@phdthesis{Humpola2014, author = {Humpola, Jesco}, title = {Gas Network Optimization by MINLP}, school = {Technische Universit{\"a}t Berlin}, year = {2014}, abstract = {One quarter of Europe's energy demand is provided by natural gas distributed through a vast pipeline network covering the whole of Europe. At a cost of 1 million Euros per kilometer the extension of the European pipeline network is already a multi billion Euro business. The challenging question is how to expand and operate the network in order to facilitate the transportation of specified gas quantities at minimum cost. This task can be formulated as a mathematical optimization problem that reflects to real-world instances of enormous size and complexity. The aim of this thesis is the development of novel theory and optimization algorithms which make it possible to solve these problems. Gas network topology optimization problems can be modeled as nonlinear mixed-integer programs (MINLPs). Such an MINLP gives rise to a so-called active transmission problem (ATP), a continuous nonlinear non-convex feasibility problem which emerges from the MINLP model by fixing all integral variables. The key to solving the ATP as well as the overall gas network topology optimization problem and the main contribution of this thesis is a novel domain relaxation of the variable bounds and constraints in combination with a penalization in the objective function. In case the domain relaxation does not yield a primal feasible solution for the ATP we offer novel sufficient conditions for proving the infeasibility of the ATP. These conditions can be expressed in the form of an MILP, i.e., the infeasibility of a non-convex NLP can be certified by solving an MILP. These results provide an efficient bounding procedure in a branch-and-bound algorithm. If the gas network consists only of pipes and valves, the ATP turns into a passive transmission problem (PTP). Although its constraints are non-convex, its domain relaxation can be proven to be convex. Consequently, the feasibility of the PTP can be checked directly in an efficient way. Another advantage of the passive case is that the solution of the domain relaxation gives rise to a cutting plane for the overall topology optimization problem that expresses the infeasibility of the PTP. This cut is obtained by a Benders argument from the Lagrange function of the domain relaxation augmented by a specially tailored pc-regularization. These cuts provide tight lower bounds for the passive gas network topology optimization problem. The domain relaxation does not only provide certificates of infeasibility and cutting planes, it can also be used to construct feasible primal solutions. We make use of parametric sensitivity analysis in order to identify binary variables to be switched based on dual information. This approach allows for the first time to compute directly MINLP solutions for large-scale gas network topology optimization problems. All the research in this thesis has been realized within the collaborative research project "Forschungskooperation Netzoptimierung (ForNe)". The developed software is in use by the cooperation partner Open Grid Europe GmbH. Parts of this thesis have been published in book chapters, journal articles and technical reports. An overview of the topics and solution approaches within the research project is given by Martin et al. (2011) and F{\"u}genschuh et al. (2013). Gas network operation approaches and solution methods are described in detail by Pfetsch et al. (2014) and with a special focus on topology optimization in F{\"u}genschuh et al. (2011). The primal heuristic presented in this thesis is published by Humpola et al. (2014b). The method for pruning nodes of the branch-and-bound tree for an approximation of the original problem is described in F{\"u}genschuh and Humpola (2013) and Humpola et al. (2014a). The Benders like inequality is introduced by Humpola and F{\"u}genschuh (2013).}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Beckenbach2019, author = {Beckenbach, Isabel}, title = {Matchings and Flows in Hypergraphs}, year = {2019}, abstract = {In this dissertation, we study matchings and flows in hypergraphs using combinatorial methods. These two problems are among the best studied in the field of combinatorial optimization. As hypergraphs are a very general concept, not many results on graphs can be generalized to arbitrary hypergraphs. Therefore, we consider special classes of hypergraphs, which admit more structure, to transfer results from graph theory to hypergraph theory. In Chapter 2, we investigate the perfect matching problem on different classes of hypergraphs generalizing bipartite graphs. First, we give a polynomial time approximation algorithm for the maximum weight matching problem on so-called partitioned hypergraphs, whose approximation factor is best possible up to a constant. Afterwards, we look at the theorems of K{\"o}nig and Hall and their relation. Our main result is a condition for the existence of perfect matchings in normal hypergraphs that generalizes Hall's condition for bipartite graphs. In Chapter 3, we consider perfect f-matchings, f-factors, and (g,f)-matchings. We prove conditions for the existence of (g,f)-matchings in unimodular hypergraphs, perfect f-matchings in uniform Mengerian hypergraphs, and f-factors in uniform balanced hypergraphs. In addition, we give an overview about the complexity of the (g,f)-matching problem on different classes of hypergraphs generalizing bipartite graphs. In Chapter 4, we study the structure of hypergraphs that admit a perfect matching. We show that these hypergraphs can be decomposed along special cuts. For graphs it is known that the resulting decomposition is unique, which does not hold for hypergraphs in general. However, we prove the uniqueness of this decomposition (up to parallel hyperedges) for uniform hypergraphs. In Chapter 5, we investigate flows on directed hypergraphs, where we focus on graph-based directed hypergraphs, which means that every hyperarc is the union of a set of pairwise disjoint ordinary arcs. We define a residual network, which can be used to decide whether a given flow is optimal or not. Our main result in this chapter is an algorithm that computes a minimum cost flow on a graph-based directed hypergraph. This algorithm is a generalization of the network simplex algorithm.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Pulaj, author = {Pulaj, Jonad}, title = {Cutting Planes for Union-Closed Families}, abstract = {Frankl's (union-closed sets) conjecture states that for any nonempty finite union-closed (UC) family of distinct sets there exists an element in at least half of the sets. Poonen's Theorem characterizes the existence of weights which determine whether a given UC family ensures Frankl's conjecture holds for all UC families which contain it. The weight systems are nontrivial to identify for a given UC family, and methods to determine such weight systems have led to several other open questions and conjectures regarding structures in UC families. We design a cutting-plane method that computes the explicit weights which imply the existence conditions of Poonen's Theorem using computational integer programming coupled with redundant verification routines that ensure correctness. We find over one hundred previously unknown families of sets which ensure Frankl's conjecture holds for all families that contain any of them. This improves significantly on all previous results of the kind. Our framework allows us to answer several open questions and conjectures regarding structural properties of UC families, including proving the 3-sets conjecture of Morris from 2006 which characterizes the minimum number of 3-sets that ensure Frankl's conjecture holds for all families that contain them. Furthermore, our method provides a general algorithmic road-map for improving other known results and uncovering structures in UC families.}, language = {en} }