An Efficient Hybrid Algorithm for the Separable Convex Quadratic Knapsack Problem

This article considers the problem of minimizing a convex, separable quadratic function subject to a knapsack constraint and a box constraint. An algorithm called NAPHEAP has been developed to solve this problem. The algorithm solves the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker system using a starting guess to the optimal Lagrange multiplier and updating the guess monotonically in the direction of the solution. The starting guess is computed using the variable fixing method or is supplied by the user. A key innovation in our algorithm is the implementation of a heap data structure for storing the break points of the dual function and computing the solution of the dual problem. Also, a new version of the variable fixing algorithm is developed that is convergent even when the objective Hessian is not strictly positive definite. The hybrid algorithm NAPHEAP that uses a Newton-type method (variable fixing method, secant method, or Newton's method) to bracket a root, followed by a heap-based monotone break point search, can be faster than a Newton-type method by itself, as demonstrated in the numerical experiments

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

Indefinite Knapsack Separable Quadratic Programming: Methods and Applications

Quadratic programming (QP) has received significant consideration due to an extensive list of applications. Although polynomial time algorithms for the convex case have been developed, the solution of large scale QPs is challenging due to the computer memory and speed limitations. Moreover, if the QP is nonconvex or includes integer variables, the problem is NP-hard. Therefore, no known algorithm can solve such QPs efficiently. Alternatively, row-aggregation and diagonalization techniques have been developed to solve QP by a sub-problem, knapsack separable QP (KSQP), which has a separable objective function and is constrained by a single knapsack linear constraint and box constraints. KSQP can therefore be considered as a fundamental building-block to solve the general QP and is an important class of problems for research. For the convex KSQP, linear time algorithms are available. However, if some quadratic terms or even only one term is negative in KSQP, the problem is known to be NP-hard, i.e. it is notoriously difficult to solve. The main objective of this dissertation is to develop efficient algorithms to solve general KSQP. Thus, the contributions of this dissertation are five-fold. First, this dissertation includes comprehensive literature review for convex and nonconvex KSQP by considering their computational efficiencies and theoretical complexities. Second, a new algorithm with quadratic time worst-case complexity is developed to globally solve the nonconvex KSQP, having open box constraints. Third, the latter global solver is utilized to develop a new bounding algorithm for general KSQP. Fourth, another new algorithm is developed to find a bound for general KSQP in linear time complexity. Fifth, a list of comprehensive applications for convex KSQP is introduced, and direct applications of indefinite KSQP are described and tested with our newly developed methods. Experiments are conducted to compare the performance of the developed algorithms with that of local, global, and commercial solvers such as IBM CPLEX using randomly generated problems in the context of certain applications. The experimental results show that our proposed methods are superior in speed as well as in the quality of solutions

Constructive solution methodologies to the capacitated newsvendor problem and surrogate extension

The newsvendor problem is a single-period stochastic model used to determine the order quantity of perishable product that maximizes/minimizes the profit/cost of the vendor under uncertain demand. The goal is to fmd an initial order quantity that can offset the impact of backlog or shortage caused by mismatch between the procurement amount and uncertain demand. If there are multiple products and substitution between them is feasible, overstocking and understocking can be further reduced and hence, the vendor\u27s overall profit is improved compared to the standard problem. When there are one or more resource constraints, such as budget, volume or weight, it becomes a constrained newsvendor problem. In the past few decades, many researchers have proposed solution methods to solve the newsvendor problem. The literature is first reviewed where the performance of each of existing model is examined and its contribution is reported. To add to these works, it is complemented through developing constructive solution methods and extending the existing published works by introducing the product substitution models which so far has not received sufficient attention despite its importance to supply chain management decisions. To illustrate this dissertation provides an easy-to-use approach that utilizes the known network flow problem or knapsack problem. Then, a polynomial in fashion algorithm is developed to solve it. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to compare the performance of the proposed method and some existing ones. Results show that the proposed approach though approximates, yet, it simplifies the solution steps without sacrificing accuracy. Further, this dissertation addresses the important arena of product substitute models. These models deal with two perishable products, a primary product and a surrogate one. The primary product yields higher profit than the surrogate. If the demand of the primary exceeds the available quantity and there is excess amount of the surrogate, this excess quantity can be utilized to fulfill the shortage. The objective is to find the optimal lot sizes of both products, that minimize the total cost (alternatively, maximize the profit). Simulation is utilized to validate the developed model. Since the analytical solutions are difficult to obtain, Mathematical software is employed to find the optimal results. Numerical experiments are also conducted to analyze the behavior of the optimal results versus the governing parameters. The results show the contribution of surrogate approach to the overall performance of the policy. From a practical perspective, this dissertation introduces the applications of the proposed models and methods in different industries such as inventory management, grocery retailing, fashion sector and hotel reservation

On a reduction for a class of resource allocation problems

In the resource allocation problem (RAP), the goal is to divide a given amount of resource over a set of activities while minimizing the cost of this allocation and possibly satisfying constraints on allocations to subsets of the activities. Most solution approaches for the RAP and its extensions allow each activity to have its own cost function. However, in many applications, often the structure of the objective function is the same for each activity and the difference between the cost functions lies in different parameter choices such as, e.g., the multiplicative factors. In this article, we introduce a new class of objective functions that captures the majority of the objectives occurring in studied applications. These objectives are characterized by a shared structure of the cost function depending on two input parameters. We show that, given the two input parameters, there exists a solution to the RAP that is optimal for any choice of the shared structure. As a consequence, this problem reduces to the quadratic RAP, making available the vast amount of solution approaches and algorithms for the latter problem. We show the impact of our reduction result on several applications and, in particular, we improve the best known worst-case complexity bound of two important problems in vessel routing and processor scheduling from $O(n^2)$ to $O(n \log n)$