Related papers: Chance-Constrained Multiple-Choice Knapsack Proble…
We study several stochastic combinatorial problems, including the expected utility maximization problem, the stochastic knapsack problem and the stochastic bin packing problem. A common technical challenge in these problems is to optimize…
We consider a dynamic assortment selection problem where a seller has a fixed inventory of $N$ substitutable products and faces an unknown demand that arrives sequentially over $T$ periods. In each period, the seller needs to decide on the…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (minimize…
We study a robust extensible bin packing problem with budgeted uncertainty, under a budgeted uncertainty model where item sizes are defined to lie in the intersection of a box with a one-norm ball. We propose a scenario generation algorithm…
Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are an elegant model for encoding probabilities over subsets, such as shopping baskets, of a ground set, such as an item catalog. They are useful for a number of machine learning tasks, including product…
We consider chance-constrained problems with discrete random distribution. We aim for problems with a large number of scenarios. We propose a novel method based on the stochastic gradient descent method which performs updates of the…
The Set-union Knapsack Problem (SUKP) is a generalization of the popular 0-1 knapsack problem. Given a set of weighted elements and a set of items with profits where each item is composed of a subset of elements, the SUKP involves packing a…
Ready Mixed Concrete Delivery Problem (RMCDP) is a multi-objective multi-constraint dynamic combinatorial optimization problem. From the operational research prospective, it is a real life logistic problem that is hard to be solved with…
Many problems in the physical sciences, machine learning, and statistical inference necessitate sampling from a high-dimensional, multi-modal probability distribution. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, the ubiquitous tool for this…
We study a discrete portfolio pricing problem that selects one price per product from a finite menu under margin and fairness constraints. To account for demand uncertainty, we incorporate a budgeted robust formulation that controls…
A novel canonical duality theory (CDT) is presented for solving general bilevel mixed integer nonlinear optimization governed by linear and quadratic knapsack problems. It shows that the challenging knapsack problems can be solved…
A variant of the classical knapsack problem is considered in which each item is associated with an integer weight and a qualitative level. We define a dominance relation over the feasible subsets of the given item set and show that this…
In this paper, we address the challenge of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms within the approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) framework, which often get trapped in local optima due to their inherent local exploration mechanism. We…
In many operations management problems, we need to make decisions sequentially to minimize the cost while satisfying certain constraints. One modeling approach to study such problems is constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). When…
In this paper we explore several approaches for sampling weight vectors in the context of weighted sum scalarisation approaches for solving multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems. This established method converts a multi-objective…
In this paper we consider the discounted 0-1 knapsack problem (DKP), which is an extension of the classical knapsack problem where a set of items is decomposed into groups of three items. At most one item can be chosen from each group and…
Optimizing highly complex cost/energy functions over discrete variables is at the heart of many open problems across different scientific disciplines and industries. A major obstacle is the emergence of many-body effects among certain…
We consider the Bilevel Knapsack with Interdiction Constraints, an extension of the classic 0-1 knapsack problem formulated as a Stackelberg game with two agents, a leader and a follower, that choose items from a common set and hold their…
We propose conformal predictive programming (CPP), a framework to solve chance constrained optimization problems, i.e., optimization problems with constraints that are functions of random variables. CPP utilizes samples from these random…
The use of machine learning methods helps to improve decision making in different fields. In particular, the idea of bridging predictions (machine learning models) and prescriptions (optimization problems) is gaining attention within the…