can be implemented with ease using standard algorithmic techniques. They have produced good results in practice.

Description: We propose rapid branching (RB) as a general branch-and-bound heuristic for solving large scale optimization problems in traffic and transport. The key idea is to combine a special branching rule and a greedy node selection strategy in order to produce solutions of controlled quality rapidly and efficiently. We report on three successful applications of the method for integrated vehicle and crew scheduling, railway track allocation, and railway vehicle rotation planning.

Description: This paper provides a generic formulation for rolling stock planning problems in the context of intercity passenger traffic. The main contributions are a graph theoretical model and a Mixed-Integer-Programming formulation that integrate all main requirements of the considered Vehicle-Rotation-Planning problem (VRPP). We show that it is possible to solve this model for real-world instances provided by our industrial partner DB Fernverkehr AG using modern algorithms and computers.

Description: We present Undercover, a primal heuristic for nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) that explores a mixed-integer linear subproblem (sub-MIP) of a given MINLP. We solve a vertex covering problem to identify a minimal set of variables that need to be fixed in order to linearize each constraint, a so-called cover. Subsequently, these variables are fixed to values obtained from a reference point, e.g., an optimal solution of a linear relaxation. We apply domain propagation and conflict analysis to try to avoid infeasibilities and learn from them, respectively. Each feasible solution of the sub-MIP corresponds to a feasible solution of the original problem. We present computational results on a test set of mixed-integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs) and general MINLPs from MINLPLib. It turns out that the majority of these instances allow for small covers. Although general in nature, the heuristic appears most promising for MIQCPs, and complements nicely with existing root node heuristics in different state-of-the-art solvers.

Description: In this article, an illustrative example is given for the coarse-graining of a Markov process which leads to a shift in the statistical weights of a two-states-system. The example is based on a 2D-funnel trap. The funnel trap is constructed in such a way, that the area inside and outside of the trap is identical. However, observing the flight of the insect as a Markov process, the probability for being “in the trap” is higher. This example can be transferred to several kinds of processes (like receptor-ligandbinding processes in chemistry) and describes the influence of “re-entering events”.

Description: We consider a shape implant design problem that arises in the context of facial surgery. We introduce a reformulation as an optimal control problem, where the control acts as a boundary force. The state is modelled as a minimizer of a polyconvex hyperelastic energy functional. We show existence of optimal solutions and derive - on a formal level - first order optimality conditions. Finally, preliminary numerical results are presented.

Description: In this paper, we study the influence of technology, traffic properties and price trends on optimized design of a reference IP-over-WDM network with rich underlying fiber topology. In each network node, we investigate the optimal degree of traffic switching in an optical (lambda) domain versus an electrical (packet) domain, also known as measure of \emph{node transparency}. This measure is studied in connection to changes in traffic volume, demand affinity, optical circuit speeds and equipment cost. By applying variable design constraints, we assess the relative roles of the two distinct equipment groups, IP routers and optical cross-connects, with respect to resulting changes in cost-sensitive network architectures.

Description: In this paper we assess to which extent trenching costs of an FTTx network are unavoidable, even if technical side constraints are neglected. For that purpose we present an extended Steiner tree model. Using a variety of realistic problem instances we demonstrate that the total trenching cost can only be reduced by about 5 percent in realistic scenarios. This work has been funded by BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) within the program "KMU-innovativ".

Description: The hypergraph assignment problem (HAP) is the generalization of assignments from directed graphs to directed hypergraphs. It serves, in particular, as a universal tool to model several train composition rules in vehicle rotation planning for long distance passenger railways. We prove that even for problems with a small hyperarc size and hypergraphs with a special partitioned structure the HAP is NP-hard and APX-hard. Further, we present an extended integer linear programming formulation which implies, e. g., all clique inequalities.

Description: We show that a class of semidefinite programs (SDP) admits a solution that is a positive semidefinite matrix of rank at most $r$, where $r$ is the rank of the matrix involved in the objective function of the SDP. The optimization problems of this class are semidefinite packing problems, which are the SDP analogs to vector packing problems. Of particular interest is the case in which our result guarantees the existence of a solution of rank one: we show that the computation of this solution actually reduces to a Second Order Cone Program (SOCP). We point out an application in statistics, in the optimal design of experiments.

Description: In this paper, we study the hop constrained chain polytope, that is, the convex hull of the incidence vectors of (s,t)-chains using at most k arcs of a given digraph, and its dominant. We use extended formulations (implied by the inherent structure of the Moore-Bellman-Ford algorithm) to derive facet defining inequalities for these polyhedra via projection. Our findings result into characterizations of all facet defining {0,+1,-1}-inequalities for the hop constrained chain polytope and all facet defining {0,1}-inequalities for its dominant. Although the derived inequalities are already known, such classifications were not previously given to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, we use this approach to generalize so called jump inequalities, which have been introduced in a paper of Dahl and Gouveia in 2004.

Description: We propose a cubic regularization algorithm that is constructed to deal with nonconvex minimization problems in function space. It allows for a flexible choice of the regularization term and thus accounts for the fact that in such problems one often has to deal with more than one norm. Global and local convergence results are established in a general framework. Moreover, several variants of step computations are compared. In the context of nonlinear elasticity it turns out the a cg method applied to an augmented Hessian is more robust than truncated cg.

Description: We study a family of combinatorial optimization problems defined by a parameter $p\in[0,1]$, which involves spectral functions applied to positive semidefinite matrices, and has some application in the theory of optimal experimental design. This family of problems tends to a generalization of the classical maximum coverage problem as $p$ goes to $0$, and to a trivial instance of the knapsack problem as $p$ goes to $1$. In this article, we establish a matrix inequality which shows that the objective function is submodular for all $p\in[0,1]$, from which it follows that the greedy approach, which has often been used for this problem, always gives a design within $1-1/e$ of the optimum. We next study the design found by rounding the solution of the continuous relaxed problem, an approach which has been applied by several authors. We prove an inequality which generalizes a classical result from the theory of optimal designs, and allows us to give a rounding procedure with an approximation factor which tends to $1$ as $p$ goes to $1$.

Description: In the past few years several applications of optimal experimental designs have emerged to optimize the measurements in communication networks. The optimal design problems arising from this kind of applications share three interesting properties: (i) measurements are only available at a small number of locations of the network; (ii) each monitor can simultaneously measure several quantities, which can be modeled by ``multiresponse experiments"; (iii) the observation matrices depend on the topology of the network. In this paper, we give an overview of these experimental design problems and recall recent results for the computation of optimal designs by Second Order Cone Programming (SOCP). New results for the network-monitoring of a discrete time process are presented. In particular, we show that the optimal design problem for the monitoring of an AR1 process can be reduced to the standard form and we give experimental results.

Description: This thesis is about mathematical optimization for the efficient use of railway infrastructure. We address the optimal allocation of the available railway track capacity - the track allocation problem. This track allocation problem is a major challenge for a railway company, independent of whether a free market, a private monopoly, or a public monopoly is given. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense sizes of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techniques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. We tackle this challenge by developing novel mathematical models and associated innovative algorithmic solution methods for large scale instances. This allows us to produce for the first time reliable solutions for a real world instance, i.e., the Simplon corridor in Switzerland. The opening chapter gives a comprehensive overview on railway planning problems. This provides insights into the regulatory and technical framework, it discusses the interaction of several planning steps, and identifies optimization potentials in railway transportation. The remainder of the thesis is comprised of two major parts. The first part is concerned with modeling railway systems to allow for resource and capacity analysis. Railway capacity has basically two dimensions, a space dimension which are the physical infrastructure elements as well as a time dimension that refers to the train movements, i.e., occupation or blocking times, on the physical infrastructure. Railway safety systems operate on the same principle all over the world. A train has to reserve infrastructure blocks for some time to pass through. Two trains reserving the same block of the infrastructure within the same point in time is called block conflict. Therefore, models for railway capacity involve the definition and calculation of reasonable running and associated reservation and blocking times to allow for a conflict free allocation. In the second and main part of the thesis, the optimal track allocation problem for macroscopic models of the railway system is considered. The literature for related problems is surveyed. A graph-theoretic model for the track allocation problem is developed. In that model optimal track allocations correspond to conflict-free paths in special time-expanded graphs. Furthermore, we made considerable progress on solving track allocation problems by two main features - a novel modeling approach for the macroscopic track allocation problem and algorithmic improvements based on the utilization of the bundle method. Finally, we go back to practice and present in the last chapter several case studies using the tools netcast and tsopt. We provide a computational comparison of our new models and standard packing models used in the literature. Our computational experience indicates that our approach, i.e., ``configuration models'', outperforms other models. Moreover, the rapid branching heuristic and the bundle method enable us to produce high quality solutions for very large scale instances, which has not been possible before. In addition, we present results for a theoretical and rather visionary auction framework for track allocation. We discuss several auction design questions and analyze experiments of various auction simulations. The highlights are results for the Simplon corridor in Switzerland. We optimized the train traffic through this tunnel using our models and software tools. To the best knowledge of the author and confirmed by several railway practitioners this was the first time that fully automatically produced track allocations on a macroscopic scale fulfill the requirements of the originating microscopic model, withstand the evaluation in the microscopic simulation tool OpenTrack, and exploit the infrastructure capacity. This documents the success of our approach in practice and the usefulness and applicability of mathematical optimization to railway track allocation.

Description: We propose a game theoretic model for the spatial distribution of inspectors on a transportation network. The problem is to spread out the controls so as to enforce the payment of a transit toll. We formulate a linear program to find the control distribution which maximizes the expected toll revenue, and a mixed integer program for the problem of minimizing the number of evaders. Furthermore, we show that the problem of finding an optimal mixed strategy for a coalition of $N$ inspectors can be solved efficiently by a column generation procedure. Finally, we give experimental results from an application to the truck toll on German motorways.

Description: In this paper we give an analytical description on the structure of solutions to the gas nomination validation problem in gas transportation networks. These networks are assumed to contain no active devices, only certain hypothetical pipelines, where the flow of gas is modeled by a generalized version of the quadratic Weymouth's equation. The purpose of considering generalized flow formulas is to be able to adapt our results to various gas network optimization problems involving gas flow formulas beyond Weymouth's equation. Such formulas can appear in leaves of branch and bound trees, or they can stem from discretization and linearization carried out at active devices. We call a balanced supply-demand vector a nomination, and the passive nomination validation problem is to decide whether there exist pressures at the nodes generating a given nomination. We prove that in our setup the pressure square vectors generating a given nomination form a one-dimensional connected and continuous curve in the pressure square space, and this curve is a line for the classical Weymouth's equation. We also present a visual approach for the easy comprehension of how this solution curve arises; we give a short investigation of the set of feasible nominations; and finally we give a proof that the nomination validation problem in gas networks with active devices is NP-complete.

Description: In the last 20 years competitive analysis has become the main tool for analyzing the quality of online algorithms. Despite of this, competitive analysis has also been criticized: It sometimes cannot discriminate between algorithms that exhibit significantly different empirical behavior, or it even favors an algorithm that is worse from an empirical point of view. Therefore, there have been several approaches to circumvent these drawbacks. In this survey, we discuss probabilistic alternatives for competitive analysis.

Description: The paper considers an improved variant of the contact-stabilized Newmark method by Deuflhard et al., which provides a spatiotemporal numerical integration of dynamical contact problems between viscoelastic bodies in the frame of the Signorini condition. Up no now, the question of consistency in the case of contact constraints has been discussed for time integrators in function space under the assumption of bounded total variation of the solution. Here, interest focusses on the consistency error of the Newmark scheme in physical energy norm after discretization both in time and in space. The resulting estimate for the local discretization error allows to prove global convergence of the Newmark scheme under an additional assumption on the active contact boundaries.

Description: Pulse thermography is a non-destructive testing method based on infrared imaging of transient thermal patterns. Heating the surface of the structure under test for a short period of time generates a non-stationary temperature distribution and thus a thermal contrast between the defect and the sound material. Due to measurement noise, preprocessing of the experimental data is necessary, before reconstruction algorithms can be applied. We propose a decomposition of the measured temperature into Green's function solutions to eliminate noise.

Description: This article introduces RENS, the relaxation enforced neighborhood search, a large neighborhood search algorithm for mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) that uses a sub-MINLP to explore the set of feasible roundings of an optimal solution x' of a linear or nonlinear relaxation. The sub-MINLP is constructed by fixing integer variables x_j with x'_j in Z and bounding the remaining integer variables to x_j in {floor(x'_j), ceil(x'_j)}. We describe two different applications of RENS: as a standalone algorithm to compute an optimal rounding of the given starting solution and as a primal heuristic inside a complete MINLP solver. We use the former to compare different kinds of relaxations and the impact of cutting planes on the roundability of the corresponding optimal solutions. We further utilize RENS to analyze the performance of three rounding heuristics implemented in the branch-cut-and-price framework SCIP. Finally, we study the impact of RENS when it is applied as a primal heuristic inside SCIP. All experiments were performed on three publically available test sets of mixed integer linear programs (MIPs), mixed integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs), and MINLPs, using solely software which is available in source code. It turns out that for these problem classes 60% to 70% of the instances have roundable relaxation optima and that the success rate of RENS does not depend on the percentage of fractional variables. Last but not least, RENS applied as primal heuristic complements nicely with existing root node heuristics in SCIP and improves the overall performance.

Description: We describe an iterative refinement procedure for computing extended precision or exact solutions to linear programming problems (LPs). Arbitrarily precise solutions can be computed by solving a sequence of closely related LPs with limited precision arithmetic. The LPs solved share the same constraint matrix as the original problem instance and are transformed only by modification of the objective function, right-hand side, and variable bounds. Exact computation is used to compute and store the exact representation of the transformed problems, while numeric computation is used for solving LPs. At all steps of the algorithm the LP bases encountered in the transformed problems correspond directly to LP bases in the original problem description. We demonstrate that this algorithm is effective in practice for computing extended precision solutions and that this leads to direct improvement of the best known methods for solving LPs exactly over the rational numbers.

Description: Attributes are an important concept for modeling data in practical applications. Up to now there is no adequate way to define attributes for different kinds of models used in M-adhesive transformation systems, which are a special kind of graph transformation systems based on M-adhesive categories. Especially a proper representation and definition of attributes and their values as well as a suitable handling of the data does not fit well with other graph transformation formalisms. In this paper, we propose a new method to define attributes in a natural, but still formally precise and widely applicable way. We define a new kind of adhesive category, called W-adhesive, that can be used for transformations of attributes, while the underlying models are still M-adhesive ones. As a result, attributed models can be used as they are intended to be, but with a formal background and proven well-behavior.

Description: Scheduling algorithms for heterogeneous platforms make scheduling decisions based on several metrics. One of these metrics is the amount of data to be transferred from and to the accelerator. However, the automated determination of this metric is not a simple task. A few schedulers and runtime systems solve this problem by using regression models, which are imprecise though. Our novel approach for the determination of data volumes removes this limitation and thus provides a solution to obtain exact information.

Description: Normal follicular growth is a prerequisite for successful fertilization of dairy cows. However, submission rates have been decreasing during the last decades because animals are not ovulating at the planned time of mating or insemination. In this study we use a mathematical model to investigate mechanisms that lead to anestrus. This model is derived by coupling two previously published models: a small model for the development of multiple follicles (Smith et al., 2004), and a large estrous cycle model (St\"otzel et al., 2012). We first investigate the influence of synchronization protocols on the time-shift of ovulation. In a second scenario we simulate an extended period of anestrus as it typically occurs after calving.

Description: This paper introduces the SCIP Optimization Suite and discusses the capabilities of its three components: the modeling language Zimpl, the linear programming solver SoPlex, and the constraint integer programming framework SCIP. We explain how these can be used in concert to model and solve challenging mixed integer linear and nonlinear optimization problems. SCIP is currently one of the fastest non-commercial MIP and MINLP solvers. We demonstrate the usage of Zimpl, SCIP, and SoPlex by selected examples, we give an overview of available interfaces, and outline plans for future development.

Description: It is clear that a transformation to sustainable value creation is needed, because business as usual is not an option for preserving competitive advantages of leading industries. What does that mean? This contribution proposes possible approaches for a shift in existing manufacturing paradigms. In a first step, sustainability aspects from the German Sustainability Strategy and from the tools of life cycle sustainability assessment are chosen to match areas of a value creation process. Within these aspects are indicators, which can be measured within a manufacturing process. Once these data are obtained they can be used to set up a mathematical linear pulse model of manufacturing in order to analyse the evolution of the system over time, that is the transition process, by using a system dynamics approach. An increase of technology development by a factor of 2 leads to an increase of manufacturing but also to an increase of climate change. Compensation measures need to be taken. This can be done by e.g. taking money from the GDP (as an indicator of the aspect ``macroeconomic performance''). The value of the arc from that building block towards climate change must then be increased by a factor of 10. The choice of independent and representative indicators or aspects shall be validated and double-checked for their significance with the help of multi-criteria mixed-integer programming optimisation methods.

Description: This paper is concerned with optimal operation of pressurized water supply networks at a fixed point in time. We use a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model incorporating both the nonlinear physical laws and the discrete decisions such as switching pumps on and off. We demonstrate that for instances from our industry partner, these stationary models can be solved to ε-global optimality within small running times using problem-specific presolving and state-of-the-art MINLP algorithms. In our modeling, we emphasize the importance of distinguishing between what we call real and imaginary flow, i.e., taking into account that the law of Darcy-Weisbach correlates pressure difference and flow along a pipe if and only if water is available at the high pressure end of a pipe. Our modeling solution extends to the dynamic operative planning problem.

Description: The treatment of transfers is a major challenge in line planning. Existing models either route passengers and lines sequentially, and hence disregard essential degrees of freedom, or they are of extremely large scale, and seem to be computationally intractable. We propose a novel direct connection approach that allows an integrated optimization of line and passenger routing, including accurate estimates of the number of direct travelers, for large-scale real-world instances.

Description: This work aims to develop a new algorithm to calculate the free energy of water molecules by using a deterministic way. For this purpose, we assume a closed system confined to a physical volume, having water molecules in gas phase. To calculate the free energy of this sytem we utilized Mayer cluster expansion and the fluctuation free integration method.

Description: Recently, Holm and Ivanov, proposed and studied a class of multi-component generalisations of the Camassa-Holm equations [D D Holm and R I Ivanov, Multi-component generalizations of the CH equation: geometrical aspects, peakons and numerical examples, {\it J. Phys A: Math. Theor} {\bf 43}, 492001 (20pp), 2010]. We consider two of those systems, denoted by Holm and Ivanov by CH(2,1) and CH(2,2), and report a class of integrating factors and its corresponding conservation laws for these two systems. In particular, we obtain the complete sent of first-order integrating factors for the systems in Cauchy-Kovalevskaya form and evaluate the corresponding sets of conservation laws for CH(2,1) and CH(2,2).

Description: We construct nine pairwise compatible quadratic Poisson structures such that a generic linear combination of them is associated with an elliptic algebra in $n$ generators. Explicit formulas for Casimir elements of this elliptic Poisson structure are obtained.

Description: The paper reports on a computer algebra program {\sc LSSS} (Linear Selective Systems Solver) for solving linear algebraic systems with rational coefficients. The program is especially efficient for very large sparse systems that have a solution in which many variables take the value zero. The program is applied to the symmetry investigation of a non-abelian Laurent ODE introduced recently by M.\ Kontsevich. The computed symmetries confirmed that a Lax pair found for this system earlier generates all first integrals of degree at least up to 14.

Description: In this paper we present the problem of computing optimal tours of toll inspectors on German motorways. This problem is a special type of vehicle routing problem and builds up an integrated model, consisting of a tour planning and a duty rostering part. The tours should guarantee a network-wide control whose intensity is proportional to given spatial and time dependent traffic distributions. We model this using a space-time network and formulate the associated optimization problem by an integer program (IP). Since sequential approaches fail, we integrated the assignment of crews to the tours in our model. In this process all duties of a crew member must fit in a feasible roster. It is modeled as a Multi-Commodity Flow Problem in a directed acyclic graph, where specific paths correspond to feasible rosters for one month. We present computational results in a case-study on a German subnetwork which documents the practicability of our approach.

Description: In this paper, we describe a method to enhance the FTRAN and BTRAN operations in the revised simplex algorithm by using a reduced basis matrix defined by basic columns and nonbasic rows. This submatrix of the standard basis matrix is potentially much smaller, but may change its dimension dynamically from iteration to iteration. For the classical product form update ("eta update"), the idea has been noted already by Zoutendijk, but only preliminarily tested by Powell in the early 1970s. We extend these ideas to Forrest-Tomlin type update formulas for an LU factorization of the reduced basis matrix, which are suited for efficient implementation within a state-of-the-art simplex solver. The computational advantages of the proposed method apply to pure LP solving as well as to LP-based branch-and-cut algorithms. It can easily be integrated into existing simplex codes.

Description: Dual presolving reductions are a class of reformulation techniques that remove feasible or even optimal solutions while guaranteeing that at least one optimal solution remains, as long as the original problem was feasible. Presolving and dual reductions are important components of state-of-the-art mixed-integer linear programming solvers. In this paper, we introduce them both as unified, practical concepts in constraint programming solvers. Building on the existing idea of variable locks, we formally define and justify the use of dual information for cumulative constraints during a presolving phase of a solver. In particular, variable locks are used to decompose cumulative constraints, detect irrelevant variables, and infer variable assignments and domain reductions. Since the computational complexity of propagation algorithms typically depends on the number of variables and/or domain size, such dual reductions are a source of potential computational speed-up. Through experimental evidence on resource constrained project scheduling problems, we demonstrate that the conditions for dual reductions are present in well-known benchmark instances and that a substantial proportion of them can be solved to optimality in presolving -- without search. While we consider this result very promising, we do not observe significant change in overall run-time from the use of our novel dual reductions.

Description: This article gives an overview of the results of the author's PhD thesis. The thesis deals with the mathematical optimization for the efficient use of railway infrastructure. We address the optimal allocation of the available railway track capacity - the track allocation problem. This track allocation problem is a major challenge for a railway company, independent of whether a free market, a private monopoly, or a public monopoly is given. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense sizes of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techniques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. We tackle this challenge by developing novel mathematical models and associated innovative algorithmic solution methods for large scale instances. We made considerable progress on solving track allocation problems by two main features - a novel modeling approach for the macroscopic track allocation problem and algorithmic improvements based on the utilization of the bundle method. This allows us to produce for the first time reliable solutions for a real world instance, i.e., the Simplon corridor in Switzerland.

Description: This paper proposes a new method for probabilistic analysis of online algorithms. It is based on the notion of stochastic dominance. We develop the method for the online bin coloring problem introduced by Krumke et al (2008). Using methods for the stochastic comparison of Markov chains we establish the result that the performance of the online algorithm GreedyFit is stochastically better than the performance of the algorithm OneBin for any number of items processed. This result gives a more realistic picture than competitive analysis and explains the behavior observed in simulations.

Description: This paper provides a highly integrated solution approach for rolling stock planning problems in the context of intercity passenger traffic. The main contributions are a generic hypergraph based mixed integer programming model and an integrated algorithm for the considered rolling stock rotation planning problem. The new developed approach is able to handle a very large set of industrial railway requirements, such as vehicle composition, maintenance constraints, infrastructure capacity, and regularity aspects. By the integration of this large bundle of technical railway aspects, we show that our approach has the power to produce implementable rolling stock rotations for our industrial cooperation partner DB Fernverkehr. This is the first time that the rolling stock rotations at DB Fernverkehr could be optimized by an automated system utilizing advanced mathematical programming techniques.

Description: The industrial treatment of waste paper in order to regain valuable fibers from which recovered paper can be produced, involves several steps of preparation. One important step is the separation of stickies that are normally attached to the paper. If not properly separated, remaining stickies reduce the quality of the recovered paper or even disrupt the production process. For the mechanical separation process of fibers from stickies a separator screen is used. This machine has one input feed and two output streams, called the accept and the reject. In the accept the fibers are concentrated, whereas the reject has a higher concentration of stickies. The machine can be controlled by setting its reject rate. But even when the reject rate is set properly, after just a single screening step, the accept still has too many stickies, or the reject too many fibers. To get a proper separation, several separators have to be assembled into a network. From a mathematical point of view this problem can be seen as a multi-commodity network flow design problem with a nonlinear, controllable distribution function at each node. We present a nonlinear mixed-integer programming model for the simultaneous selection of a subset of separators, the network's topology, and the optimal setting of each separator. Numerical results are obtained via different types of linearization of the nonlinearities and the use of mixed-integer linear solvers, and compared with state-of-the-art global optimization software.

Description: The task of an elevator control is to schedule the elevators of a group such that small waiting and travel times for the passengers are obtained. We present an exact reoptimization algorithm for this problem. A reoptimization algorithm computes a new schedule for the elevator group each time a new passenger arrives. Our algorithm uses column generation techniques and is, to the best of our knowledge, the first exact reoptimization algorithms for a group of passenger elevators. To solve the column generation problem, we propose a Branch & Bound method.

Description: We present an exact rational solver for mixed-integer linear programming that avoids the numerical inaccuracies inherent in the floating-point computations used by existing software. This allows the solver to be used for establishing theoretical results and in applications where correct solutions are critical due to legal and financial consequences. Our solver is a hybrid symbolic/numeric implementation of LP-based branch-and-bound, using numerically-safe methods for all binding computations in the search tree. Computing provably accurate solutions by dynamically choosing the fastest of several safe dual bounding methods depending on the structure of the instance, our exact solver is only moderately slower than an inexact floating-point branch-and-bound solver. The software is incorporated into the SCIP optimization framework, using the exact LP solver QSopt_ex and the GMP arithmetic library. Computational results are presented for a suite of test instances taken from the MIPLIB and Mittelmann libraries and for a new collection of numerically difficult instances.

Description: PICOS is a user friendly interface to several conic and integer programming solvers, very much like YALMIP under MATLAB. The main motivation for PICOS is to have the possibility to enter an optimization problem as a high level model, and to be able to solve it with several different solvers. Multidimensional and matrix variables are handled in a natural fashion, which makes it painless to formulate a SDP or a SOCP. This is very useful for educational purposes, and to quickly implement some models and test their validity on simple examples. Furthermore, with PICOS you can take advantage of the python programming language to read and write data, construct a list of constraints by using python list comprehensions, take slices of multidimensional variables, etc.

Description: Energy-efficient operation of large telecommunication networks is an important issue today and in the near future. Given that the energy consumption rises with the ever increasing demand for capacity and network speed, there is a growing interest in strategies for a sustainable network management. It is a well-known fact that traffic demands vary significantly over time, most notably in day/night- and in weekly cycles. This provides the main potential for energy-saving strategies. We study the question of how much power is necessary to operate a network with state-of-the-art hardware during peak or low-traffic times. The study respects realistic side constraints, such as protection requirements and routing schemes, and takes the special structure of an extensive nation-wide optical network, including backbone and regional sections, into account. We formulate mixed integer programming models for the corresponding optimization problems using predictions for traffic matrices, as well as state-of-the-art hardware and power models. We address questions as the following: How much energy is spent in the core and in metro regions of the network and how big are the savings in low-demand scenarios if we always assume the system power-minimum in these situations? What is the influence of different hardware on the overall energy consumption? How much do different routing schemes or protection scenarios restrict potential energy savings?

Description: In this article we investigate methods to solve a fundamental task in gas transportation, namely the validation of nomination problem: Given a gas transmission network consisting of passive pipelines and active, controllable elements and given an amount of gas at every entry and exit point of the network, find operational settings for all active elements such that there exists a network state meeting all physical, technical, and legal constraints. We describe a two-stage approach to solve the resulting complex and numerically difficult mixed-integer non-convex nonlinear feasibility problem. The first phase consists of four distinct algorithms facilitating mixed-integer linear, mixed-integer nonlinear, reduced nonlinear, and complementarity constrained methods to compute possible settings for the discrete decisions. The second phase employs a precise continuous nonlinear programming model of the gas network. Using this setup, we are able to compute high quality solutions to real-world industrial instances whose size is significantly larger than networks that have appeared in the literature previously.

Description: We present a game-theoretic approach to optimize the strategies of toll enforcement on a motorway network. In contrast to previous approaches, we consider a network with an arbitrary topology, and we handle the fact that users may choose their Origin-Destination path; in particular they may take a detour to avoid sections with a high control rate. We show that a Nash equilibrium can be computed with an LP (although the game is not zero-sum), and we give a MIP for the computation of a Stackelberg equilibrium. Experimental results based on an application to the enforcement of a truck toll on German motorways are presented.

Description: Strong branching is an important component of most variable selection rules in branch-and-bound based mixed-integer linear programming solvers. It predicts the dual bounds of potential child nodes by solving auxiliary LPs and thereby helps to keep the branch-and-bound tree small. In this paper, we describe how these dual bound predictions can be improved by including domain propagation into strong branching. Computational experiments on standard MIP instances indicate that this is beneficial in three aspects: It helps to reduce the average number of LP iterations per strong branching call, the number of branch-and-bound nodes, and the overall solving time.

Description: We present a new semidefinite representation for the trace of a real function f applied to symmetric matrices, when a semidefinite representation of the convex function f is known. Our construction is intuitive, and yields a representation that is more compact than the previously known one. We also show with the help of matrix geometric means and the Riemannian metric of the set of positive definite matrices that for a rational number p in the interval (0,1], the matrix X raised to the exponent p is the largest element of a set represented by linear matrix inequalities. We give numerical results for a problem inspired from the theory of experimental designs, which show that the new semidefinite programming formulation yields a speed-up factor in the order of 10.