Spherical Minimax Location Problem

This paper presents an algorithm for determining a minimax location to service demand points that are equally weighted and distributed over a sphere. The norm under consideration is geodesic. The algorithm presented here is based on enumeration and has a polynomial time complexity.     

Nondifferentiability Detection and Dimensionality Reduction in Minisum Multifacility Location Problems

The minisum multifacility location problem is regarded as hard to solve, due to nondifferentiabilities whenever two or more facilities coincide. Recently, several authors have published conditions for the coincidence of facilities. In the present paper, these conditions are extended to more general location problems and improved with respect to new sufficient coincidence conditions for location problems with mixed asymmetric gauges. Some of these conditions are formulated only in terms of the given weights and certain values from a preprocessing step.     

A Probabilistic Minimax Location Problem on the Plane

In this paper we consider the weighted minimax (1-center) location problem in the plane when the weights are not given but rather drawn from independent uniform distributions. The problem is formulated and analyzed. For certain parameters of the uniform distributions the objective function is proven to be convex and thus can be easily solved by standard software such as the Solver in Excel. Computational experience is reported.     

A New Method for the Multifacility Minimax Location Problem

This paper presents a new method of locating n new facilities among m destinations in accordance with the minimax criterion; that is, the facilities are located to minimize the maximum weighted distance in the system. Distances may be rectangular, Euclidean, or general (l _p ). The method involves the numerical integration of ordinary differential equations and is computationally superior to methods using nonlinear programming.     

在闭凸集上连续型多场址的最优选择

本文考虑带有约束的连续型多场址问题(CEMFLC).对于连续型多场址问题(CEMFLC),我们给出了在闭集上选择最优场址的算法,证明了该算法是全局收敛的,最后,我们指出这一算法可用于解有约束或无约束的的高离散型多场址问题(EMFL),而且简化了(EMFL)问题现有的一些算法.     

Solving Euclidean Distance Multifacility Location Problems Using Conjugate Subgradient and Line-Search Methods

Subgradient methods are popular for solving nondifferentiable optimization problems because of their relative ease in implementation, but are not always robust and require a careful design of strategies in order to yield an effective procedure for any given class of problems. In this paper, we present an approach for solving the Euclidean distance multifacility location problem (EMFLP) using conjugate or deflected subgradient based algorithms along with suitable line-search strategies. The subgradient deflection method considered is the Average Direction Strategy (ADS) imbedded within the Variable Target Value Method (VTVM). We also investigate the generation of two types of subgradients to be employed in conjunction with ADS. The first type is a simple valid subgradient that assigns zero values to contributions corresponding to the nondifferentiable terms in the objective function, and so, the subgradient is composed by summing the contributions corresponding to the differentiable terms alone. The second type expends more effort to derive a low-norm member of the subdifferential in order to enhance the prospect of obtaining a descent direction. Furthermore, a special Newton-based line-search that exploits the nondifferentiability of the problem is also designed to be implemented in the developed algorithm in order to study its impact on the convergence behavior. Various combinations of the above strategies are composed and evaluated on a set of test problems. The results show that a modification of the VTVM method along with the first or a certain combination of the two subgradient generation strategies, and the use of a suitable line-search technique, provides promising results. An alternative block-halving step-size strategy used within VTVM in conjunction with the proposed line-search method yields a competitive second choice performance.     

Duality results for extended multifacility location problems

Abstract

Duality statements are presented for multifacility location problems as suggested by Drezner Hiu 1991, where for each given point the sum of weighted distances to all facilities plus set-up costs is determined and the maximal value of these sums is to be minimized. We develop corresponding dual problems for the cases with and without set-up costs and present associated optimality conditions. In the concluding part of this note we use these optimality conditions for a geometrical characterization of the set of optimal solutions and consider for an illustration corresponding examples.     

An Efficient Algorithm for Solving the Rectilinear Multifacility Location Problem

One of the efficient methods for solving large rectilinear multifacilitylocation problems is the Direct Search method. The only drawbackof this method lies in the following difficulty. In some situations,when t new facilities are located together at one point, thenumber of arithmetic operations which are needed to establishoptimality is proportional to t²2^t. Therefore the method needsa prohibitive amount of computation time whenever t exceeds,say, 20. This paper gives a simple remedy for this problem.The paper states and proves a new necessary and sufficient optimalitycondition. This condition transforms the problem of computinga descent direction into a constrained linear least-squaresproblem. The latter problem is solved by a relaxation methodthat takes advantage of its special structure. The new techniqueis incorporated into the Direct Search method. This yields animproved algorithm that handles efficiently very large clusters.Numerical results are included.     

Geometric interpretation of the optimality conditions in multifacility location and applications

Geometrical optimality conditions are developed for the minisum multifacility location problem involving any norm. These conditions are then used to derive sufficient conditions for coincidence of facilities at optimality; an example is given to show that these coincidence conditions seem difficult to generalize.     

Geometric interpretation of the optimality conditions in multifacility location and applications

Several corrections to Ref. 1 are pointed out.     

Smooth Transformation of the Generalized Minimax Problem

We consider the generalized minimax problem, that is, the problem of minimizing a function (x)=F(g ₁(x),...,g _m(x)), where F is a smooth function and each g _i is the maximum of a finite number of smooth functions. We prove that, under suitable assumptions, it is possible to construct a continuously differentiable exact barrier function, whose minimizers yield the minimizers of the function . In this way, the nonsmooth original problem can be solved by usual minimization techniques for unconstrained differentiable functions.     

精确罚函数和极小极大问题

在这篇文章中我们研究了对于不等式约束的非线性规划问题如何根据极小极大问题的鞍点来找精确罚问题的解。对于一个具有不等式约束的非线性规划问题,通过罚函数,我们构造出一个极小极大问题,应用交换“极小”或“极大”次序的策略,证明了罚问题的鞍点定理。研究结果显示极小极大问题的鞍点是精确罚问题的解。     

Minimax estimation of a variance

The nonparametric problem of estimating a variance based on a sample of sizen from a univariate distribution which has a known bounded range but is otherwise arbitrary is treated. For squared error loss, a certain linear function of the sample variance is seen to be minimax for eachn from 2 through 13, exceptn=4. For squared error loss weighted by the reciprocal of the variance, a constant multiple of the sample variance is minimax for eachn from 2 through 11. The least favorable distribution for these cases gives probability one to the Bernoulli distributions.     

最优场址问题的研究进展

３０年代以来，最优场址问题一直是运筹学界阳活跃的研究领域之一。此问题具有深镔实验背景和广泛的实用价值。本文综述了最优场址问题研究进展并对其发展历史进行了简单的回顾，主要介绍近年来最优场址问题研究的一些重要成果，对每一种成果进行了基本的评论。     

多目标minimax问题的极大熵逼近收敛性

本文利用极大熵逼近函数，展开了多目标ｍｉｎｉｍａｘ问题的逼近方法的研究，并讨论了该逼近方法的收敛性，所得结果是目前已有的结果进一步拓广．     

Portfolio Selection Problem with Minimax Type Risk Function

The investor's preference in risk estimation of portfolio selection problems is important as it influences investment strategies. In this paper a minimax risk criterion is considered. Specifically, the investor aims to restrict the standard deviation for each of the available stocks. The corresponding portfolio optimization problem is formulated as a linear program. Hence it can be implemented easily. A capital asset pricing model between the market portfolio and each individual return for this model is established using nonsmooth optimization methods. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate our approach for the risk estimation.     

A Genetic Algorithm Based Approach for the Uncapacitated Continuous Location–Allocation Problem

A GA-based approach is introduced to address the continuous location–allocation problem. Selection and removal procedures based on groups of chromosomes instead of individual chromosomes are put forward and specific crossover and mutation operators that rely on the impact of the genes are proposed. A new operator that injects once in a while new chromosomes into the population is also introduced. This provides diversity within the search and attempts to avoid early convergence. This approach is tested on existing data sets using several runs to evaluate the robustness of the proposed GA approach.     

An Algorithm for Continuous Type Optimal Location Problem

In this paper, we extend the ordinary discrete type facility location problems to continuous type ones. Unlike the discrete type facility location problem in which the objective function isn't everywhere differentiable, the objective function in the continuous type facility location problem is strictly convex and continuously differentiable. An algorithm without line search for solving the continuous type facility location problems is proposed and its global convergence, linear convergence rate is proved. Numerical experiments illustrate that the algorithm suggested in this paper have smaller amount of computation, quicker convergence rate than the gradient method and conjugate direction method in some sense.     

An Improved Lower Bound for the Multimedian Location Problem

We consider the problem of locating, on a network, n new facilities that interact with m existing facilities. In addition, pairs of new facilities interact. This problem, the multimedian location problem on a network, is known to be NP-hard. We give a new integer programming formulation of this problem, and show that its linear programming relaxation provides a lower bound that is superior to the bound provided by a previously published formulation. We also report results of computational testing with both formulations.     

On Minimax Fractional Optimality and Duality with Generalized Convexity

In this paper, we establish several sufficient optimality conditions for a class of generalized minimax fractional programming. Based on the sufficient conditions, a new dual model is constructed and duality results are derived. Our study naturally unifies and extends some previously known results in the framework of generalized convexity and dual models. Mathematics Subject Classifications: 90C25, 90C32, 90C47.