TY - JOUR A1 - Mathieu, Besançon A1 - Carderera, Alejandro A1 - Pokutta, Sebastian T1 - FrankWolfe.jl: a high-performance and flexible toolbox for Frank-Wolfe algorithms and Conditional Gradients JF - INFORMS Journal on Computing N2 - We present FrankWolfe.jl, an open-source implementation of several popular Frank–Wolfe and conditional gradients variants for first-order constrained optimization. The package is designed with flexibility and high performance in mind, allowing for easy extension and relying on few assumptions regarding the user-provided functions. It supports Julia’s unique multiple dispatch feature, and it interfaces smoothly with generic linear optimization formulations using MathOptInterface.jl. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2022.1191 VL - 34 IS - 5 SP - 2383 EP - 2865 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Cutting Plane Selection with Analytic Centers and Multiregression T2 - Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research. CPAIOR 2023. N2 - Cutting planes are a crucial component of state-of-the-art mixed-integer programming solvers, with the choice of which subset of cuts to add being vital for solver performance. We propose new distance-based measures to qualify the value of a cut by quantifying the extent to which it separates relevant parts of the relaxed feasible set. For this purpose, we use the analytic centers of the relaxation polytope or of its optimal face, as well as alternative optimal solutions of the linear programming relaxation. We assess the impact of the choice of distance measure on root node performance and throughout the whole branch-and-bound tree, comparing our measures against those prevalent in the literature. Finally, by a multi-output regression, we predict the relative performance of each measure, using static features readily available before the separation process. Our results indicate that analytic center-based methods help to significantly reduce the number of branch-and-bound nodes needed to explore the search space and that our multiregression approach can further improve on any individual method. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33271-5_4 VL - 13884 SP - 52 EP - 68 PB - Springer ER - TY - GEN A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Cutting Plane Selection with Analytic Centers and Multiregression N2 - Cutting planes are a crucial component of state-of-the-art mixed-integer programming solvers, with the choice of which subset of cuts to add being vital for solver performance. We propose new distance-based measures to qualify the value of a cut by quantifying the extent to which it separates relevant parts of the relaxed feasible set. For this purpose, we use the analytic centers of the relaxation polytope or of its optimal face, as well as alternative optimal solutions of the linear programming relaxation. We assess the impact of the choice of distance measure on root node performance and throughout the whole branch-and-bound tree, comparing our measures against those prevalent in the literature. Finally, by a multi-output regression, we predict the relative performance of each measure, using static features readily available before the separation process. Our results indicate that analytic center-based methods help to significantly reduce the number of branch-and-bound nodes needed to explore the search space and that our multiregression approach can further improve on any individual method. T3 - ZIB-Report - 22-28 KW - cut selection KW - anlalytic center KW - mixed-integer programming Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-89065 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Besançon, Mathieu T1 - A Context-Aware Cutting Plane Selection Algorithm for Mixed-Integer Programming T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2023. OR 2023. N2 - The current cut selection algorithm used in mixed-integer programming solvers has remained largely unchanged since its creation. In this paper, we propose a set of new cut scoring measures, cut filtering techniques, and stopping criteria, extending the current state-of-the-art algorithm and obtaining a 5\% performance improvement for SCIP over the MIPLIB 2017 benchmark set. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58405-3_28 SP - 217 EP - 244 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjusila, Gennesaret A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - How Many Clues To Give? A Bilevel Formulation For The Minimum Sudoku Clue Problem JF - Operations Research Letters N2 - It has been shown that any 9 by 9 Sudoku puzzle must contain at least 17 clues to have a unique solution. This paper investigates the more specific question: given a particular completed Sudoku grid, what is the minimum number of clues in any puzzle whose unique solution is the given grid? We call this problem the Minimum Sudoku Clue Problem (MSCP). We formulate MSCP as a binary bilevel linear program, present a class of globally valid inequalities, and provide a computational study on 50 MSCP instances of 9 by 9 Sudoku grids. Using a general bilevel solver, we solve 95% of instances to optimality, and show that the solution process benefits from the addition of a moderate amount of inequalities. Finally, we extend the proposed model to other combinatorial problems in which uniqueness of the solution is of interest. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orl.2024.107105 VL - 54 SP - 107105 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Branching via Cutting Plane Selection: Improving Hybrid Branching N2 - Cutting planes and branching are two of the most important algorithms for solving mixed-integer linear programs. For both algorithms, disjunctions play an important role, being used both as branching candidates and as the foundation for some cutting planes. We relate branching decisions and cutting planes to each other through the underlying disjunctions that they are based on, with a focus on Gomory mixed-integer cuts and their corresponding split disjunctions. We show that selecting branching decisions based on quality measures of Gomory mixed-integer cuts leads to relatively small branch-and-bound trees, and that the result improves when using cuts that more accurately represent the branching decisions. Finally, we show how the history of previously computed Gomory mixed-integer cuts can be used to improve the performance of the state-of-the-art hybrid branching rule of SCIP. Our results show a 4% decrease in solve time, and an 8% decrease in number of nodes over affected instances of MIPLIB 2017. T3 - ZIB-Report - 23-17 KW - cutting plane selection KW - variable selection KW - mixed-integer programming Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-91120 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Besançon, Mathieu T1 - A Context-Aware Cutting Plane Selection Algorithm for Mixed-Integer Programming N2 - The current cut selection algorithm used in mixed-integer programming solvers has remained largely unchanged since its creation. In this paper, we propose a set of new cut scoring measures, cut filtering techniques, and stopping criteria, extending the current state-of-the-art algorithm and obtaining a 5\% performance improvement for SCIP over the MIPLIB 2017 benchmark set. T3 - ZIB-Report - 23-21 KW - cutting plane selection KW - mixed-integer programming Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-91691 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Tjusila, Gennesaret A1 - Besancon, Mathieu A1 - Turner, Mark A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - How Many Clues To Give? A Bilevel Formulation For The Minimum Sudoku Clue Problem N2 - It has been shown that any 9 by 9 Sudoku puzzle must contain at least 17 clues to have a unique solution. This paper investigates the more specific question: given a particular completed Sudoku grid, what is the minimum number of clues in any puzzle whose unique solution is the given grid? We call this problem the Minimum Sudoku Clue Problem (MSCP). We formulate MSCP as a binary bilevel linear program, present a class of globally valid inequalities, and provide a computational study on 50 MSCP instances of 9 by 9 Sudoku grids. Using a general bilevel solver, we solve 95\% of instances to optimality, and show that the solution process benefits from the addition of a moderate amount of inequalities. Finally, we extend the proposed model to other combinatorial problems in which uniqueness of the solution is of interest. T3 - ZIB-Report - 23-15 Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-90902 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Anjos, Miguel F. A1 - Brotcorne, Luce T1 - Complexity of near-optimal robust versions of multilevel optimization problems JF - Optimization Letters N2 - Near-optimality robustness extends multilevel optimization with a limited deviation of a lower level from its optimal solution, anticipated by higher levels. We analyze the complexity of near-optimal robust multilevel problems, where near-optimal robustness is modelled through additional adversarial decision-makers. Near-optimal robust versions of multilevel problems are shown to remain in the same complexity class as the problem without near-optimality robustness under general conditions. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-021-01754-9 VL - 15 IS - 8 SP - 2597 EP - 2610 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Carderera, Alejandro A1 - Pokutta, Sebastian A1 - Mathieu, Besançon T1 - Simple steps are all you need: Frank-Wolfe and generalized self-concordant functions T2 - Thirty-fifth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NeurIPS 2021 N2 - Generalized self-concordance is a key property present in the objective function of many important learning problems. We establish the convergence rate of a simple Frank-Wolfe variant that uses the open-loop step size strategy 𝛾𝑡 = 2/(𝑡 + 2), obtaining a O (1/𝑡) convergence rate for this class of functions in terms of primal gap and Frank-Wolfe gap, where 𝑡 is the iteration count. This avoids the use of second-order information or the need to estimate local smoothness parameters of previous work. We also show improved convergence rates for various common cases, e.g., when the feasible region under consideration is uniformly convex or polyhedral. Y1 - 2021 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Designolle, Sébastien A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Iommazzo, Gabriele A1 - Knebel, Sebastian A1 - Gelß, Patrick A1 - Pokutta, Sebastian T1 - Improved Local Models and New Bell Inequalities Via Frank-Wolfe Algorithms JF - Physical Review Research N2 - In Bell scenarios with two outcomes per party, we algorithmically consider the two sides of the membership problem for the local polytope: Constructing local models and deriving separating hyperplanes, that is, Bell inequalities. We take advantage of the recent developments in so-called Frank-Wolfe algorithms to significantly increase the convergence rate of existing methods. First, we study the threshold value for the nonlocality of two-qubit Werner states under projective measurements. Here, we improve on both the upper and lower bounds present in the literature. Importantly, our bounds are entirely analytical; moreover, they yield refined bounds on the value of the Grothendieck constant of order three: 1.4367⩽KG(3)⩽1.4546. Second, we demonstrate the efficiency of our approach in multipartite Bell scenarios, and present local models for all projective measurements with visibilities noticeably higher than the entanglement threshold. We make our entire code accessible as a julia library called BellPolytopes.jl. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.043059 VL - 5 SP - 043059 ER -