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 - 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 - GEN A1 - Gamrath, Gerald A1 - Anderson, Daniel A1 - Bestuzheva, Ksenia A1 - Chen, Wei-Kun A1 - Eifler, Leon A1 - Gasse, Maxime A1 - Gemander, Patrick A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Gottwald, Leona A1 - Halbig, Katrin A1 - Hendel, Gregor A1 - Hojny, Christopher A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Le Bodic, Pierre A1 - Maher, Stephen J. A1 - Matter, Frederic A1 - Miltenberger, Matthias A1 - Mühmer, Erik A1 - Müller, Benjamin A1 - Pfetsch, Marc A1 - Schlösser, Franziska A1 - Serrano, Felipe A1 - Shinano, Yuji A1 - Tawfik, Christine A1 - Vigerske, Stefan A1 - Wegscheider, Fabian A1 - Weninger, Dieter A1 - Witzig, Jakob T1 - The SCIP Optimization Suite 7.0 N2 - The SCIP Optimization Suite provides a collection of software packages for mathematical optimization centered around the constraint integer programming frame- work SCIP. This paper discusses enhancements and extensions contained in version 7.0 of the SCIP Optimization Suite. The new version features the parallel presolving library PaPILO as a new addition to the suite. PaPILO 1.0 simplifies mixed-integer linear op- timization problems and can be used stand-alone or integrated into SCIP via a presolver plugin. SCIP 7.0 provides additional support for decomposition algorithms. Besides im- provements in the Benders’ decomposition solver of SCIP, user-defined decomposition structures can be read, which are used by the automated Benders’ decomposition solver and two primal heuristics. Additionally, SCIP 7.0 comes with a tree size estimation that is used to predict the completion of the overall solving process and potentially trigger restarts. Moreover, substantial performance improvements of the MIP core were achieved by new developments in presolving, primal heuristics, branching rules, conflict analysis, and symmetry handling. Last, not least, the report presents updates to other components and extensions of the SCIP Optimization Suite, in particular, the LP solver SoPlex and the mixed-integer semidefinite programming solver SCIP-SDP. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-10 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-78023 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hendel, Gregor A1 - Anderson, Daniel A1 - Le Bodic, Pierre A1 - Pfetsch, Marc T1 - Estimating the Size of Branch-And-Bound Trees N2 - This paper investigates the estimation of the size of Branch-and-Bound (B&B) trees for solving mixed-integer programs. We first prove that the size of the B&B tree cannot be approximated within a factor of~2 for general binary programs, unless P equals NP. Second, we review measures of the progress of the B&B search, such as the gap, and propose a new measure, which we call leaf frequency. We study two simple ways to transform these progress measures into B&B tree size estimates, either as a direct projection, or via double-exponential smoothing, a standard time-series forecasting technique. We then combine different progress measures and their trends into nontrivial estimates using Machine Learning techniques, which yields more precise estimates than any individual measure. The best method we have identified uses all individual measures as features of a random forest model. In a large computational study, we train and validate all methods on the publicly available MIPLIB and Coral general purpose benchmark sets. On average, the best method estimates B&B tree sizes within a factor of 3 on the set of unseen test instances even during the early stage of the search, and improves in accuracy as the search progresses. It also achieves a factor 2 over the entire search on each out of six additional sets of homogeneous instances we have tested. All techniques are available in version 7 of the branch-and-cut framework SCIP. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-02 KW - mixed integer programming KW - machine learning KW - branch and bound KW - forecasting Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-78144 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Benjamin A1 - Serrano, Felipe A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Using two-dimensional Projections for Stronger Separation and Propagation of Bilinear Terms JF - SIAM Journal on Optimization N2 - One of the most fundamental ingredients in mixed-integer nonlinear programming solvers is the well- known McCormick relaxation for a product of two variables x and y over a box-constrained domain. The starting point of this paper is the fact that the convex hull of the graph of xy can be much tighter when computed over a strict, non-rectangular subset of the box. In order to exploit this in practice, we propose to compute valid linear inequalities for the projection of the feasible region onto the x-y-space by solving a sequence of linear programs akin to optimization-based bound tightening. These valid inequalities allow us to employ results from the literature to strengthen the classical McCormick relaxation. As a consequence, we obtain a stronger convexification procedure that exploits problem structure and can benefit from supplementary information obtained during the branch-and bound algorithm such as an objective cutoff. We complement this by a new bound tightening procedure that efficiently computes the best possible bounds for x, y, and xy over the available projections. Our computational evaluation using the academic solver SCIP exhibit that the proposed methods are applicable to a large portion of the public test library MINLPLib and help to improve performance significantly. Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-72767 VL - 30 IS - 2 SP - 1339 EP - 1365 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Witzig, Jakob A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Conflict-Driven Heuristics for Mixed Integer Programming JF - INFORMS Journal on Computing N2 - Two essential ingredients of modern mixed-integer programming (MIP) solvers are diving heuristics that simulate a partial depth-first search in a branch-and-bound search tree and conflict analysis of infeasible subproblems to learn valid constraints. So far, these techniques have mostly been studied independently: primal heuristics under the aspect of finding high-quality feasible solutions early during the solving process and conflict analysis for fathoming nodes of the search tree and improving the dual bound. Here, we combine both concepts in two different ways. First, we develop a diving heuristic that targets the generation of valid conflict constraints from the Farkas dual. We show that in the primal this is equivalent to the optimistic strategy of diving towards the best bound with respect to the objective function. Secondly, we use information derived from conflict analysis to enhance the search of a diving heuristic akin to classical coefficient diving. The computational performance of both methods is evaluated using an implementation in the source-open MIP solver SCIP. Experiments are carried out on publicly available test sets including Miplib 2010 and Cor@l. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2020.0973 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 706 EP - 720 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Müller, Benjamin A1 - Muñoz, Gonzalo A1 - Gasse, Maxime A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Lodi, Andrea A1 - Serrano, Felipe T1 - On Generalized Surrogate Duality in Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming T2 - Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization: 21th International Conference, IPCO 2020 N2 - The most important ingredient for solving mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs) to global epsilon-optimality with spatial branch and bound is a tight, computationally tractable relaxation. Due to both theoretical and practical considerations, relaxations of MINLPs are usually required to be convex. Nonetheless, current optimization solver can often successfully handle a moderate presence of nonconvexities, which opens the door for the use of potentially tighter nonconvex relaxations. In this work, we exploit this fact and make use of a nonconvex relaxation obtained via aggregation of constraints: a surrogate relaxation. These relaxations were actively studied for linear integer programs in the 70s and 80s, but they have been scarcely considered since. We revisit these relaxations in an MINLP setting and show the computational benefits and challenges they can have. Additionally, we study a generalization of such relaxation that allows for multiple aggregations simultaneously and present the first algorithm that is capable of computing the best set of aggregations. We propose a multitude of computational enhancements for improving its practical performance and evaluate the algorithm’s ability to generate strong dual bounds through extensive computational experiments. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45771-6_25 SP - 322 EP - 337 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gleixner, Ambros A1 - Maher, Stephen A1 - Müller, Benjamin A1 - Pedroso, João Pedro T1 - Price-and-verify: a new algorithm for recursive circle packing using Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition JF - Annals of Operations Research N2 - Packing rings into a minimum number of rectangles is an optimization problem which appears naturally in the logistics operations of the tube industry. It encompasses two major difficulties, namely the positioning of rings in rectangles and the recursive packing of rings into other rings. This problem is known as the Recursive Circle Packing Problem (RCPP). We present the first dedicated method for solving RCPP that provides strong dual bounds based on an exact Dantzig–Wolfe reformulation of a nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programming formulation. The key idea of this reformulation is to break symmetry on each recursion level by enumerating one-level packings, i.e., packings of circles into other circles, and by dynamically generating packings of circles into rectangles. We use column generation techniques to design a “price-and-verify” algorithm that solves this reformulation to global optimality. Extensive computational experiments on a large test set show that our method not only computes tight dual bounds, but often produces primal solutions better than those computed by heuristics from the literature. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-3115-5 VL - 284 IS - 2 SP - 527 EP - 555 PB - Springer US ER -