Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach

Many important problems from the operations research and statistics literatures exhibit either (a) logical relations between continuous variables x and binary variables z of the form "x=0 if z=0'', or (b) rank constraints. Indeed, start-up costs in machine scheduling and financial tra...

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Main Author: Cory-Wright, Ryan
Other Authors: Bertsimas, Dimitris J.
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144644
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4485-0619
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author Cory-Wright, Ryan
author2 Bertsimas, Dimitris J.
author_facet Bertsimas, Dimitris J.
Cory-Wright, Ryan
author_sort Cory-Wright, Ryan
collection MIT
description Many important problems from the operations research and statistics literatures exhibit either (a) logical relations between continuous variables x and binary variables z of the form "x=0 if z=0'', or (b) rank constraints. Indeed, start-up costs in machine scheduling and financial transaction costs exhibit logical relations, while important problems such as reduced rank regression and matrix completion contain rank constraints. These constraints are commonly viewed as separate entities and studied by separate subfields—integer and global optimization respectively—who propose entirely different strategies for optimizing over them. In this thesis, we adopt a different perspective on logical and rank constraints. We interpret both constraints as purely algebraic ones: logical constraints are nonlinear constraints of the form x=z o x for x continuous and z binary (meaning z²=z), while rank constraints, Rank(X) ≤ k, are nonlinear constraints of the form X=YX intersected with a linear constraint tr(Y) ≤ k for an orthogonal projection matrix Y (meaning Y²=Y). Under this lens, we show that regularization drives the computational tractability of problems with both logical and rank constraints. The first three chapters propose a unified framework to address a class of mixed-integer problems. In numerical experiments, we establish that a general-purpose strategy that combines cutting-plane, rounding, and local search methods, solves these problems faster and at a larger scale than state-of-the-art methods. Our approach solves network design problems with 100s of nodes and provides solutions up to 40% better than the state-of-the-art; sparse portfolio selection problems with up to 3,200 securities; and sparse PCA problems with up to 5,000 covariates. The last two chapters extend this framework to model rank constraints via orthogonal projection matrices. By leveraging regularization and duality, we design outer-approximation algorithms to solve low-rank problems to certifiable optimality, compute lower bounds via their semidefinite relaxations, and provide near-optimal solutions through rounding and local search techniques. By invoking matrix perspective functions, we also propose a new class of semidefinite-representable convex relaxations for low-rank problems which outperform the popular nuclear norm penalty.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1446442022-08-30T03:41:40Z Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach Cory-Wright, Ryan Bertsimas, Dimitris J. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Operations Research Center Many important problems from the operations research and statistics literatures exhibit either (a) logical relations between continuous variables x and binary variables z of the form "x=0 if z=0'', or (b) rank constraints. Indeed, start-up costs in machine scheduling and financial transaction costs exhibit logical relations, while important problems such as reduced rank regression and matrix completion contain rank constraints. These constraints are commonly viewed as separate entities and studied by separate subfields—integer and global optimization respectively—who propose entirely different strategies for optimizing over them. In this thesis, we adopt a different perspective on logical and rank constraints. We interpret both constraints as purely algebraic ones: logical constraints are nonlinear constraints of the form x=z o x for x continuous and z binary (meaning z²=z), while rank constraints, Rank(X) ≤ k, are nonlinear constraints of the form X=YX intersected with a linear constraint tr(Y) ≤ k for an orthogonal projection matrix Y (meaning Y²=Y). Under this lens, we show that regularization drives the computational tractability of problems with both logical and rank constraints. The first three chapters propose a unified framework to address a class of mixed-integer problems. In numerical experiments, we establish that a general-purpose strategy that combines cutting-plane, rounding, and local search methods, solves these problems faster and at a larger scale than state-of-the-art methods. Our approach solves network design problems with 100s of nodes and provides solutions up to 40% better than the state-of-the-art; sparse portfolio selection problems with up to 3,200 securities; and sparse PCA problems with up to 5,000 covariates. The last two chapters extend this framework to model rank constraints via orthogonal projection matrices. By leveraging regularization and duality, we design outer-approximation algorithms to solve low-rank problems to certifiable optimality, compute lower bounds via their semidefinite relaxations, and provide near-optimal solutions through rounding and local search techniques. By invoking matrix perspective functions, we also propose a new class of semidefinite-representable convex relaxations for low-rank problems which outperform the popular nuclear norm penalty. Ph.D. 2022-08-29T16:01:52Z 2022-08-29T16:01:52Z 2022-05 2022-07-05T19:56:08.364Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144644 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4485-0619 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Cory-Wright, Ryan
Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title_full Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title_fullStr Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title_full_unstemmed Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title_short Integer and Matrix Optimization: A Nonlinear Approach
title_sort integer and matrix optimization a nonlinear approach
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144644
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4485-0619
work_keys_str_mv AT corywrightryan integerandmatrixoptimizationanonlinearapproach