Generalized Affine Scaling Algorithms for Linear Programming Problems

Interior Point Methods are widely used to solve Linear Programming problems. In this work, we present two primal affine scaling algorithms to achieve faster convergence in solving Linear Programming problems. In the first algorithm, we integrate Nesterov's restarting strategy in the primal affine scaling method with an extra parameter, which in turn generalizes the original primal affine scaling method. We provide the proof of convergence for the proposed generalized algorithm considering long step size. We also provide the proof of convergence for the primal and dual sequence without the degeneracy assumption. This convergence result generalizes the original convergence result for the affine scaling methods and it gives us hints about the existence of a new family of methods. Then, we introduce a second algorithm to accelerate the convergence rate of the generalized algorithm by integrating a non-linear series transformation technique. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithms outperform the original primal affine scaling method

Sketch & Project Methods for Linear Feasibility Problems: Greedy Sampling & Momentum

We develop two greedy sampling rules for the Sketch & Project method for solving linear feasibility problems. The proposed greedy sampling rules generalize the existing max-distance sampling rule and uniform sampling rule and generate faster variants of Sketch & Project methods. We also introduce greedy capped sampling rules that improve the existing capped sampling rules. Moreover, we incorporate the so-called heavy ball momentum technique to the proposed greedy Sketch & Project method. By varying the parameters such as sampling rules, sketching vectors; we recover several well-known algorithms as special cases, including Randomized Kaczmarz (RK), Motzkin Relaxation (MR), Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (SKM). We also obtain several new methods such as Randomized Coordinate Descent, Sampling Coordinate Descent, Capped Coordinate Descent, etc. for solving linear feasibility problems. We provide global linear convergence results for both the basic greedy method and the greedy method with momentum. Under weaker conditions, we prove $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{k})$ convergence rate for the Cesaro average of sequences generated by both methods. We extend the so-called certificate of feasibility result for the proposed momentum method that generalizes several existing results. To back up the proposed theoretical results, we carry out comprehensive numerical experiments on randomly generated test instances as well as sparse real-world test instances. The proposed greedy sampling methods significantly outperform the existing sampling methods. And finally, the momentum variants designed in this work extend the computational performance of the Sketch & Project methods for all of the sampling rules

A Distance Measuring Algorithm for Location Analysis

Approximating distance is one of the key challenge in a facility location problem. Several algorithms have been proposed, however, none of them focused on estimating distance between two concave regions. In this work, we present an algorithm to estimate the distance between two irregular regions of a facility location problem. The proposed algorithm can identify the distance between concave shape regions. We also discuss some relevant properties of the proposed algorithm. A distance-sensitive capacity location model is introduced to test the algorithm. Moreover, sSeveral special geometric cases are discussed to show the advantages and insights of the algorithm

Resilient Supplier Selection in Logistics 4.0 with Heterogeneous Information

Supplier selection problem has gained extensive attention in the prior studies. However, research based on Fuzzy Multi-Attribute Decision Making (F-MADM) approach in ranking resilient suppliers in logistic 4 is still in its infancy. Traditional MADM approach fails to address the resilient supplier selection problem in logistic 4 primarily because of the large amount of data concerning some attributes that are quantitative, yet difficult to process while making decisions. Besides, some qualitative attributes prevalent in logistic 4 entail imprecise perceptual or judgmental decision relevant information, and are substantially different than those considered in traditional suppler selection problems. This study develops a Decision Support System (DSS) that will help the decision maker to incorporate and process such imprecise heterogeneous data in a unified framework to rank a set of resilient suppliers in the logistic 4 environment. The proposed framework induces a triangular fuzzy number from large-scale temporal data using probability-possibility consistency principle. Large number of non-temporal data presented graphically are computed by extracting granular information that are imprecise in nature. Fuzzy linguistic variables are used to map the qualitative attributes. Finally, fuzzy based TOPSIS method is adopted to generate the ranking score of alternative suppliers. These ranking scores are used as input in a Multi-Choice Goal Programming (MCGP) model to determine optimal order allocation for respective suppliers. Finally, a sensitivity analysis assesses how the Suppliers Cost versus Resilience Index (SCRI) changes when differential priorities are set for respective cost and resilience attributes

Accelerated Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin Algorithm for The Linear Feasibility Problem

The Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (SKM) algorithm is a generalized method for solving large scale linear systems of inequalities. Having its root in the relaxation method of Agmon, Schoenberg, and Motzkin and the randomized Kaczmarz method, SKM outperforms the state of the art methods in solving large-scale Linear Feasibility (LF) problems. Motivated by SKM's success, in this work, we propose an Accelerated Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (ASKM) algorithm which achieves better convergence compared to the standard SKM algorithm on ill conditioned problems. We provide a thorough convergence analysis for the proposed accelerated algorithm and validate the results with various numerical experiments. We compare the performance and effectiveness of ASKM algorithm with SKM, Interior Point Method (IPM) and Active Set Method (ASM) on randomly generated instances as well as Netlib LPs. In most of the test instances, the proposed ASKM algorithm outperforms the other state of the art methods.Comment: Journal of Global Optimization, Oct 201

Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin Method for Linear Feasibility Problems: Generalization & Acceleration

Randomized Kaczmarz (RK), Motzkin Method (MM) and Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (SKM) algorithms are commonly used iterative techniques for solving a system of linear inequalities (i.e., $Ax \leq b$). As linear systems of equations represent a modeling paradigm for solving many optimization problems, these randomized and iterative techniques are gaining popularity among researchers in different domains. In this work, we propose a Generalized Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (GSKM) method that unifies the iterative methods into a single framework. In addition to the general framework, we propose a Nesterov type acceleration scheme in the SKM method called as Probably Accelerated Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (PASKM). We prove the convergence theorems for both GSKM and PASKM algorithms in the $L_2$ norm perspective with respect to the proposed sampling distribution. Furthermore, we prove sub-linear convergence for the Cesaro average of iterates for the proposed GSKM and PASKM algorithms.From the convergence theorem of the GSKM algorithm, we find the convergence results of several well-known algorithms like the Kaczmarz method, Motzkin method and SKM algorithm. We perform thorough numerical experiments using both randomly generated and real-world (classification with support vector machine and Netlib LP) test instances to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. We compare the proposed algorithms with SKM, Interior Point Method (IPM) and Active Set Method (ASM) in terms of computation time and solution quality. In the majority of the problem instances, the proposed generalized and accelerated algorithms significantly outperform the state-of-the-art methods

A Computational Framework for Solving Nonlinear Binary OptimizationProblems in Robust Causal Inference

Identifying cause-effect relations among variables is a key step in the decision-making process. While causal inference requires randomized experiments, researchers and policymakers are increasingly using observational studies to test causal hypotheses due to the wide availability of observational data and the infeasibility of experiments. The matching method is the most used technique to make causal inference from observational data. However, the pair assignment process in one-to-one matching creates uncertainty in the inference because of different choices made by the experimenter. Recently, discrete optimization models are proposed to tackle such uncertainty. Although a robust inference is possible with discrete optimization models, they produce nonlinear problems and lack scalability. In this work, we propose greedy algorithms to solve the robust causal inference test instances from observational data with continuous outcomes. We propose a unique framework to reformulate the nonlinear binary optimization problems as feasibility problems. By leveraging the structure of the feasibility formulation, we develop greedy schemes that are efficient in solving robust test problems. In many cases, the proposed algorithms achieve global optimal solutions. We perform experiments on three real-world datasets to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and compare our result with the state-of-the-art solver. Our experiments show that the proposed algorithms significantly outperform the exact method in terms of computation time while achieving the same conclusion for causal tests. Both numerical experiments and complexity analysis demonstrate that the proposed algorithms ensure the scalability required for harnessing the power of big data in the decision-making process

A Primal-Dual Interior Point Method for a Novel Type-2 Second Order Cone Optimization Problem

In this paper, we define a new, special second order cone as a type-$k$ second order cone. We focus on the case of $k=2$, which can be viewed as SOCO with an additional {\em complicating variable}. For this new problem, we develop the necessary prerequisites, based on previous work for traditional SOCO. We then develop a primal-dual interior point algorithm for solving a type-2 second order conic optimization (SOCO) problem, based on a family of kernel functions suitable for this type-2 SOCO. We finally derive the following iteration bound for our framework: \[\frac{L^\gamma}{\theta \kappa \gamma} \left[2N \psi\left( \frac{\varrho \left(\tau /4N\right)}{\sqrt{1-\theta}}\right)\right]^\gamma\log \frac{3N}{\epsilon}.\

Stochastic Steepest Descent Methods for Linear Systems: Greedy Sampling & Momentum

Recently proposed adaptive Sketch & Project (SP) methods connect several well-known projection methods such as Randomized Kaczmarz (RK), Randomized Block Kaczmarz (RBK), Motzkin Relaxation (MR), Randomized Coordinate Descent (RCD), Capped Coordinate Descent (CCD), etc. into one framework for solving linear systems. In this work, we first propose a Stochastic Steepest Descent (SSD) framework that connects SP methods with the well-known Steepest Descent (SD) method for solving positive-definite linear system of equations. We then introduce two greedy sampling strategies in the SSD framework that allow us to obtain algorithms such as Sampling Kaczmarz Motzkin (SKM), Sampling Block Kaczmarz (SBK), Sampling Coordinate Descent (SCD), etc. In doing so, we generalize the existing sampling rules into one framework and develop an efficient version of SP methods. Furthermore, we incorporated the Polyak momentum technique into the SSD method to accelerate the resulting algorithms. We provide global convergence results for both the SSD method and the momentum induced SSD method. Moreover, we prove $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}{k})$ convergence rate for the Cesaro average of iterates generated by both methods. By varying parameters in the SSD method, we obtain classical convergence results of the SD method as well as the SP methods as special cases. We design computational experiments to demonstrate the performance of the proposed greedy sampling methods as well as the momentum methods. The proposed greedy methods significantly outperform the existing methods for a wide variety of datasets such as random test instances as well as real-world datasets (LIBSVM, sparse datasets from matrix market collection). Finally, the momentum algorithms designed in this work accelerate the algorithmic performance of the SSD methods

A robust approach to quantifying uncertainty in matching problems of causal inference

Unquantified sources of uncertainty in observational causal analyses can break the integrity of the results. One would never want another analyst to repeat a calculation with the same dataset, using a seemingly identical procedure, only to find a different conclusion. However, as we show in this work, there is a typical source of uncertainty that is essentially never considered in observational causal studies: the choice of match assignment for matched groups, that is, which unit is matched to which other unit before a hypothesis test is conducted. The choice of match assignment is anything but innocuous, and can have a surprisingly large influence on the causal conclusions. Given that a vast number of causal inference studies test hypotheses on treatment effects after treatment cases are matched with similar control cases, we should find a way to quantify how much this extra source of uncertainty impacts results. What we would really like to be able to report is that \emph{no matter} which match assignment is made, as long as the match is sufficiently good, then the hypothesis test result still holds. In this paper, we provide methodology based on discrete optimization to create robust tests that explicitly account for this possibility. We formulate robust tests for binary and continuous data based on common test statistics as integer linear programs solvable with common methodologies. We study the finite-sample behavior of our test statistic in the discrete-data case. We apply our methods to simulated and real-world datasets and show that they can produce useful results in practical applied settings