@unpublished{BaermannGellermannMerkertetal.2016, author = {B{\"a}rmann, Andreas and Gellermann, Thorsten and Merkert, Maximilian and Schneider, Oskar}, title = {Staircase Compatibility and its Applications in Scheduling and Piecewise Linearization}, pages = {24}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We consider the clique problem with multiple-choice constraints (CPMC) and characterize a case where it is possible to give an efficient description of the convex hull of its feasible solutions. This case, which we call staircase compatibility, generalizes common properties in applications and allows for a linear description of the integer feasible solutions to (CPMC) with a totally unimodular constraint matrix of polynomial size. We derive two such totally unimodular reformulations for the problem: one that is obtained by a strengthening of the compatibility constraints and one that is based on a representation as a dual network flow problem. Furthermore, we show a natural way to derive integral solutions from fractional solutions to the problem by determining integral extreme points generating this fractional solution. We also evaluate our reformulations from a computational point of view by applying them to two different real-world applications. The first one is a problem in railway timetabling where we try to adapt a given timetable slightly such that energy costs from operating the trains are reduced. The second one is the piecewise linearization of non-linear flow problems on a gas network. In both cases, we are able to reduce the solution times significantly by passing to the theoretically stronger formulations of the problem.}, language = {en} } @unpublished{AignerBaermannBraunetal.2023, author = {Aigner, Kevin-Martin and B{\"a}rmann, Andreas and Braun, Kristin and Liers, Frauke and Pokutta, Sebastian and Schneider, Oskar and Sharma, Kartikey and Tschuppik, Sebastian}, title = {Data-driven Distributionally Robust Optimization over Time}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Stochastic Optimization (SO) is a classical approach for optimization under uncertainty that typically requires knowledge about the probability distribution of uncertain parameters. As the latter is often unknown, Distributionally Robust Optimization (DRO) provides a strong alternative that determines the best guaranteed solution over a set of distributions (ambiguity set). In this work, we present an approach for DRO over time that uses online learning and scenario observations arriving as a data stream to learn more about the uncertainty. Our robust solutions adapt over time and reduce the cost of protection with shrinking ambiguity. For various kinds of ambiguity sets, the robust solutions converge to the SO solution. Our algorithm achieves the optimization and learning goals without solving the DRO problem exactly at any step. We also provide a regret bound for the quality of the online strategy which converges at a rate of \$ O(\log T / \sqrt{T})\$, where \$T\$ is the number of iterations. Furthermore, we illustrate the effectiveness of our procedure by numerical experiments on mixed-integer optimization instances from popular benchmark libraries and give practical examples stemming from telecommunications and routing. Our algorithm is able to solve the DRO over time problem significantly faster than standard reformulations.}, language = {en} }