pth Power Lagrangian Method for Integer Programming

When does there exist an optimal generating Lagrangian multiplier vector (that generates an optimal solution of an integer programming problem in a Lagrangian relaxation formulation), and in cases of nonexistence, can we produce the existence in some other equivalent representation space? Under what conditions does there exist an optimal primal-dual pair in integer programming? This paper considers both questions. A theoretical characterization of the perturbation function in integer programming yields a new insight on the existence of an optimal generating Lagrangian multiplier vector, the existence of an optimal primal-dual pair, and the duality gap. The proposed pth power Lagrangian method convexifies the perturbation function and guarantees the existence of an optimal generating Lagrangian multiplier vector. A condition for the existence of an optimal primal-dual pair is given for the Lagrangian relaxation method to be successful in identifying an optimal solution of the primal problem via the maximization of the Lagrangian dual. The existence of an optimal primal-dual pair is assured for cases with a single Lagrangian constraint, while adopting the pth power Lagrangian method. This paper then shows that an integer programming problem with multiple constraints can be always converted into an equivalent form with a single surrogate constraint. Therefore, success of a dual search is guaranteed for a general class of finite integer programming problems with a prominent feature of a one-dimensional dual search.     

A primal-dual augmented Lagrangian

Nonlinearly constrained optimization problems can be solved by minimizing a sequence of simpler unconstrained or linearly constrained subproblems. In this paper, we consider the formulation of subproblems in which the objective function is a generalization of the Hestenes-Powell augmented Lagrangian function. The main feature of the generalized function is that it is minimized with respect to both the primal and the dual variables simultaneously. The benefits of this approach include: (i) the ability to control the quality of the dual variables during the solution of the subproblem; (ii) the availability of improved dual estimates on early termination of the subproblem; and (iii) the ability to regularize the subproblem by imposing explicit bounds on the dual variables. We propose two primal-dual variants of conventional primal methods: a primal-dual bound constrained Lagrangian (pdBCL) method and a primal-dual ℓ ₁ linearly constrained Lagrangian (pdℓ ₁LCL) method. Finally, a new sequential quadratic programming (pdSQP) method is proposed that uses the primal-dual augmented Lagrangian as a merit function.     

Towards Strong Duality in Integer Programming

We consider in this paper the Lagrangian dual method for solving general integer programming. New properties of Lagrangian duality are derived by a means of perturbation analysis. In particular, a necessary and sufficient condition for a primal optimal solution to be generated by the Lagrangian relaxation is obtained. The solution properties of Lagrangian relaxation problem are studied systematically. To overcome the difficulties caused by duality gap between the primal problem and the dual problem, we introduce an equivalent reformulation for the primal problem via applying a pth power to the constraints. We prove that this reformulation possesses an asymptotic strong duality property. Primal feasibility and primal optimality of the Lagrangian relaxation problems can be achieved in this reformulation when the parameter p is larger than a threshold value, thus ensuring the existence of an optimal primal-dual pair. We further show that duality gap for this partial pth power reformulation is a strictly decreasing function of p in the case of a single constraint. Dedicated to Professor Alex Rubinov on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Research supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong under Grant CUHK 4214/01E, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 79970107 and 10571116.     

Success Guarantee of Dual Search in Integer Programming: p-th Power Lagrangian Method

Although the Lagrangian method is a powerful dual search approach in integer programming, it often fails to identify an optimal solution of the primal problem. The p-th power Lagrangian method developed in this paper offers a success guarantee for the dual search in generating an optimal solution of the primal integer programming problem in an equivalent setting via two key transformations. One other prominent feature of the p-th power Lagrangian method is that the dual search only involves a one-dimensional search within [0,1]. Some potential applications of the method as well as the issue of its implementation are discussed.     

Solving the p-Median Problem with a Semi-Lagrangian Relaxation

Lagrangian relaxation is commonly used in combinatorial optimization to generate lower bounds for a minimization problem. We study a modified Lagrangian relaxation which generates an optimal integer solution. We call it semi-Lagrangian relaxation and illustrate its practical value by solving large-scale instances of the p-median problem. This work was partially supported by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique, grant 12-57093.99 and the Spanish government, MCYT subsidy dpi2002-03330.     

An infeasible interior-point algorithm for solving primal and dual geometric programs

In this paper an algorithm is presented for solving the classical posynomial geometric programming dual pair of problems simultaneously. The approach is by means of a primal-dual infeasible algorithm developed simultaneously for (i) the dual geometric program after logarithmic transformation of its objective function, and (ii) its Lagrangian dual program. Under rather general assumptions, the mechanism defines a primal-dual infeasible path from a specially constructed, perturbed Karush-Kuhn-Tucker system.Subfeasible solutions, as described by Duffin in 1956, are generated for each program whose primal and dual objective function values converge to the respective primal and dual program values. The basic technique is one of a predictor-corrector type involving Newton’s method applied to the perturbed KKT system, coupled with effective techniques for choosing iterate directions and step lengths. We also discuss implementation issues and some sparse matrix factorizations that take advantage of the very special structure of the Hessian matrix of the logarithmically transformed dual objective function. Our computational results on 19 of the most challenging GP problems found in the literature are encouraging. The performance indicates that the algorithm is effective regardless of thedegree of difficulty, which is a generally accepted measure in geometric programming. Research supported in part by the University of Iowa Obermann Fellowship and by NSF Grant DDM-9207347.     

A trust region SQP algorithm for mixed-integer nonlinear programming

We propose a modified sequential quadratic programming method for solving mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems. Under the assumption that integer variables have a smooth influence on the model functions, i.e., that function values do not change drastically when in- or decrementing an integer value, successive quadratic approximations are applied. The algorithm is stabilized by a trust region method with Yuan’s second order corrections. It is not assumed that the mixed-integer program is relaxable or, in other words, function values are evaluated only at integer points. The Hessian of the Lagrangian function is approximated by a quasi-Newton update formula subject to the continuous and integer variables. Numerical results are presented for a set of 80 mixed-integer test problems taken from the literature. The surprising result is that the number of function evaluations, the most important performance criterion in practice, is less than the number of function calls needed for solving the corresponding relaxed problem without integer variables.     

A result in surrogate duality for certain integer programming problems

We consider linear programming problems with some equality constraints. For such problems, surrogate relaxation formulations relaxing equality constraints existwith zero primal-dual gap both when all variables are restricted to be integers and when no variable is required to be integer. However, for such surrogate formulations, when the variables are mixed-integer, the primal-dual gap may not be zero. We establish this latter result by a counterexample.     

Subgradient Methods for Saddle-Point Problems

We study subgradient methods for computing the saddle points of a convex-concave function. Our motivation comes from networking applications where dual and primal-dual subgradient methods have attracted much attention in the design of decentralized network protocols. We first present a subgradient algorithm for generating approximate saddle points and provide per-iteration convergence rate estimates on the constructed solutions. We then focus on Lagrangian duality, where we consider a convex primal optimization problem and its Lagrangian dual problem, and generate approximate primal-dual optimal solutions as approximate saddle points of the Lagrangian function. We present a variation of our subgradient method under the Slater constraint qualification and provide stronger estimates on the convergence rate of the generated primal sequences. In particular, we provide bounds on the amount of feasibility violation and on the primal objective function values at the approximate solutions. Our algorithm is particularly well-suited for problems where the subgradient of the dual function cannot be evaluated easily (equivalently, the minimum of the Lagrangian function at a dual solution cannot be computed efficiently), thus impeding the use of dual subgradient methods.     

求解约束规划的一个非线性Lagrange函数

本文提出了一个求解不等式约束优化问题的非线性Lagrange函数,并构造了基于该函数的对偶算法.证明了当参数σ小于某一阈值σ_0时,由算法生成的原始-对偶点列是局部收敛的,并给出了原始-对偶解的误差估计.此外,建立了基于该函数的对偶理论.最后给出了算法的数值结果.     

Generalized Nonlinear Lagrangian Formulation for Bounded Integer Programming

Several nonlinear Lagrangian formulations have been recently proposed for bounded integer programming problems. While possessing an asymptotic strong duality property, these formulations offer a success guarantee for the identification of an optimal primal solution via a dual search. Investigating common features of nonlinear Lagrangian formulations in constructing a nonlinear support for nonconvex piecewise constant perturbation function, this paper proposes a generalized nonlinear Lagrangian formulation of which many existing nonlinear Lagrangian formulations become special cases.     

Duality in nonlinear programs using augmented Lagrangian functions

A generally nonconvex optimization problem with equality constraints is studied. The problem is introduced as an “inf sup” of a generalized augmented Lagrangian function. A dual problem is defined as the “sup inf” of the same generalized augmented Lagrangian. Sufficient conditions are derived for constructing the augmented Lagrangian function such that the extremal values of the primal and dual problems are equal. Characterization of a class of augmented Lagrangian functions which satisfy the sufficient conditions for strong duality is presented. Finally, some examples of functions and primal-dual problems in the above-mentioned class are presented.     

Double-Regularization Proximal Methods, with Complementarity Applications

We consider the variational inequality problem formed by a general set-valued maximal monotone operator and a possibly unbounded “box” in , and study its solution by proximal methods whose distance regularizations are coercive over the box. We prove convergence for a class of double regularizations generalizing a previously-proposed class of Auslender et al. Using these results, we derive a broadened class of augmented Lagrangian methods. We point out some connections between these methods and earlier work on “pure penalty” smoothing methods for complementarity; this connection leads to a new form of augmented Lagrangian based on the “neural” smoothing function. Finally, we computationally compare this new kind of augmented Lagrangian to three previously-known varieties on the MCPLIB problem library, and show that the neural approach offers some advantages. In these tests, we also consider primal-dual approaches that include a primal proximal term. Such a stabilizing term tends to slow down the algorithms, but makes them more robust. This author was partially supported by CNPq, Grant PQ 304133/2004-3 and PRONEX-Optimization.     

Smooth methods of multipliers for complementarity problems

This paper describes several methods for solving nonlinear complementarity problems. A general duality framework for pairs of monotone operators is developed and then applied to the monotone complementarity problem, obtaining primal, dual, and primal-dual formulations. We derive Bregman-function-based generalized proximal algorithms for each of these formulations, generating three classes of complementarity algorithms. The primal class is well-known. The dual class is new and constitutes a general collection of methods of multipliers, or augmented Lagrangian methods, for complementarity problems. In a special case, it corresponds to a class of variational inequality algorithms proposed by Gabay. By appropriate choice of Bregman function, the augmented Lagrangian subproblem in these methods can be made continuously differentiable. The primal-dual class of methods is entirely new and combines the best theoretical features of the primal and dual methods. Some preliminary computation shows that this class of algorithms is effective at solving many of the standard complementarity test problems. Received February 21, 1997 / Revised version received December 11, 1998? Published online May 12, 1999     

Augmented Lagrangian Active Set Methods for Obstacle Problems

Active set strategies for two-dimensional and three-dimensional, unilateral and bilateral obstacle problems are described. Emphasis is given to algorithms resulting from the augmented Lagrangian (i.e., primal-dual formulation of the discretized obstacle problems), for which convergence and rate of convergence are considered. For the bilateral case, modifications of the basic primal-dual algorithm are also introduced and analyzed. Finally, efficient computer realizations that are based on multigrid and multilevel methods are suggested and different aspects of the proposed techniques are investigated through numerical experiments.     

The use of linear programming duality in mixed integer programming

This paper is about the primal-dual relationship in a mixedinteger programming problem (MIP) in which integer variablesare binary. It shows how the primal-dual relationship of a linearprogramming problem (LP) can be used to advantage in MIPs. Thecentral idea is to look conceptually at the nature of all possibleLPs that arise from all possible settings for the discrete variablesin order to deduce general properties of the solution set. Afterdeveloping the relevant theory, we show the usefulness of thisaproach by applying it to three totally different problems.New results are derived for the method of least median of squaresin robust regression, the problem of rectilinear obnoxious-facilitylocation, and the problem of finding a fixed-size rectanglecontaining the minimum weight of points.     

Multiple periodic points of the Poincaré map of Lagrangian systems on tori

In this paper, suppose , A is positive definite and symmetric, and both A and V are and 1-periodic in all of their variables. We prove that the Poincaré map (i.e. the time-1-solution map) of the Lagrangian system possesses infinitely many periodic points on produced by contractible integer periodic solutions. Received July 23, 1997; in final form December 17, 1998     

On the Global Convergence of a Modified Augmented Lagrangian Linesearch Interior-Point Newton Method for Nonlinear Programming

We consider a linesearch globalization of the local primal-dual interior-point Newton method for nonlinear programming introduced by El-Bakry, Tapia, Tsuchiya, and Zhang. The linesearch uses a new merit function that incorporates a modification of the standard augmented Lagrangian function and a weak notion of centrality. We establish a global convergence theory and present promising numerical experimentation.     

Approximate <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-MSTs and <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-Steiner trees via the primal-dual method and Lagrangean relaxation

Garg [10] gives two approximation algorithms for the minimum-cost tree spanning k vertices in an undirected graph. Recently Jain and Vazirani [15] discovered primal-dual approximation algorithms for the metric uncapacitated facility location and k-median problems. In this paper we show how Gargs algorithms can be explained simply with ideas introduced by Jain and Vazirani, in particular via a Lagrangean relaxation technique together with the primal-dual method for approximation algorithms. We also derive a constant factor approximation algorithm for the k-Steiner tree problem using these ideas, and point out the common features of these problems that allow them to be solved with similar techniques.     

A mathematical programming model and solution for scheduling production orders in Shanghai Baoshan Iron and Steel Complex

In this paper, we investigate the production order scheduling problem derived from the production of steel sheets in Shanghai Baoshan Iron and Steel Complex (Baosteel). A deterministic mixed integer programming (MIP) model for scheduling production orders on some critical and bottleneck operations in Baosteel is presented in which practical technological constraints have been considered. The objective is to determine the starting and ending times of production orders on corresponding operations under capacity constraints for minimizing the sum of weighted completion times of all orders. Due to large numbers of variables and constraints in the model, a decomposition solution methodology based on a synergistic combination of Lagrangian relaxation, linear programming and heuristics is developed. Unlike the commonly used method of relaxing capacity constraints, this methodology alternatively relaxes constraints coupling integer variables with continuous variables which are introduced to the objective function by Lagrangian multipliers. The Lagrangian relaxed problem can be decomposed into two sub-problems by separating continuous variables from integer ones. The sub-problem that relates to continuous variables is a linear programming problem which can be solved using standard software package OSL, while the other sub-problem is an integer programming problem which can be solved optimally by further decomposition. The subgradient optimization method is used to update Lagrangian multipliers. A production order scheduling simulation system for Baosteel is developed by embedding the above Lagrangian heuristics. Computational results for problems with up to 100 orders show that the proposed Lagrangian relaxation method is stable and can find good solutions within a reasonable time.