Polybasic polyhedra: structure of polyhedra with edge vectors of support size at most 2

It has widely been recognized that submodular set functions and base polyhedra associated with them play fundamental and important roles in combinatorial optimization problems. In the present paper, we introduce a generalized concept of base polyhedron. We consider a class of pointed convex polyhedra in R^V whose edge vectors have supports of size at most 2. We call such a convex polyhedron a polybasic polyhedron. The class of polybasic polyhedra includes ordinary base polyhedra, submodular/supermodular polyhedra, generalized polymatroids, bisubmodular polyhedra, polybasic zonotopes, boundary polyhedra of flows in generalized networks, etc. We show that for a pointed polyhedron PR^V, the following three statements are equivalent:

(1) P is a polybasic polyhedron.

(2) Each face of P with a normal vector of the full support V is obtained from a base polyhedron by a reflection and scalings along axes.

(3) The support function of P is a submodular function on each orthant of R^V.

This reveals the geometric structure of polybasic polyhedra and its relation to submodularity.     

Exact join detection for convex polyhedra and other numerical abstractions

Deciding whether the union of two convex polyhedra is itself a convex polyhedron is a basic problem in polyhedral computations; having important applications in the field of constrained control and in the synthesis, analysis, verification and optimization of hardware and software systems. In such application fields though, general convex polyhedra are just one among many, so-called, numerical abstractions, which range from restricted families of (not necessarily closed) convex polyhedra to non-convex geometrical objects. We thus tackle the problem from an abstract point of view: for a wide range of numerical abstractions that can be modeled as bounded join-semilattices—that is, partial orders where any finite set of elements has a least upper bound—we show necessary and sufficient conditions for the equivalence between the lattice-theoretic join and the set-theoretic union. For the case of closed convex polyhedra—which, as far as we know, is the only one already studied in the literature—we improve upon the state-of-the-art by providing a new algorithm with a better worst-case complexity. The results and algorithms presented for the other numerical abstractions are new to this paper. All the algorithms have been implemented, experimentally validated, and made available in the Parma Polyhedra Library.     

Convex polyhedra of doubly stochastic matrices—IV

Basic geometrical properties of general convex polyhedra of doubly stochastic matrices are investigated. The faces of such polyhedra are characterized, and their dimensions and facets are determined. A connection between bounded faces of doubly stochastic polyhedra and faces of transportation polytopes is established, and it is shown that there exists an absolute bound for the number of extreme points of d-dimensional bounded faces of these polyhedra.     

Hamiltonicity and combinatorial polyhedra

We say that a polyhedron with 0–1 valued vertices is combinatorial if the midpoint of the line joining any pair of nonadjacent vertices is the midpoint of the line joining another pair of vertices. We show that the class of combinatorial polyhedra includes such well-known classes of polyhedra as matching polyhedra, matroid basis polyhedra, node packing or stable set polyhedra and permutation polyhedra. We show the graph of a combinatorial polyhedron is always either a hypercube (i.e., isomorphic to the convex hull of a k-dimension unit cube) or else is hamilton connected (every pair of nodes is the set of terminal nodes of a hamilton path). This implies several earlier results concerning special cases of combinatorial polyhedra.     

On weakly convex star-shaped polyhedra

Weakly convex polyhedra which are star-shaped with respect to one of their vertices are infinitesimally rigid. This is a partial answer to the question as to whether every decomposable weakly convex polyhedron is infinitesimally rigid. The proof is based on a recent result of Izmestiev on the geometry of convex caps.     

Finding a best approximation pair of points for two polyhedra

Given two disjoint convex polyhedra, we look for a best approximation pair relative to them, i.e., a pair of points, one in each polyhedron, attaining the minimum distance between the sets. Cheney and Goldstein showed that alternating projections onto the two sets, starting from an arbitrary point, generate a sequence whose two interlaced subsequences converge to a best approximation pair. We propose a process based on projections onto the half-spaces defining the two polyhedra, which are more negotiable than projections on the polyhedra themselves. A central component in the proposed process is the Halpern–Lions–Wittmann–Bauschke algorithm for approaching the projection of a given point onto a convex set.     

On switching paths polyhedra

A class of integer polyhedra with totally dual integral (tdi) systems is proposed, which generalizes and unifies the “Switching Paths Polyhedra” of Hoffman (introduced in his generalization of Max Flow-Min Cut) and such polyhedra as the convex hull of (the incidence vectors of) all “path-closed sets” of an acyclic digraph, or the convex hull of all sets partitionable intok path-closed sets. As an application, new min-max theorems concerning the mentioned sets are given. A general lemma on when a tdi system of inequalities is box tdi is also given and used.     

On angle sums and steiner points of polyhedra

In the first part, the Euler-Gram formula for the angle sum of a convex polytope is extended to cellular decompositions of arbitrary polyhedra. The second part contains an attempt to define Steiner points for unions of finitely many convex compact sets, and states some of their properties. Research supported by a fellowship of the Swiss National Foundation.     

Calculus of convex polyhedra and polyhedral convex functions by utilizing a multiple objective linear programming solver

ABSTRACT

The article deals with operations defined on convex polyhedra or polyhedral convex functions. Given two convex polyhedra, operations like Minkowski sum, intersection and closed convex hull of the union are considered. Basic operations for one convex polyhedron are, for example, the polar, the conical hull and the image under affine transformation. The concept of a P-representation of a convex polyhedron is introduced. It is shown that many polyhedral calculus operations can be expressed explicitly in terms of P-representations. We point out that all the relevant computational effort for polyhedral calculus consists in computing projections of convex polyhedra. In order to compute projections we use a recent result saying that multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) is equivalent to the polyhedral projection problem. Based on the MOLP solver bensolve a polyhedral calculus toolbox for Matlab and GNU Octave is developed. Some numerical experiments are discussed.     

On the convex hull of the union of certain polyhedra

We consider a finite collection of polyhedra whose defining linear systems differ only in their right hand sides. Jeroslow [5] and Blair [4] specified conditions under which the convex hull of the union of these polyhedra is defined by a system whose left hand side is the common lefthand side of the individual systems, and whose right hand side is a convex combination of the individual right hand sides. We give a new sufficient condition for this property to hold, which is often easier to recognize. In particular, we show that the condition is satisfied for polyhedra whose defining systems involve the node-arc incidence matrices of directed graphs, with certain righ hand sides. We also derive as a special case the compact linear characterization of the two terminal Steiner tree polytope given in Ball, Liu and Pulleyblank [3].     

Refold rigidity of convex polyhedra

We show that every convex polyhedron may be unfolded to one planar piece, and then refolded to a different convex polyhedron. If the unfolding is restricted to cut only edges of the polyhedron, we identify several polyhedra that are “edge-refold rigid” in the sense that each of their unfoldings may only fold back to the original. For example, each of the 43,380 edge unfoldings of a dodecahedron may only fold back to the dodecahedron, and we establish that 11 of the 13 Archimedean solids are also edge-refold rigid. We begin the exploration of which classes of polyhedra are and are not edge-refold rigid, demonstrating infinite rigid classes through perturbations, and identifying one infinite nonrigid class: tetrahedra.     

Realization of nets of convex polyhedra with equiangular vertices. 5

A complete list of convex polyhedra with equiangular vertices up to combinatorial equivalence is found. In the list are 104 closed polyhedra, 26 infinite polyhedra, and three infinite series — cones and polyhedra dual to prisms and antiprisms. One table.Translated from Ukrainskií Geometricheskií Sbornik, No. 30, 1987, pp. 22–36.     

Constructing lattice-free gradient polyhedra in dimension two

Mathematical Programming - Lattice-free gradient polyhedra can be used to certify optimality for mixed integer convex minimization models. We consider how to construct these polyhedra for...     

Local overlaps in special unfoldings of convex polyhedra

We define a notion of local overlaps in polyhedron unfoldings. We use this concept to construct convex polyhedra for which certain classes of edge unfoldings contain overlaps, thereby negatively resolving some open conjectures. In particular, we construct a convex polyhedron for which every shortest path unfolding contains an overlap. We also present a convex polyhedron for which every steepest edge unfolding contains an overlap. We conclude by analyzing a broad class of unfoldings and again find a convex polyhedron for which they all contain overlaps.     

Software for exact integration of polynomials over polyhedra

We are interested in the fast computation of the exact value of integrals of polynomial functions over convex polyhedra. We present speed-ups and extensions of the algorithms presented in previous work by some of the authors. We provide a new software implementation and benchmark computations. The computation of integrals of polynomials over polyhedral regions has many applications; here we demonstrate our algorithmic tools solving a challenge from combinatorial voting theory.     

Reprint of: Refold rigidity of convex polyhedra

We show that every convex polyhedron may be unfolded to one planar piece, and then refolded to a different convex polyhedron. If the unfolding is restricted to cut only edges of the polyhedron, we identify several polyhedra that are “edge-refold rigid” in the sense that each of their unfoldings may only fold back to the original. For example, each of the 43,380 edge unfoldings of a dodecahedron may only fold back to the dodecahedron, and we establish that 11 of the 13 Archimedean solids are also edge-refold rigid. We begin the exploration of which classes of polyhedra are and are not edge-refold rigid, demonstrating infinite rigid classes through perturbations, and identifying one infinite nonrigid class: tetrahedra.     

A criterion for the integral equivalence of two generalized convex integer polyhedra

We introduce the notion of integral equivalence and formulate a criterion for the equivalence of two polyhedra having certain special properties. The category of polyhedra under consideration includes Klein polyhedra, which are the convex hulls of nonzero points of the lattice ?³ that belong to some 3-dimensional simplicial cone with vertex at the origin, and therefore the criterion enables one to improve some results related to Klein polyhedra. In particular, we suggest a simplified formulation of a geometric analog of Lagrange’s theorem on continued fractions in the three-dimensional case.     

On the enumeration of convex polyhedra

We state and justify an asymptotic formula for the number of combinatorially distinct convex polyhedra with 2n faces, all triangular.