4,811 research outputs found
Algorithms for the continuous nonlinear resource allocation problem---new implementations and numerical studies
Patriksson (2008) provided a then up-to-date survey on the
continuous,separable, differentiable and convex resource allocation problem
with a single resource constraint. Since the publication of that paper the
interest in the problem has grown: several new applications have arisen where
the problem at hand constitutes a subproblem, and several new algorithms have
been developed for its efficient solution. This paper therefore serves three
purposes. First, it provides an up-to-date extension of the survey of the
literature of the field, complementing the survey in Patriksson (2008) with
more then 20 books and articles. Second, it contributes improvements of some of
these algorithms, in particular with an improvement of the pegging (that is,
variable fixing) process in the relaxation algorithm, and an improved means to
evaluate subsolutions. Third, it numerically evaluates several relaxation
(primal) and breakpoint (dual) algorithms, incorporating a variety of pegging
strategies, as well as a quasi-Newton method. Our conclusion is that our
modification of the relaxation algorithm performs the best. At least for
problem sizes up to 30 million variables the practical time complexity for the
breakpoint and relaxation algorithms is linear
Separable Convex Optimization with Nested Lower and Upper Constraints
We study a convex resource allocation problem in which lower and upper bounds
are imposed on partial sums of allocations. This model is linked to a large
range of applications, including production planning, speed optimization,
stratified sampling, support vector machines, portfolio management, and
telecommunications. We propose an efficient gradient-free divide-and-conquer
algorithm, which uses monotonicity arguments to generate valid bounds from the
recursive calls, and eliminate linking constraints based on the information
from sub-problems. This algorithm does not need strict convexity or
differentiability. It produces an -approximate solution for the
continuous problem in time
and an integer solution in time, where is
the number of decision variables, is the number of constraints, and is
the resource bound. A complexity of is also achieved
for the linear and quadratic cases. These are the best complexities known to
date for this important problem class. Our experimental analyses confirm the
good performance of the method, which produces optimal solutions for problems
with up to 1,000,000 variables in a few seconds. Promising applications to the
support vector ordinal regression problem are also investigated
Power Load Management as a Computational Market
Power load management enables energy utilities to reduce peak loads and thereby save money. Due to the large number of different loads, power load management is a complicated optimization problem. We present a new decentralized approach to this problem by modeling direct load management as a computational market. Our simulation results demonstrate that our approach is very efficient with a superlinear rate of convergence to equilibrium and an excellent scalability, requiring few iterations even when the number of agents is in the order of one thousand. Aframework for analysis of this and similar problems is given which shows how nonlinear optimization and numerical mathematics can be exploited to characterize, compare, and tailor problem-solving strategies in market-oriented programming
A Decomposition Algorithm for Nested Resource Allocation Problems
We propose an exact polynomial algorithm for a resource allocation problem
with convex costs and constraints on partial sums of resource consumptions, in
the presence of either continuous or integer variables. No assumption of strict
convexity or differentiability is needed. The method solves a hierarchy of
resource allocation subproblems, whose solutions are used to convert
constraints on sums of resources into bounds for separate variables at higher
levels. The resulting time complexity for the integer problem is , and the complexity of obtaining an -approximate
solution for the continuous case is , being
the number of variables, the number of ascending constraints (such that ), a desired precision, and the total resource. This
algorithm attains the best-known complexity when , and improves it when
. Extensive experimental analyses are conducted with four
recent algorithms on various continuous problems issued from theory and
practice. The proposed method achieves a higher performance than previous
algorithms, addressing all problems with up to one million variables in less
than one minute on a modern computer.Comment: Working Paper -- MIT, 23 page
A Partial Ranking Algorithm for Resource Allocation Problems
We present an algorithm to solve resource allocation problems with a single resource, a convex separable objective function, a convex separable resource-usage constraint and bounded variables.Through evaluation of specific functions in the lower and/or upper bounds, we obtain information on whether or not these bounds are binding.Once this information is available for all variables, the optimum is found through determination of the unique root of a strictly decreasing function.A comparison is made with the currently known most efficient algorithms.Programming;non-linear
Distributed Partitioned Big-Data Optimization via Asynchronous Dual Decomposition
In this paper we consider a novel partitioned framework for distributed
optimization in peer-to-peer networks. In several important applications the
agents of a network have to solve an optimization problem with two key
features: (i) the dimension of the decision variable depends on the network
size, and (ii) cost function and constraints have a sparsity structure related
to the communication graph. For this class of problems a straightforward
application of existing consensus methods would show two inefficiencies: poor
scalability and redundancy of shared information. We propose an asynchronous
distributed algorithm, based on dual decomposition and coordinate methods, to
solve partitioned optimization problems. We show that, by exploiting the
problem structure, the solution can be partitioned among the nodes, so that
each node just stores a local copy of a portion of the decision variable
(rather than a copy of the entire decision vector) and solves a small-scale
local problem
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