TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Witzig, Jakob T1 - Conflict Analysis for MINLP N2 - The generalization of MIP techniques to deal with nonlinear, potentially non-convex, constraints have been a fruitful direction of research for computational MINLP in the last decade. In this paper, we follow that path in order to extend another essential subroutine of modern MIP solvers towards the case of nonlinear optimization: the analysis of infeasible subproblems for learning additional valid constraints. To this end, we derive two different strategies, geared towards two different solution approaches. These are using local dual proofs of infeasibility for LP-based branch-and-bound and the creation of nonlinear dual proofs for NLP-based branch-and-bound, respectively. We discuss implementation details of both approaches and present an extensive computational study, showing that both techniques can significantly enhance performance when solving MINLPs to global optimality. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-20 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-78964 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo T1 - Conflict-Free Learning for Mixed Integer Programming N2 - Conflict learning plays an important role in solving mixed integer programs (MIPs) and is implemented in most major MIP solvers. A major step for MIP conflict learning is to aggregate the LP relaxation of an infeasible subproblem to a single globally valid constraint, the dual proof, that proves infeasibility within the local bounds. Among others, one way of learning is to add these constraints to the problem formulation for the remainder of the search. We suggest to not restrict this procedure to infeasible subproblems, but to also use global proof constraints from subproblems that are not (yet) infeasible, but can be expected to be pruned soon. As a special case, we also consider learning from integer feasible LP solutions. First experiments of this conflict-free learning strategy show promising results on the MIPLIB2017 benchmark set. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-59 KW - mixed integer programming KW - conflict analysis KW - dual proof analysis KW - no-good learning KW - solution learning Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-75338 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo T1 - Conflict-Free Learning for Mixed Integer Programming T2 - Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming. CPAIOR 2020 N2 - Conflict learning plays an important role in solving mixed integer programs (MIPs) and is implemented in most major MIP solvers. A major step for MIP conflict learning is to aggregate the LP relaxation of an infeasible subproblem to a single globally valid constraint, the dual proof, that proves infeasibility within the local bounds. Among others, one way of learning is to add these constraints to the problem formulation for the remainder of the search. We suggest to not restrict this procedure to infeasible subproblems, but to also use global proof constraints from subproblems that are not (yet) infeasible, but can be expected to be pruned soon. As a special case, we also consider learning from integer feasible LP solutions. First experiments of this conflict-free learning strategy show promising results on the MIPLIB2017 benchmark set. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58942-4_34 IS - 12296 SP - 521 EP - 530 PB - Springer, Cham. ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros ED - Bonifaci, Vincenzo ED - Demetrescu, Camil ED - Marchetti-Spaccamela, Alberto T1 - Undercover Branching T2 - Experimental Algorithms, 12th International Symposium, SEA 2013, Rome, Italy, June 5-7, 2013, Proceedings N2 - In this paper, we present a new branching strategy for nonconvex MINLP that aims at driving the created subproblems towards linearity. It exploits the structure of a minimum cover of an MINLP, a smallest set of variables that, when fixed, render the remaining system linear: whenever possible, branching candidates in the cover are preferred. Unlike most branching strategies for MINLP, Undercover branching is not an extension of an existing MIP branching rule. It explicitly regards the nonlinearity of the problem while branching on integer variables with a fractional relaxation solution. Undercover branching can be naturally combined with any variable-based branching rule. We present computational results on a test set of general MINLPs from MINLPLib, using the new strategy in combination with reliability branching and pseudocost branching. The computational cost of Undercover branching itself proves negligible. While it turns out that it can influence the variable selection only on a smaller set of instances, for those that are affected, significant improvements in performance are achieved. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38527-8_20 VL - 7933 SP - 212 EP - 223 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Shinano, Yuji T1 - MILP. Try. Repeat. JF - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling - PATAT 2021 Y1 - 2021 VL - 2 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Pedersen, Jaap A1 - Vanaret, Charlie T1 - Progress in Mathematical Programming Solvers from 2001 to 2020 N2 - This study investigates the progress made in LP and MILP solver performance during the last two decades by comparing the solver software from the beginning of the millennium with the codes available today. On average, we found out that for solving LP/MILP, computer hardware got about 20 times faster, and the algorithms improved by a factor of about nine for LP and around 50 for MILP, which gives a total speed-up of about 180 and 1,000 times, respectively. However, these numbers have a very high variance and they considerably underestimate the progress made on the algorithmic side: many problem instances can nowadays be solved within seconds, which the old codes are not able to solve within any reasonable time. T3 - ZIB-Report - 21-20 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-82779 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schade, Stanley A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Strategic Planning of Rolling Stock Rotations for Public Tenders T2 - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis - RailNorrköping 2019 N2 - Since railway companies have to apply for long-term public contracts to operate railway lines in public tenders, the question how they can estimate the operating cost for long-term periods adequately arises naturally. We consider a rolling stock rotation problem for a time period of ten years, which is based on a real world instance provided by an industry partner. We use a two stage approach for the cost estimation of the required rolling stock. In the first stage, we determine a weekly rotation plan. In the second stage, we roll out this weekly rotation plan for a longer time period and incorporate scheduled maintenance treatments. We present a heuristic approach and a mixed integer programming model to implement the process of the second stage. Finally, we discuss computational results for a real world tendering scenario. Y1 - 2019 UR - http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/article.asp?issue=069&article=009&volume= SN - 978-91-7929-992-7 SN - 1650-3686 VL - Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings IS - 069 SP - 148 EP - 159 PB - Linköping University Electronic Press, Linköpings universitet ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico T1 - Exploiting Dual Degeneracy in Branching N2 - Branch-and-bound methods for mixed-integer programming (MIP) are traditionally based on solving a linear programming (LP) relaxation and branching on a variable which takes a fractional value in the (single) computed relaxation optimum. In this paper, we study branching strategies for mixed-integer programs that exploit the knowledge of multiple alternative optimal solutions (a cloud ) of the current LP relaxation. These strategies naturally extend common methods like most infeasible branching, strong branching, pseudocost branching, and their hybrids, but we also propose a novel branching rule called cloud diameter branching. We show that dual degeneracy, a requirement for alternative LP optima, is present for many instances from common MIP test sets. Computational experiments show significant improvements in the quality of branching decisions as well as reduced branching effort when using our modifications of existing branching rules. We discuss different ways to generate a cloud of solutions and present extensive computational results showing that through a careful implementation, cloud modifications can speed up full strong branching by more than 10 % on standard test sets. Additionally, by exploiting degeneracy, we are also able to improve the state-of-the-art hybrid branching rule and reduce the solving time on affected instances by almost 20 % on average. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-17 KW - mixed integer programming KW - branching rule KW - search strategy KW - dual degeneracy Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-73028 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan T1 - Computational Aspects of Infeasibility Analysis in Mixed Integer Programming N2 - The analysis of infeasible subproblems plays an important role in solving mixed integer programs (MIPs) and is implemented in most major MIP solvers. There are two fundamentally different concepts to generate valid global constraints from infeasible subproblems. The first is to analyze the sequence of implications, obtained by domain propagation, that led to infeasibility. The result of this analysis is one or more sets of contradicting variable bounds from which so-called conflict constraints can be generated. This concept is called conflict graph analysis and has its origin in solving satisfiability problems and is similarly used in constraint programming. The second concept is to analyze infeasible linear programming (LP) relaxations. Every ray of the dual LP provides a set of multipliers that can be used to generate a single new globally valid linear constraint. This method is called dual proof analysis. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we present three enhancements of dual proof analysis: presolving via variable cancellation, strengthening by applying mixed integer rounding functions, and a filtering mechanism. Further, we provide an intense computational study evaluating the impact of every presented component regarding dual proof analysis. Secondly, this paper presents the first integrated approach to use both conflict graph and dual proof analysis simultaneously within a single MIP solution process. All experiments are carried out on general MIP instances from the standard public test set MIPLIB 2017; the presented algorithms have been implemented within the non-commercial MIP solver SCIP and the commercial MIP solver FICO Xpress. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-54 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-74962 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Farmer, James A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Perregaard, Michael T1 - Parallelization of the FICO Xpress Optimizer JF - Optimization Methods and Software N2 - Computing hardware has mostly thrashed out the physical limits for speeding up individual computing cores. Consequently, the main line of progress for new hardware is growing the number of computing cores within a single CPU. This makes the study of efficient parallelization schemes for computation-intensive algorithms more and more important. A natural precondition to achieving reasonable speedups from parallelization is maintaining a high workload of the available computational resources. At the same time, reproducibility and reliability are key requirements for software that is used in industrial applications. In this paper, we present the new parallelization concept for the state-of-the-art MIP solver FICO Xpress-Optimizer. MIP solvers like Xpress are expected to be deterministic. This inevitably results in synchronization latencies which render the goal of a satisfying workload a challenge in itself. We address this challenge by following a partial information approach and separating the concepts of simultaneous tasks and independent threads from each other. Our computational results indicate that this leads to a much higher CPU workload and thereby to an improved, almost linear, scaling on modern high-performance CPUs. As an added value, the solution path that Xpress takes is not only deterministic in a fixed environment, but also, to a certain extent, thread-independent. This paper is an extended version of Berthold et al. [Parallelization of the FICO Xpress-Optimizer, in Mathematical Software – ICMS 2016: 5th International Conference, G.-M. Greuel, T. Koch, P. Paule, and A. Sommere, eds., Springer International Publishing, Berlin, 2016, pp. 251–258] containing more detailed technical descriptions, illustrative examples and updated computational results. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10556788.2017.1333612 VL - 33 IS - 3 SP - 518 EP - 529 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Perregaard, Michael A1 - Mészáros, Csaba T1 - Four Good Reasons to Use an Interior Point Solver Within a MIP Solver T2 - Kliewer N., Ehmke J., Borndörfer R. (eds) Operations Research Proceedings 2017 N2 - “Interior point algorithms are a good choice for solving pure LPs or QPs, but when you solve MIPs, all you need is a dual simplex” This is the common conception which disregards that an interior point solution provides some unique structural insight into the problem at hand. In this paper, we will discuss some of the benefits that an interior point solver brings to the solution of difficult MIPs within FICO Xpress. This includes many different components of the MIP solver such as branching variable selection, primal heuristics, preprocessing, and of course the solution of the LP relaxation. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_22 SP - 159 EP - 164 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Müller, Benjamin A1 - Weltge, Stefan T1 - Three Enhancements for Optimization-Based Bound Tightening N2 - Optimization-based bound tightening (OBBT) is one of the most effective procedures to reduce variable domains of nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs). At the same time it is one of the most expensive bound tightening procedures, since it solves auxiliary linear programs (LPs)—up to twice the number of variables many. The main goal of this paper is to discuss algorithmic techniques for an efficient implementation of OBBT. Most state-of-the-art MINLP solvers apply some restricted version of OBBT and it seems to be common belief that OBBT is beneficial if only one is able to keep its computational cost under control. To this end, we introduce three techniques to increase the efficiency of OBBT: filtering strategies to reduce the number of solved LPs, ordering heuristics to exploit simplex warm starts, and the generation of Lagrangian variable bounds (LVBs). The propagation of LVBs during tree search is a fast approximation to OBBT without the need to solve auxiliary LPs. We conduct extensive computational experiments on MINLPLib2. Our results indicate that OBBT is most beneficial on hard instances, for which we observe a speedup of 17% to 19% on average. Most importantly, more instances can be solved when using OBBT. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-16 KW - MINLP KW - optimization-based bound tightening KW - optimality-based bound tightening KW - OBBT KW - propagation KW - bound tightening Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-57803 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Undercover: a primal MINLP heuristic exploring a largest sub-MIP N2 - We present Undercover, a primal heuristic for nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) that explores a mixed-integer linear subproblem (sub-MIP) of a given MINLP. We solve a vertex covering problem to identify a minimal set of variables that need to be fixed in order to linearize each constraint, a so-called cover. Subsequently, these variables are fixed to values obtained from a reference point, e.g., an optimal solution of a linear relaxation. We apply domain propagation and conflict analysis to try to avoid infeasibilities and learn from them, respectively. Each feasible solution of the sub-MIP corresponds to a feasible solution of the original problem. We present computational results on a test set of mixed-integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs) and general MINLPs from MINLPLib. It turns out that the majority of these instances allow for small covers. Although general in nature, the heuristic appears most promising for MIQCPs, and complements nicely with existing root node heuristics in different state-of-the-art solvers. T3 - ZIB-Report - 12-07 KW - Primal Heuristic KW - Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming KW - Large Neighborhood Search KW - Mixed-Integer Quadratically Constrained Programming KW - Nonconvex Optimization Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-14631 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan T1 - A Status Report on Conflict Analysis in Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming T2 - Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming. CPAIOR 2019 N2 - Mixed integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs) are arguably among the hardest optimization problems, with a wide range of applications. MINLP solvers that are based on linear relaxations and spatial branching work similar as mixed integer programming (MIP) solvers in the sense that they are based on a branch-and-cut algorithm, enhanced by various heuristics, domain propagation, and presolving techniques. However, the analysis of infeasible subproblems, which is an important component of most major MIP solvers, has been hardly studied in the context of MINLPs. There are two main approaches for infeasibility analysis in MIP solvers: conflict graph analysis, which originates from artificial intelligence and constraint programming, and dual ray analysis. The main contribution of this short paper is twofold. Firstly, we present the first computational study regarding the impact of dual ray analysis on convex and nonconvex MINLPs. In that context, we introduce a modified generation of infeasibility proofs that incorporates linearization cuts that are only locally valid. Secondly, we describe an extension of conflict analysis that works directly with the nonlinear relaxation of convex MINLPs instead of considering a linear relaxation. This is work-in-progress, and this short paper is meant to present first theoretical considerations without a computational study for that part. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19212-9_6 VL - 11494 SP - 84 EP - 94 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Stuckey, Peter A1 - Witzig, Jakob T1 - Local Rapid Learning for Integer Programs T2 - Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming. CPAIOR 2019 N2 - Conflict learning algorithms are an important component of modern MIP and CP solvers. But strong conflict information is typically gained by depth-first search. While this is the natural mode for CP solving, it is not for MIP solving. Rapid Learning is a hybrid CP/MIP approach where CP search is applied at the root to learn information to support the remaining MIP solve. This has been demonstrated to be beneficial for binary programs. In this paper, we extend the idea of Rapid Learning to integer programs, where not all variables are restricted to the domain {0, 1}, and rather than just running a rapid CP search at the root, we will apply it repeatedly at local search nodes within the MIP search tree. To do so efficiently, we present six heuristic criteria to predict the chance for local Rapid Learning to be successful. Our computational experiments indicate that our extended Rapid Learning algorithm significantly speeds up MIP search and is particularly beneficial on highly dual degenerate problems. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19212-9_5 VL - 11494 SP - 67 EP - 83 PB - Springer ER - TY - GEN A1 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Solving Open MIP Instances with ParaSCIP on Supercomputers using up to 80,000 Cores N2 - This paper describes how we solved 12 previously unsolved mixed-integer program- ming (MIP) instances from the MIPLIB benchmark sets. To achieve these results we used an enhanced version of ParaSCIP, setting a new record for the largest scale MIP computation: up to 80,000 cores in parallel on the Titan supercomputer. In this paper we describe the basic parallelization mechanism of ParaSCIP, improvements of the dynamic load balancing and novel techniques to exploit the power of parallelization for MIP solving. We give a detailed overview of computing times and statistics for solving open MIPLIB instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-53 KW - Mixed Integer Programming KW - Parallel processing KW - Node merging KW - Racing ParaSCIP KW - Ubiquity Generator Framework KW - MIPLIB Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-56404 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Structure-driven fix-and-propagate heuristics for mixed integer programming JF - Mathematical Programming Computation N2 - Primal heuristics play an important role in the solving of mixed integer programs (MIPs). They often provide good feasible solutions early and help to reduce the time needed to prove optimality. In this paper, we present a scheme for start heuristics that can be executed without previous knowledge of an LP solution or a previously found integer feasible solution. It uses global structures available within MIP solvers to iteratively fix integer variables and propagate these fixings. Thereby, fixings are determined based on the predicted impact they have on the subsequent domain propagation. If sufficiently many variables can be fixed that way, the resulting problem is solved first as an LP, and then as an auxiliary MIP if the rounded LP solution does not provide a feasible solution already. We present three primal heuristics that use this scheme based on different global structures. Our computational experiments on standard MIP test sets show that the proposed heuristics find solutions for about 60 % of the instances and by this, help to improve several performance measures for MIP solvers, including the primal integral and the average solving time. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-019-00159-1 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 675 EP - 702 PB - Springer CY - Berlin Heidelberg ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Stuckey, Peter A1 - Witzig, Jakob T1 - Local Rapid Learning for Integer Programs N2 - Conflict learning algorithms are an important component of modern MIP and CP solvers. But strong conflict information is typically gained by depth-first search. While this is the natural mode for CP solving, it is not for MIP solving. Rapid Learning is a hybrid CP/MIP approach where CP search is applied at the root to learn information to support the remaining MIP solve. This has been demonstrated to be beneficial for binary programs. In this paper, we extend the idea of Rapid Learning to integer programs, where not all variables are restricted to the domain {0, 1}, and rather than just running a rapid CP search at the root, we will apply it repeatedly at local search nodes within the MIP search tree. To do so efficiently, we present six heuristic criteria to predict the chance for local Rapid Learning to be successful. Our computational experiments indicate that our extended Rapid Learning algorithm significantly speeds up MIP search and is particularly beneficial on highly dual degenerate problems. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-56 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-71190 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan T1 - A Status Report on Conflict Analysis in Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming N2 - Mixed integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs) are arguably among the hardest optimization problems, with a wide range of applications. MINLP solvers that are based on linear relaxations and spatial branching work similar as mixed integer programming (MIP) solvers in the sense that they are based on a branch-and-cut algorithm, enhanced by various heuristics, domain propagation, and presolving techniques. However, the analysis of infeasible subproblems, which is an important component of most major MIP solvers, has been hardly studied in the context of MINLPs. There are two main approaches for infeasibility analysis in MIP solvers: conflict graph analysis, which originates from artificial intelligence and constraint programming, and dual ray analysis. The main contribution of this short paper is twofold. Firstly, we present the first computational study regarding the impact of dual ray analysis on convex and nonconvex MINLPs. In that context, we introduce a modified generation of infeasibility proofs that incorporates linearization cuts that are only locally valid. Secondly, we describe an extension of conflict analysis that works directly with the nonlinear relaxation of convex MINLPs instead of considering a linear relaxation. This is work-in-progress, and this short paper is meant to present first theoretical considerations without a computational study for that part. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-57 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-71170 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Hendel, Gregor A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Bastubbe, Michael A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Christophel, Philipp M. A1 - Jarck, Kati A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Linderoth, Jeff A1 - Lübbecke, Marco A1 - Mittelmann, Hans A1 - Ozyurt, Derya A1 - Ralphs, Ted A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico A1 - Shinano, Yuji T1 - MIPLIB 2017: Data-Driven Compilation of the 6th Mixed-Integer Programming Library JF - Mathematical Programming Computation N2 - We report on the selection process leading to the sixth version of the Mixed Integer Programming Library. Selected from an initial pool of over 5,000 instances, the new MIPLIB 2017 collection consists of 1,065 instances. A subset of 240 instances was specially selected for benchmarking solver performance. For the first time, the compilation of these sets was done using a data-driven selection process supported by the solution of a sequence of mixed integer optimization problems, which encoded requirements on diversity and balancedness with respect to instance features and performance data. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-020-00194-3 VL - 13 IS - 3 SP - 443 EP - 490 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Vigerske, Stefan A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - 制約整数計画ソルバ SCIP の並列化 JF - 統計数理 N2 - 制約整数計画(CIP: Constraint Integer Programs)は,制約プログラミング(CP: Constraint Programming),混合整数計画(MIP: Mixed Integer Programming),充足可能性問題(SAT: Satisfability Problem)の研究分野におけるモデリング技術と解法を統合している.その結果,制約整数計画は,広いクラスの最適化問題を扱うことができる.SCIP(Solving Constraint Integer Programs)は,CIP を解くソルバとして実装され,Zuse Institute Berlin(ZIB)の研究者を中心として継続的に拡張が続けられている.本論文では,著者らによって開発された SCIP に対する2 種類の並列化拡張を紹介する.一つは,複数計算ノード間で大規模に並列動作する ParaSCIPである.もう一つは,複数コアと共有メモリを持つ 1 台の計算機上で(スレッド)並列で動作する FiberSCIP である.ParaSCIP は,HLRN II スーパーコンピュータ上で,一つのインスタンスを解くために最大 7,168 コアを利用した動作実績がある.また,統計数理研究所の Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX200S5 上でも,最大 512 コアを利用した動作実績がある.統計数理研究所のFujitsu PRIMERGY RX200S5 上では,これまでに最適解が得られていなかった MIPLIB2010のインスタンスである dg012142 に最適解を与えた. N2 - The paradigm of constraint integer programming (CIP) combines modeling and solving techniques from the fields of constraint programming (CP), mixed-integer programming (MIP) and satisfability problem (SAT). This paradigm allows us to address a wide range of optimization problems. SCIP is an implementation of the idea of CIP and is now being continuously extended by a group of researchers centered at Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB). This paper introduces two parallel extensions of SCIP. One is ParaSCIP, which is intended to run on a large scale distributed memory computing environment, and the other is FiberSCIP, intended to run on a shared memory computing environment. ParaSCIP has been run successfully on the HLRN II supercomputer utilizing up to 7,168 cores to solve a single difficult MIP. It has also been tested on an ISM supercomputer (Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX200S5 using up to 512 cores). The previously unsolved instance dg012142 from MIPLIB2010 was solved by using the ISM supercomputer. Y1 - 2013 UR - https://www.ism.ac.jp/editsec/toukei/pdf/61-1-047.pdf VL - 61 IS - 1 SP - 47 EP - 78 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros ED - Bonami, Pierre ED - Liberti, Leo ED - Miller, Andrew J. ED - Sartenaer, Annick T1 - Undercover – a primal heuristic for MINLP based on sub-MIPs generated by set covering T2 - Proceedings of the European Workshop on Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming, April 12-16, 2010, Marseilles, France N2 - We present Undercover, a primal heuristic for mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP). The heuristic constructs a mixed-integer linear subproblem (sub-MIP) of a given MINLP by fixing a subset of the variables. We solve a set covering problem to identify a minimal set of variables which need to be fixed in order to linearise each constraint. Subsequently, these variables are fixed to approximate values, e.g. obtained from a linear outer approximation. The resulting sub-MIP is solved by a mixed-integer linear programming solver. Each feasible solution of the sub-MIP corresponds to a feasible solution of the original problem. Although general in nature, the heuristic seems most promising for mixed-integer quadratically constrained programmes (MIQCPs). We present computational results on a general test set of MIQCPs selected from the MINLPLib. Y1 - 2010 SP - 103 EP - 112 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 - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Undercover – a primal heuristic for MINLP based on sub-MIPs generated by set covering N2 - We present Undercover, a primal heuristic for mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP). The heuristic constructs a mixed-integer linear subproblem (sub-MIP) of a given MINLP by fixing a subset of the variables. We solve a set covering problem to identify a minimal set of variables which need to be fixed in order to linearise each constraint. Subsequently, these variables are fixed to approximate values, e.g. obtained from a linear outer approximation. The resulting sub-MIP is solved by a mixed-integer linear programming solver. Each feasible solution of the sub-MIP corresponds to a feasible solution of the original problem. Although general in nature, the heuristic seems most promising for mixed-integer quadratically constrained programmes (MIQCPs). We present computational results on a general test set of MIQCPs selected from the MINLPLib. T3 - ZIB-Report - 09-40 KW - MINLP KW - MIQCP KW - Primalheuristik KW - Nachbarschaftssuche KW - Mengenüberdeckung KW - mixed-integer nonlinear programming KW - MIQCP KW - primal heuristic KW - large neighborhood search KW - set covering Y1 - 2009 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11632 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Mexi, Gioni A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico T1 - Using Multiple Reference Vectors and Objective Scaling in the Feasibility Pump N2 - The Feasibility Pump (FP) is one of the best-known primal heuristics for mixed-integer programming (MIP): more than 15 papers suggested various modifications of all of its steps. So far, no variant considered information across multiple iterations, but all instead maintained the principle to optimize towards a single reference integer point. In this paper, we evaluate the usage of multiple reference vectors in all stages of the FP algorithm. In particular, we use LP-feasible vectors obtained during the main loop to tighten the variable domains before entering the computationally expensive enumeration stage. Moreover, we consider multiple integer reference vectors to explore further optimizing directions and introduce alternative objective scaling terms to balance the contributions of the distance functions and the original MIP objective. Our computational experiments demonstrate that the new method can improve performance on general MIP test sets. In detail, our modifications provide a 29.3% solution quality improvement and 4.0% running time improvement in an embedded setting, needing 16.0% fewer iterations over a large test set of MIP instances. In addition, the method’s success rate increases considerably within the first few iterations. In a standalone setting, we also observe a moderate performance improvement, which makes our version of FP suitable for the two main use-cases of the algorithm. T3 - ZIB-Report - 22-14 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-88513 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Vigerske, Stefan T1 - Analyzing the computational impact of MIQCP solver components N2 - We provide a computational study of the performance of a state-of-the-art solver for nonconvex mixed-integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs). Since successful general-purpose solvers for large problem classes necessarily comprise a variety of algorithmic techniques, we focus especially on the impact of the individual solver components. The solver SCIP used for the experiments implements a branch-and-cut algorithm based on a linear relaxation to solve MIQCPs to global optimality. Our analysis is based on a set of 86 publicly available test instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-08 KW - mixed-integer quadratically constrained programming KW - mixed-integer programming KW - branch-and-cut KW - nonconvex KW - global optimization Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-17754 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Pedersen, Jaap A1 - Vanaret, Charlie T1 - Progress in mathematical programming solvers from 2001 to 2020 JF - EURO Journal on Computational Optimization N2 - This study investigates the progress made in lp and milp solver performance during the last two decades by comparing the solver software from the beginning of the millennium with the codes available today. On average, we found out that for solving lp/milp, computer hardware got about 20 times faster, and the algorithms improved by a factor of about nine for lp and around 50 for milp, which gives a total speed-up of about 180 and 1,000 times, respectively. However, these numbers have a very high variance and they considerably underestimate the progress made on the algorithmic side: many problem instances can nowadays be solved within seconds, which the old codes are not able to solve within any reasonable time. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejco.2022.100031 VL - 10 SP - 100031 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Undercover Branching N2 - In this paper, we present a new branching strategy for nonconvex MINLP that aims at driving the created subproblems towards linearity. It exploits the structure of a minimum cover of an MINLP, a smallest set of variables that, when fixed, render the remaining system linear: whenever possible, branching candidates in the cover are preferred. Unlike most branching strategies for MINLP, Undercover branching is not an extension of an existing MIP branching rule. It explicitly regards the nonlinearity of the problem while branching on integer variables with a fractional relaxation solution. Undercover branching can be naturally combined with any variable-based branching rule. We present computational results on a test set of general MINLPs from MINLPLib, using the new strategy in combination with reliability branching and pseudocost branching. The computational cost of Undercover branching itself proves negligible. While it turns out that it can influence the variable selection only on a smaller set of instances, for those that are affected, significant improvements in performance are achieved. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-14 Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-18030 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Vigerske, Stefan T1 - On the computational impact of MIQCP solver components N2 - We provide a computational study of the performance of a state-of-the-art solver for nonconvex mixed-integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs). Since successful general-purpose solvers for large problem classes necessarily comprise a variety of algorithmic techniques, we focus especially on the impact of the individual solver components. The solver SCIP used for the experiments implements a branch-and-cut algorithm based on linear outer approximation to solve MIQCPs to global optimality. Our analysis is based on a set of 86 publicly available test instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-01 KW - MIQCP KW - MIP KW - mixed-integer quadratically constrained programming KW - computational KW - nonconvex Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11998 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 - 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 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Solving Previously Unsolved MIP Instances with ParaSCIP on Supercomputers by using up to 80,000 Cores N2 - Mixed-integer programming (MIP) problem is arguably among the hardest classes of optimization problems. This paper describes how we solved 21 previously unsolved MIP instances from the MIPLIB benchmark sets. To achieve these results we used an enhanced version of ParaSCIP, setting a new record for the largest scale MIP computation: up to 80,000 cores in parallel on the Titan supercomputer. In this paper, we describe the basic parallelization mechanism of ParaSCIP, improvements of the dynamic load balancing and novel techniques to exploit the power of parallelization for MIP solving. We give a detailed overview of computing times and statistics for solving open MIPLIB instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-16 KW - Mixed Integer Programming, Parallel processing, Node merging, Racing, ParaSCIP, Ubiquity Generator Framework, MIPLIB Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-78393 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Structure-Based Primal Heuristics for Mixed Integer Programming T2 - Optimization in the Real World N2 - Primal heuristics play an important role in the solving of mixed integer programs (MIPs). They help to reach optimality faster and provide good feasible solutions early in the solving process. In this paper, we present two new primal heuristics which take into account global structures available within MIP solvers to construct feasible solutions at the beginning of the solving process. These heuristics follow a large neighborhood search (LNS) approach and use global structures to define a neighborhood that is with high probability significantly easier to process while (hopefully) still containing good feasible solutions. The definition of the neighborhood is done by iteratively fixing variables and propagating these fixings. Thereby, fixings are determined based on the predicted impact they have on the subsequent domain propagation. The neighborhood is solved as a sub-MIP and solutions are transferred back to the original problem. Our computational experiments on standard MIP test sets show that the proposed heuristics find solutions for about every third instance and therewith help to improve the average solving time. Y1 - 2015 SN - 978-4-431-55419-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55420-2_3 VL - 13 SP - 37 EP - 53 PB - Springer Japan ER - TY - GEN A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan T1 - Experiments with Conflict Analysis in Mixed Integer Programming N2 - The analysis of infeasible subproblems plays an import role in solving mixed integer programs (MIPs) and is implemented in most major MIP solvers. There are two fundamentally different concepts to generate valid global constraints from infeasible subproblems. The first is to analyze the sequence of implications obtained by domain propagation that led to infeasibility. The result of the analysis is one or more sets of contradicting variable bounds from which so-called conflict constraints can be generated. This concept has its origin in solving satisfiability problems and is similarly used in constraint programming. The second concept is to analyze infeasible linear programming (LP) relaxations. The dual LP solution provides a set of multipliers that can be used to generate a single new globally valid linear constraint. The main contribution of this short paper is an empirical evaluation of two ways to combine both approaches. Experiments are carried out on general MIP instances from standard public test sets such as Miplib2010; the presented algorithms have been implemented within the non-commercial MIP solver SCIP. Moreover, we present a pool-based approach to manage conflicts which addresses the way a MIP solver traverses the search tree better than aging strategies known from SAT solving. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-63 Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-61087 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Mexi, Gioni A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico T1 - Using Multiple Reference Vectors and Objective Scaling in the Feasibility Pump JF - EURO Journal on Computational Optimization N2 - The Feasibility Pump (FP) is one of the best-known primal heuristics for mixed-integer programming (MIP): more than 15 papers suggested various modifications of all of its steps. So far, no variant considered information across multiple iterations, but all instead maintained the principle to optimize towards a single reference integer point. In this paper, we evaluate the usage of multiple reference vectors in all stages of the FP algorithm. In particular, we use LP-feasible vectors obtained during the main loop to tighten the variable domains before entering the computationally expensive enumeration stage. Moreover, we consider multiple integer reference vectors to explore further optimizing directions and introduce alternative objective scaling terms to balance the contributions of the distance functions and the original MIP objective. Our computational experiments demonstrate that the new method can improve performance on general MIP test sets. In detail, our modifications provide a 29.3% solution quality improvement and 4.0% running time improvement in an embedded setting, needing 16.0% fewer iterations over a large test set of MIP instances. In addition, the method’s success rate increases considerably within the first few iterations. In a standalone setting, we also observe a moderate performance improvement, which makes our version of FP suitable for the two main use-cases of the algorithm. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-87392 VL - 11 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ralphs, Ted A1 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Koch, Thorsten ED - Hamadi, Youssef T1 - Parallel Solvers for Mixed Integer Linear Optimization T2 - Handbook of Parallel Constraint Reasoning Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63516-3_8 SP - 283 EP - 336 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - GEN A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo T1 - Improving the Feasibility Pump N2 - The Feasibility Pump of Fischetti, Glover, Lodi, and Bertacco has proved to be a very successful heuristic for finding feasible solutions of mixed integer programs. The quality of the solutions in terms of the objective value, however, tends to be poor. This paper proposes a slight modification of the algorithm in order to find better solutions. Extensive computational results show the success of this variant: in 89 out of 121 MIP instances the modified version produces improved solutions in comparison to the original Feasibility Pump. T3 - ZIB-Report - 05-42 KW - mixed integer programming KW - primal heuristics KW - feasibility pump Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-8754 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bolusani, Suresh A1 - Besançon, Mathieu A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - D'Ambrosio, Claudia A1 - Muñoz, Gonzalo A1 - Paat, Joseph A1 - Thomopulos, Dimitri T1 - The MIP workshop 2023 computational competition on reoptimization JF - Mathematical Programming Computation N2 - This paper describes the computational challenge developed for a computational competition held in 2023 for the 20th anniversary of the Mixed Integer Programming Workshop. The topic of this competition was reoptimization, also known as warm starting, of mixed integer linear optimization problems after slight changes to the input data for a common formulation. The challenge was to accelerate the proof of optimality of the modified instances by leveraging the information from the solving processes of previously solved instances, all while creating high-quality primal solutions. Specifically, we discuss the competition’s format, the creation of public and hidden datasets, and the evaluation criteria. Our goal is to establish a methodology for the generation of benchmark instances and an evaluation framework, along with benchmark datasets, to foster future research on reoptimization of mixed integer linear optimization problems. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-024-00256-w VL - 16 SP - 255 EP - 266 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mexi, Gioni A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Nordström, Jakob T1 - Improving Conflict Analysis in MIP Solvers by Pseudo-Boolean Reasoning T2 - 29th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2023) N2 - Conflict analysis has been successfully generalized from Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solving to mixed integer programming (MIP) solvers, but although MIP solvers operate with general linear inequalities, the conflict analysis in MIP has been limited to reasoning with the more restricted class of clausal constraint. This is in contrast to how conflict analysis is performed in so-called pseudo-Boolean solving, where solvers can reason directly with 0-1 integer linear inequalities rather than with clausal constraints extracted from such inequalities. In this work, we investigate how pseudo-Boolean conflict analysis can be integrated in MIP solving, focusing on 0-1 integer linear programs (0-1 ILPs). Phrased in MIP terminology, conflict analysis can be understood as a sequence of linear combinations and cuts. We leverage this perspective to design a new conflict analysis algorithm based on mixed integer rounding (MIR) cuts, which theoretically dominates the state-of-the-art division-based method in pseudo-Boolean solving. We also report results from a first proof-of-concept implementation of different pseudo-Boolean conflict analysis methods in the open-source MIP solver SCIP. When evaluated on a large and diverse set of 0-1 ILP instances from MIPLIB2017, our new MIR-based conflict analysis outperforms both previous pseudo-Boolean methods and the clause-based method used in MIP. Our conclusion is that pseudo-Boolean conflict analysis in MIP is a promising research direction that merits further study, and that it might also make sense to investigate the use of such conflict analysis to generate stronger no-goods in constraint programming. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2023.27 VL - 280 SP - 27:1 EP - 27:19 PB - Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Csizmadia, Zsolt A1 - Berthold, Timo T1 - The confined primal integral: a measure to benchmark heuristic MINLP solvers against global MINLP solvers JF - Mathematical Programming N2 - It is a challenging task to fairly compare local solvers and heuristics against each other and against global solvers. How does one weigh a faster termination time against a better quality of the found solution? In this paper, we introduce the confined primal integral, a new performance measure that rewards a balance of speed and solution quality. It emphasizes the early part of the solution process by using an exponential decay. Thereby, it avoids that the order of solvers can be inverted by choosing an arbitrarily large time limit. We provide a closed analytic formula to compute the confined primal integral a posteriori and an incremental update formula to compute it during the run of an algorithm. For the latter, we show that we can drop one of the main assumptions of the primal integral, namely the knowledge of a fixed reference solution to compare against. Furthermore, we prove that the confined primal integral is a transitive measure when comparing local solves with different final solution values. Finally, we present a computational experiment where we compare a local MINLP solver that uses certain classes of cutting planes against a solver that does not. Both versions show very different tendencies w.r.t. average running time and solution quality, and we use the confined primal integral to argue which of the two is the preferred setting. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10107-020-01547-5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Berthold, Timo T1 - Conflict Analysis for MINLP JF - INFORMS Journal on Computing N2 - The generalization of MIP techniques to deal with nonlinear, potentially non-convex, constraints have been a fruitful direction of research for computational MINLP in the last decade. In this paper, we follow that path in order to extend another essential subroutine of modern MIP solvers towards the case of nonlinear optimization: the analysis of infeasible subproblems for learning additional valid constraints. To this end, we derive two different strategies, geared towards two different solution approaches. These are using local dual proofs of infeasibility for LP-based branch-and-bound and the creation of nonlinear dual proofs for NLP-based branch-and-bound, respectively. We discuss implementation details of both approaches and present an extensive computational study, showing that both techniques can significantly enhance performance when solving MINLPs to global optimality. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2020.1050 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 421 EP - 435 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico T1 - An exploratory computational analysis of dual degeneracy in mixed-integer programming JF - EURO Journal on Computational Optimization N2 - Dual degeneracy, i.e., the presence of multiple optimal bases to a linear programming (LP) problem, heavily affects the solution process of mixed integer programming (MIP) solvers. Different optimal bases lead to different cuts being generated, different branching decisions being taken and different solutions being found by primal heuristics. Nevertheless, only a few methods have been published that either avoid or exploit dual degeneracy. The aim of the present paper is to conduct a thorough computational study on the presence of dual degeneracy for the instances of well-known public MIP instance collections. How many instances are affected by dual degeneracy? How degenerate are the affected models? How does branching affect degeneracy: Does it increase or decrease by fixing variables? Can we identify different types of degenerate MIPs? As a tool to answer these questions, we introduce a new measure for dual degeneracy: the variable–constraint ratio of the optimal face. It provides an estimate for the likelihood that a basic variable can be pivoted out of the basis. Furthermore, we study how the so-called cloud intervals—the projections of the optimal face of the LP relaxations onto the individual variables—evolve during tree search and the implications for reducing the set of branching candidates. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s13675-020-00130-z IS - 8 SP - 241 EP - 246 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Andersen, Erling A1 - Bastert, Oliver A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Bixby, Robert E. A1 - Danna, Emilie A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Lodi, Andrea A1 - Mittelmann, Hans A1 - Ralphs, Ted A1 - Salvagnin, Domenico A1 - Steffy, Daniel A1 - Wolter, Kati T1 - MIPLIB 2010 JF - Mathematical Programming Computation Y1 - 2011 UR - http://mpc.zib.de/index.php/MPC/article/view/56 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-011-0025-9 VL - 3 IS - 2 SP - 103 EP - 163 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Wolter, Kati ED - Perron, Laurent ED - Trick, Michael T1 - Constraint Integer Programming: A New Approach to Integrate CP and MIP T2 - Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, 5th International Conference, CPAIOR 2008 Y1 - 2008 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68155-7_4 VL - 5015 SP - 6 EP - 20 PB - Springer ER - TY - GEN A1 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Achterberg, Tobias A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - ParaSCIP - a parallel extension of SCIP N2 - Mixed integer programming (MIP) has become one of the most important techniques in Operations Research and Discrete Optimization. SCIP (Solving Constraint Integer Programs) is currently one of the fastest non-commercial MIP solvers. It is based on the branch-and-bound procedure in which the problem is recursively split into smaller subproblems, thereby creating a so-called branching tree. We present ParaSCIP, an extension of SCIP, which realizes a parallelization on a distributed memory computing environment. ParaSCIP uses SCIP solvers as independently running processes to solve subproblems (nodes of the branching tree) locally. This makes the parallelization development independent of the SCIP development. Thus, ParaSCIP directly profits from any algorithmic progress in future versions of SCIP. Using a first implementation of ParaSCIP, we were able to solve two previously unsolved instances from MIPLIB2003, a standard test set library for MIP solvers. For these computations, we used up to 2048 cores of the HLRN~II supercomputer. T3 - ZIB-Report - 10-27 KW - massive parallization KW - mixed integer programming KW - ParaSCIP KW - branch-and-cut KW - branch-and-bound Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11921 UR - http://www.springerlink.com/content/t2160206253v7661/ ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Shinano, Yuji T1 - SCIP Optimization Suite を利用した 混合整数(線形/非線形) 計画問題の解法 T2 - Proceedings of the 24th RAMP symposium. The Operations Society of Japan, RAMP: Research Association of Mathematical Programming N2 - この論文ではソフトウェア・パッケージSCIP Optimization Suite を紹介し,その3つの構成要素:モデリン グ言語Zimpl, 線形計画(LP: linear programming) ソルバSoPlex, そして,制約整数計画(CIP: constraint integer programming) に対するソフトウェア・フレームワークSCIP, について述べる.本論文では,この3つの 構成要素を利用して,どのようにして挑戦的な混合整数線形計画問題(MIP: mixed integer linear optimization problems) や混合整数非線形計画問題(MINLP: mixed integer nonlinear optimization problems) をモデル化 し解くのかを説明する.SCIP は,現在,最も高速なMIP,MINLP ソルバの1つである.いくつかの例により, Zimpl, SCIP, SoPlex の利用方法を示すとともに,利用可能なインタフェースの概要を示す.最後に,将来の開 発計画の概要について述べる. N2 - This paper introduces the SCIP Optimization Suite and discusses the capabilities of its three components: the modeling language Zimpl, the linear programming solver SoPlex, and the constraint integer programming framework SCIP. We explain how in concert these can be used to model and solve challenging mixed integer linear and nonlinear optimization problems. SCIP is currently one of the fastest non-commercial MIP and MINLP solvers. We demonstrate the usage of Zimpl, SCIP, and SoPlex by selected examples, we give an overview over available interfaces, and outline plans for future development. Y1 - 2012 SP - 165 EP - 192 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Vigerske, Stefan T1 - Analyzing the computational impact of MIQCP solver components JF - Numerical Algebra, Control and Optimization N2 - We provide a computational study of the performance of a state-of-the-art solver for nonconvex mixed-integer quadratically constrained programs (MIQCPs). Since successful general-purpose solvers for large problem classes necessarily comprise a variety of algorithmic techniques, we focus especially on the impact of the individual solver components. The solver SCIP used for the experiments implements a branch-and-cut algorithm based on a linear relaxation to solve MIQCPs to global optimality. Our analysis is based on a set of 86 publicly available test instances. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3934/naco.2012.2.739 VL - 2 IS - 4 SP - 739 EP - 748 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Schulz, Jens T1 - An approximative Criterion for the Potential of Energetic Reasoning T2 - Theory and Practice of Algorithms in (Computer) Systems Y1 - 2011 VL - 6595 SP - 229 EP - 239 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hendel, Gregor A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Achterberg, Tobias T1 - Rounding and Propagation Heuristics for Mixed Integer Programming T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2011 N2 - Primal heuristics are an important component of state-of-the-art codes for mixed integer programming. In this paper, we focus on primal heuristics that only employ computationally inexpensive procedures such as rounding and logical deductions (propagation). We give an overview of eight different approaches. To assess the impact of these primal heuristics on the ability to find feasible solutions, in particular early during search, we introduce a new performance measure, the primal integral. Computational experiments evaluate this and other measures on MIPLIB~2010 benchmark instances. Y1 - 2011 SP - 71 EP - 76 ER -