Minimum energy configurations on a toric lattice as a quadratic assignment problem

We consider three known bounds for the quadratic assignment problem (QAP): an eigenvalue, a convex quadratic programming (CQP), and a semidefinite programming (SDP) bound. Since the last two bounds were not compared directly before, we prove that the SDP bound is stronger than the CQP bound. We then apply these to improve known bounds on a discrete energy minimization problem, reformulated as a QAP, which aims to minimize the potential energy between repulsive particles on a toric grid. Thus we are able to prove optimality for several configurations of particles and grid sizes, complementing earlier results by Bouman et al. (2013). The semidefinite programs in question are too large to solve without pre-processing, and we use a symmetry reduction method by Permenter and Parrilo (2020) to make computation of the SDP bounds possible.     

Lower bounds for the quadratic assignment problem via triangle decompositions

We consider transformations of the (metric) Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) that exploit the metric structure of a given instance. We show in particular how the structural properties of rectangular grids can be used to improve a given lower bound. Our work is motivated by previous research of Palubetskes (1988), and it extends a bounding approach proposed by Chakrapani and Skorin-Kapov (1993). Our computational results indicate that the present approach is practical; it has been applied to problems of dimension up ton = 150. Moreover, the new approach yields by far the best lower bounds on most of the instances of metric QAPs that we considered.The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Christian Doppler Laboratorium für Diskrete Optimierung.     

Lower bounds for the quadratic assignment problem

We investigate the classical Gilmore-Lawler lower bound for the quadratic assignment problem. We provide evidence of the difficulty of improving the Gilmore-Lawler bound and develop new bounds by means of optimal reduction schemes. Computational results are reported indicating that the new lower bounds have advantages over previous bounds and can be used in a branch-and-bound type algorithm for the quadratic assignment problem.     

New bounds on the unconstrained quadratic integer programming problem

We consider the maximization for a given symmetric . It was shown recently, using properties of zonotopes and hyperplane arrangements, that in the special case that A has a small rank, so that A = VV ^T where with m < n, then there exists a polynomial time algorithm (polynomial in n for a given m) to solve the problem . In this paper, we use this result, as well as a spectral decomposition of A to obtain a sequence of non-increasing upper bounds on γ with no constraints on the rank of A. We also give easily computable necessary and sufficient conditions for the absence of a gap between the solution and its upper bound. Finally, we incorporate the semidefinite relaxation upper bound into our scheme and give an illustrative example.     

A note on a polynomial time solvable case of the quadratic assignment problem

We identify a class of instances of the Koopmans–Beckmann form of the Quadratic Assignment Problem that are solvable in polynomial time. This class is characterized by a path structure in the flow data and a grid structure in the distance data. Chr18b, one of the test problems in the QAPLIB, is in this class even though this feature of it has not been noticed until now.     

Applications of parametric programming and eigenvalue maximization to the quadratic assignment problem

We investigate new bounding strategies based on different relaxations of the quadratic assignment problem. In particular, we improve the lower bound found by using an eigenvalue decomposition of the quadratic part and by solving a linear program for the linear part. The improvement is accomplished by applying a steepest ascent algorithm to the sum of the two bounds.Both authors would like to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada and the Austrian Government for their support.This author would like to acknowledge partial support from the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo.Research partially supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada.     

Autocorrelation measures for the quadratic assignment problem

In this article we provide an exact expression for computing the autocorrelation coefficient ξ and the autocorrelation length ? of any arbitrary instance of the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) in polynomial time using its elementary landscape decomposition. We also provide empirical evidence of the autocorrelation length conjecture in QAP and compute the parameters ξ and ? for the 137 instances of the QAPLIB. Our goal is to better characterize the difficulty of this important class of problems to ease the future definition of new optimization methods. Also, the advance that this represents helps to consolidate QAP as an interesting and now better understood problem.     

Ranking scalar products to improve bounds for the quadratic assignment problem

The eigenvalue bound for the quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is successively improved by considering a set of k-best scalar products, related to the QAP. An efficient procedure is proposedto find such a set of k-best scalar products. A class of QAPs is described for which this procedure in general improves existing lower bounds and at the same time generates good suboptimal solutions. The method leaves the user with a large flexibility in controlling the quality of the bound. However, since the method is sensitive to input data it should only be used in combination with other bounding rules.     

Symmetry in RLT-type relaxations for the quadratic assignment and standard quadratic optimization problems

The reformulation–linearization technique (RLT), introduced in [Sherali, H. D., Adams. W. P. (1990). A hierarchy of relaxations between the continuous and convex hull representations for zero-one programming problems. SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics 3(3), 411–430], provides a way to compute a hierarchy of linear programming bounds on the optimal values of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper we show that, in the presence of suitable algebraic symmetry in the original problem data, it is sometimes possible to compute level two RLT bounds with additional linear matrix inequality constraints. As an illustration of our methodology, we compute the best-known bounds for certain graph partitioning problems on strongly regular graphs.     

Gilmore-Lawler bound of quadratic assignment problem

The Gilmore-Lawler bound (GLB) is one of the well-known lower bound of quadratic assignment problem (QAP). Checking whether GLB is tight is an NP-complete problem. In this article, based on Xia and Yuan linearization technique, we provide an upper bound of the complexity of this problem, which makes it pseudo-polynomial solvable. We also pseudopolynomially solve a class of QAP whose GLB is equal to the optimal objective function value, which was shown to remain NP-hard.      

A splitting method for quadratic programming problem

1. IntroductionThe quadratic programming (QP) problem is the most simple one in nonlinear pro-gramming and plays a very important role in optimization theory and applications.It is well known that matriX splitting teChniques are widely used for solving large-scalelinear system of equations very successfully. These algorithms generate an infinite sequence,in contrast to the direct algorithms which terminate in a finite number of steps. However,iterative algorithms are considerable simpler tha…     

A cooperative parallel tabu search algorithm for the quadratic assignment problem

In this study, we introduce a cooperative parallel tabu search algorithm (CPTS) for the quadratic assignment problem (QAP). The QAP is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that is widely acknowledged to be computationally demanding. These characteristics make the QAP an ideal candidate for parallel solution techniques. CPTS is a cooperative parallel algorithm in which the processors exchange information throughout the run of the algorithm as opposed to independent concurrent search strategies that aggregate data only at the end of execution. CPTS accomplishes this cooperation by maintaining a global reference set which uses the information exchange to promote both intensification and strategic diversification in a parallel environment. This study demonstrates the benefits that may be obtained from parallel computing in terms of solution quality, computational time and algorithmic flexibility. A set of 41 test problems obtained from QAPLIB were used to analyze the quality of the CPTS algorithm. Additionally, we report results for 60 difficult new test instances. The CPTS algorithm is shown to provide good solution quality for all problems in acceptable computational times. Out of the 41 test instances obtained from QAPLIB, CPTS is shown to meet or exceed the average solution quality of many of the best sequential and parallel approaches from the literature on all but six problems, whereas no other leading method exhibits a performance that is superior to this.     

Compounded genetic algorithms for the quadratic assignment problem

We introduce the compounded genetic algorithm. We propose to run a quick genetic algorithm several times as Phase 1, and compile the best solutions in each run to create a starting population for Phase 2. This new approach was tested on the quadratic assignment problem with very good results.     

A new exact discrete linear reformulation of the quadratic assignment problem

The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is a challenging combinatorial problem. The problem is NP-hard and in addition, it is considered practically intractable to solve large QAP instances, to proven optimality, within reasonable time limits. In this paper we present an attractive mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation of the QAP. We first introduce a useful non-linear formulation of the problem and then a method of how to reformulate it to a new exact, compact discrete linear model. This reformulation is efficient for QAP instances with few unique elements in the flow or distance matrices. Finally, we present optimal results, obtained with the discrete linear reformulation, for some previously unsolved instances (with the size n = 32 and 64), from the quadratic assignment problem library, QAPLIB.     

An algorithm for the generalized quadratic assignment problem

This paper reports on a new algorithm for the Generalized Quadratic Assignment problem (GQAP). The GQAP describes a broad class of quadratic integer programming problems, wherein M pair-wise related entities are assigned to N destinations constrained by the destinations’ ability to accommodate them. This new algorithm is based on a Reformulation Linearization Technique (RLT) dual ascent procedure. Experimental results show that the runtime of this algorithm is as good or better than other known exact solution methods for problems as large as M=20 and N=15. Current address of P.M. Hahn: 2127 Tryon Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146-1228, USA.     

On the gap between the quadratic integer programming problem and its semidefinite relaxation

Consider the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) of the quadratic integer program (QIP): where Q is a given symmetric matrix and D is diagonal. We consider the SDR gap We establish the uniqueness of the SDR solution and prove that if and only if γ_r:=n⁻¹max{x^TVV^Tx:x ∈ {-1, 1}ⁿ}=1 where V is an orthogonal matrix whose columns span the (r–dimensional) null space of D−Q and where D is the unique SDR solution. We also give a test for establishing whether that involves 2^r−1 function evaluations. In the case that γ_r<1 we derive an upper bound on γ which is tighter than Thus we show that `breaching' the SDR gap for the QIP problem is as difficult as the solution of a QIP with the rank of the cost function matrix equal to the dimension of the null space of D−Q. This reduced rank QIP problem has been recently shown to be solvable in polynomial time for fixed r.     

A contribution to quadratic assignment problems

We discuss special eases of the quadratic assignment problem (QAP) being polynomially solvable. In particular we give an algebraic condition for the cost; Matrices of a QAP which guarantees that it is equivalent with a linear assignment problem. Based on these results we develop an approximation algorithm for QAPs with non-negative symmetric cost matrices.     

Lagrangian decomposition and mixed-integer quadratic programming reformulations for probabilistically constrained quadratic programs

Probabilistically constrained quadratic programming (PCQP) problems arise naturally from many real-world applications and have posed a great challenge in front of the optimization society for years due to the nonconvex and discrete nature of its feasible set. We consider in this paper a special case of PCQP where the random vector has a finite discrete distribution. We first derive second-order cone programming (SOCP) relaxation and semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation for the problem via a new Lagrangian decomposition scheme. We then give a mixed integer quadratic programming (MIQP) reformulation of the PCQP and show that the continuous relaxation of the MIQP is exactly the SOCP relaxation. This new MIQP reformulation is more efficient than the standard MIQP reformulation in the sense that its continuous relaxation is tighter than or at least as tight as that of the standard MIQP. We report preliminary computational results to demonstrate the tightness of the new convex relaxations and the effectiveness of the new MIQP reformulation.     

Biological computation of the solution to the quadratic assignment problem

Biological computing provides a promising approach to attacking computationally intractable problems. The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. This paper addresses the problem of how to solve QAP under the Adleman–Lipton-sticker model. A theoretically efficient DNA algorithm for solving QAP is proposed, which is executed by performing O(Kn⁴) operations on test tubes of DNA molecular strands with n² + K + 1 bit regions, where n is the number of facilities, and K is the length of the binary representation of an upper bound on the objective function. With the rapid progress of molecular biology techniques, the proposed algorithm might be of practical use in treating medium-sized instances of QAP.     

Partial Lagrangian relaxation for general quadratic programming

We give a complete characterization of constant quadratic functions over an affine variety. This result is used to convexify the objective function of a general quadratic programming problem (Pb) which contains linear equality constraints. Thanks to this convexification, we show that one can express as a semidefinite program the dual of the partial Lagrangian relaxation of (Pb) where the linear constraints are not relaxed. We apply these results by comparing two semidefinite relaxations made from two sets of null quadratic functions over an affine variety.