Constrained Assortment Optimization Under the Paired Combinatorial Logit Model

Assortment optimization involves selecting a subset of products to offer to customers in order to maximize revenue. Often, the selected subset must also satisfy some constraints, such as capacity or space usage. Two key aspects in assortment optimization are (1) modeling customer behavior and (2) computing optimal or near-optimal assortments efficiently. The paired combinatorial logit (PCL) model is a generic customer choice model that allows for arbitrary correlations in the utilities of different products. The PCL model has greater modeling power than other choice models, such as multinomial-logit and nested-logit. In “Constrained Assortment Optimization Under the Paired Combinatorial Logit Model,” Ghuge, Kwon, Nagarajan, and and Sharma provide efficient algorithms that find provably near-optimal solutions for PCL assortment optimization under several types of constraints. These include the basic unconstrained problem (which is already intractable to solve exactly), multidimensional space constraints, and partition constraints. The authors also demonstrate via extensive experiments that their algorithms typically achieve over 95% of the optimal revenues.

Scenario Reduction Network Based on Wasserstein Distance with Regularization

Power systems with high penetration of renewable energy contain various <a></a><a>uncertainties</a>. Scenario-based optimization problems need a large number of discrete scenarios to obtain a reliable approximation for the probabilistic model. It is important to choose typical scenarios and ease the computational burden. This paper presents a scenario reduction network model based on Wasserstein distance. Entropy regularization is used to transform the scenario reduction problem into an unconstrained problem. Through an explicit neural network structure design, the output of the scenario reduction network corresponds to Sinkhorn distance function. The scenario reduction network can generate the typical scenario set through unsupervised learning training. An efficient algorithm is proposed for continuous/discrete scenario reduction. The superiority of the scenario reduction network model is verified through case studies. The numerical results highlight high accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed model over state-of-the-art model making it an ideal candidate for large-scale scenario reduction problems

Scenario Reduction Network Based on Wasserstein Distance with Regularization

Power systems with high penetration of renewable energy contain various <a></a><a>uncertainties</a>. Scenario-based optimization problems need a large number of discrete scenarios to obtain a reliable approximation for the probabilistic model. It is important to choose typical scenarios and ease the computational burden. This paper presents a scenario reduction network model based on Wasserstein distance. Entropy regularization is used to transform the scenario reduction problem into an unconstrained problem. Through an explicit neural network structure design, the output of the scenario reduction network corresponds to Sinkhorn distance function. The scenario reduction network can generate the typical scenario set through unsupervised learning training. An efficient algorithm is proposed for continuous/discrete scenario reduction. The superiority of the scenario reduction network model is verified through case studies. The numerical results highlight high accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed model over state-of-the-art model making it an ideal candidate for large-scale scenario reduction problems

Capacitated Assortment Optimization: Hardness and Approximation

Assortment optimization is an important problem arising in various applications. In many practical settings, the assortment is subject to a capacity constraint. In “Capacitated Assortment Optimization: Hardness and Approximation,” Désir, Goyal, and Zhang study the capacitated assortment optimization problem. The authors first show that adding a general capacity constraint makes the problem NP-hard even for the simple multinomial logit model. They also show that under the mixture of multinomial logit model, even the unconstrained problem is hard to approximate within any reasonable factor when the number of mixtures is not constant. In view of these hardness results, the authors present near-optimal algorithms for a large class of parametric choice models including the mixture of multinomial logit, Markov chain, nested logit, and d-level nested logit choice models. In fact, their approach extends to a large class of objective functions that depend only on a small number of linear functions.

Fuel-Optimal Ascent Trajectory Problem for Launch Vehicle via Theory of Functional Connections

In this study, we develop a method based on the Theory of Functional Connections (TFC) to solve the fuel-optimal problem in the ascending phase of the launch vehicle. The problem is first transformed into a nonlinear two-point boundary value problem (TPBVP) using the indirect method. Then, using the function interpolation technique called the TFC, the problem’s constraints are analytically embedded into a functional, and the TPBVP is transformed into an unconstrained optimization problem that includes orthogonal polynomials with unknown coefficients. This process effectively reduces the search space of the solution because the original constrained problem transformed into an unconstrained problem, and thus, the unknown coefficients of the unconstrained expression can be solved using simple numerical methods. Finally, the proposed algorithm is validated by comparing to a general nonlinear optimal control software GPOPS-II and the traditional indirect numerical method. The results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm is robust to poor initial values, and solutions can be solved in less than 300 ms within the MATLAB implementation. Consequently, the proposed method has the potential to generate optimal trajectories on-board in real time.

A parameter-free unconstrained reformulation for nonsmooth problems with convex constraints

In the present paper we propose to rewrite a nonsmooth problem subjected to convex constraints as an unconstrained problem. We show that this novel formulation shares the same global and local minima with the original constrained problem. Moreover, the reformulation can be solved with standard nonsmooth optimization methods if we are able to make projections onto the feasible sets. Numerical evidence shows that the proposed formulation compares favorably against state-of-art approaches. Code can be found at https://github.com/jth3galv/dfppm.

A novel hybrid PSO-based metaheuristic for costly portfolio selection problems

In this paper we propose a hybrid metaheuristic based on Particle Swarm Optimization, which we tailor on a portfolio selection problem. To motivate and apply our hybrid metaheuristic, we reformulate the portfolio selection problem as an unconstrained problem, by means of penalty functions in the framework of the exact penalty methods. Our metaheuristic is hybrid as it adaptively updates the penalty parameters of the unconstrained model during the optimization process. In addition, it iteratively refines its solutions to reduce possible infeasibilities. We report also a numerical case study. Our hybrid metaheuristic appears to perform better than the corresponding Particle Swarm Optimization solver with constant penalty parameters. It performs similarly to two corresponding Particle Swarm Optimization solvers with penalty parameters respectively determined by a REVAC-based tuning procedure and an irace-based one, but on average it just needs less than 4% of the computational time requested by the latter procedures.

A Proximal Bundle Method with Exact Penalty Technique and Bundle Modification Strategy for Nonconvex Nonsmooth Constrained Optimization

The bundle modification strategy for the convex unconstrained problems was proposed by Alexey et al. [[2007] European Journal of Operation Research, 180(1), 38–47.] whose most interesting feature was the reduction of the calls for the quadratic programming solver. In this paper, we extend the bundle modification strategy to a class of nonconvex nonsmooth constraint problems. Concretely, we adopt the convexification technique to the objective function and constraint function, take the penalty strategy to transfer the modified model into an unconstrained optimization and focus on the unconstrained problem with proximal bundle method and the bundle modification strategies. The global convergence of the corresponding algorithm is proved. The primal numerical results show that the proposed algorithms are promising and effective.

Energy-Efficient Virtual Network Embedding Algorithm Based on Hopfield Neural Network

To solve the energy-efficient virtual network embedding problem, this study proposes an embedding algorithm based on Hopfield neural network. An energy-efficient virtual network embedding model was established. Wavelet diffusion was performed to take the structural feature value into consideration and provide a candidate set for virtual network embedding. In addition, the Hopfield network was used in the candidate set to solve the virtual network energy-efficient embedding problem. The augmented Lagrangian multiplier method was used to transform the energy-efficient virtual network embedding constraint problem into an unconstrained problem. The resulting unconstrained problem was used as the energy function of the Hopfield network, and the network weight was iteratively trained. The energy-efficient virtual network embedding scheme was obtained when the energy function was balanced. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, we designed two experimental environments, namely, a medium-sized scenario and a small-sized scenario. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieved a superior performance and effectively decreased the energy consumption relative to the other methods in both scenarios. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm reduced the number of open nodes and open links leading to a reduction in the overall power consumption of the virtual network embedding process, while ensuring the average acceptance ratio and the average ratio of the revenue and cost.

Global solution of nonlinear stochastic heat equation with solutions in a Hilbert manifold

The objective of this paper is to prove the existence of a global solution to a certain stochastic partial differential equation subject to the [Formula: see text]-norm being constrained. The corresponding evolution equation can be seen as the projection of the unconstrained problem onto the tangent space of the unit sphere [Formula: see text] in a Hilbert space [Formula: see text].