@misc{Gamrath, author = {Gamrath, Gerald}, title = {Improving strong branching by propagation}, issn = {1438-0064}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-17701}, abstract = {Strong branching is an important component of most variable selection rules in branch-and-bound based mixed-integer linear programming solvers. It predicts the dual bounds of potential child nodes by solving auxiliary LPs and thereby helps to keep the branch-and-bound tree small. In this paper, we describe how these dual bound predictions can be improved by including domain propagation into strong branching. Computational experiments on standard MIP instances indicate that this is beneficial in three aspects: It helps to reduce the average number of LP iterations per strong branching call, the number of branch-and-bound nodes, and the overall solving time.}, language = {en} } @misc{HillerWalther, author = {Hiller, Benjamin and Walther, Tom}, title = {Improving branching for disjunctive polyhedral models using approximate convex decompositions}, issn = {1438-0064}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-67462}, abstract = {Disjunctive sets arise in a variety of optimization models and much esearch has been devoted to obtain strong relaxations for them. This paper focuses on the evaluation of the relaxation during the branch-and-bound search process. We argue that the branching possibilities (\ie binary variables) of the usual formulations are unsuitable to obtain strong bounds early in the search process as they do not capture the overall shape of the the entire disjunctive set. To analyze and exploit the shape of the disjunctive set we propose to compute a hierarchy of approximate convex decompositions and show how to extend the known formulations to obtain improved branching behavior.}, language = {en} } @misc{ShinanoHeinzVigerskeetal., author = {Shinano, Yuji and Heinz, Stefan and Vigerske, Stefan and Winkler, Michael}, title = {FiberSCIP - A shared memory parallelization of SCIP}, issn = {1438-0064}, doi = {10.1287/ijoc.2017.0762}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-42595}, abstract = {Recently, parallel computing environments have become significantly popular. In order to obtain the benefit of using parallel computing environments, we have to deploy our programs for these effectively. This paper focuses on a parallelization of SCIP (Solving Constraint Integer Programs), which is a MIP solver and constraint integer programming framework available in source code. There is a parallel extension of SCIP named ParaSCIP, which parallelizes SCIP on massively parallel distributed memory computing environments. This paper describes FiberSCIP, which is yet another parallel extension of SCIP to utilize multi-threaded parallel computation on shared memory computing environments, and has the following contributions: First, the basic concept of having two parallel extensions and the relationship between them and the parallelization framework provided by UG (Ubiquity Generator) is presented, including an implementation of deterministic parallelization. Second, the difficulties to achieve a good performance that utilizes all resources on an actual computing environment and the difficulties of performance evaluation of the parallel solvers are discussed. Third, a way to evaluate the performance of new algorithms and parameter settings of the parallel extensions is presented. Finally, current performance of FiberSCIP for solving mixed-integer linear programs (MIPs) and mixed-integer non-linear programs (MINLPs) in parallel is demonstrated.}, language = {en} } @misc{BertholdHendelKoch, author = {Berthold, Timo and Hendel, Gregor and Koch, Thorsten}, title = {The Three Phases of MIP Solving}, issn = {1438-0064}, doi = {10.1080/10556788.2017.1392519}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-61607}, abstract = {Modern MIP solvers employ dozens of auxiliary algorithmic components to support the branch-and-bound search in finding and improving primal solutions and in strengthening the dual bound. Typically, all components are tuned to minimize the average running time to prove optimality. In this article, we take a different look at the run of a MIP solver. We argue that the solution process consists of three different phases, namely achieving feasibility, improving the incumbent solution, and proving optimality. We first show that the entire solving process can be improved by adapting the search strategy with respect to the phase-specific aims using different control tunings. Afterwards, we provide criteria to predict the transition between the individual phases and evaluate the performance impact of altering the algorithmic behavior of the MIP solver SCIP at the predicted phase transition points.}, language = {en} } @misc{HillerKlugWitzig, author = {Hiller, Benjamin and Klug, Torsten and Witzig, Jakob}, title = {Reoptimization in branch-and-bound algorithms with an application to elevator control}, issn = {1438-0064}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-38527-8_33}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-17876}, abstract = {We consider reoptimization (i.e. the solution of a problem based on information available from solving a similar problem) for branch-and-bound algorithms and propose a generic framework to construct a reoptimizing branch-and-bound algorithm. We apply this to an elevator scheduling algorithm solving similar subproblems to generate columns using branch-and-bound. Our results indicate that reoptimization techniques can substantially reduce the running times of the overall algorithm.}, language = {en} }