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The SCIP Optimization Suite is a powerful collection of optimization software that consists of the branch-cut-and-price framework and mixed-integer programming solver SCIP, the linear programming solver SoPlex, the modeling language Zimpl, the parallelization framework UG, and the generic branch-cut-and-price solver GCG. Additionally, it features the extensions SCIP-Jack for solving Steiner tree problems, PolySCIP for solving multi-objective problems, and SCIP-SDP for solving mixed-integer semidefinite programs. The SCIP Optimization Suite has been continuously developed and has now reached version 4.0. The goal of this report is to present the recent changes to the collection. We not only describe the theoretical basis, but focus on implementation aspects and their computational consequences.
Gas distribution networks are complex structures that consist of passive pipes, and active, controllable elements such as valves and compressors. Controlling such network means to find a suitable setting for all active components such that a nominated amount of gas can be transmitted from entries to exits through the network, without violating physical or operational constraints. The control of a large-scale gas network is a challenging task from a practical point of view. In most companies the actual controlling process is supported by means of computer software that is able to simulate the flow of the gas. However, the active settings have to be set manually within such simulation software. The solution quality thus depends on the experience of a human planner. When the gas network is insufficient for the transport then topology extensions come into play. Here a set of new pipes or active elements is determined such that the extended network admits a feasible control again. The question again is how to select these extensions and where to place them such that the total extension costs are minimal. Industrial practice is again to use the same simulation software, determine extensions by experience, add them to the virtual network, and then try to find a feasible control of the active elements. The validity of this approach now depends even more on the human planner. Another weakness of this manual simulation-based approach is that it cannot establish infeasibility of a certain gas nomination, unless all settings of the active elements are tried. Moreover, it is impossible to find a cost-optimal network extension in this way. In order to overcome these shortcomings of the manual planning approach we present a new approach, rigorously based on mathematical optimization. Hereto we describe a model for finding feasible controls and then extend this model such that topology extensions can additionally and simultaneously be covered. Numerical results for real-world instances are presented and discussed.
Recently, Kronqvist et al. (2016) rediscovered the supporting hyperplane algorithm of Veinott (1967) and demonstrated its computational benefits for solving convex mixed-integer nonlinear programs. In this paper we derive the algorithm from a geometric point of view. This enables us to show that the supporting hyperplane algorithm is equivalent to Kelley's cutting plane algorithm applied to a particular reformulation of the problem. As a result, we extend the applicability of the supporting hyperplane algorithm to convex problems represented by general, not necessarily convex, differentiable functions that satisfy a mild condition.
SCIP is a solver for a wide variety of mathematical optimization problems. It is written in C and extendable due to its plug-in based design. However, dealing with all C specifics when extending SCIP can be detrimental to development and testing of new ideas. This paper attempts to provide a remedy by introducing PySCIPOpt, a Python interface to SCIP that enables users to write new SCIP code entirely in Python. We demonstrate how to intuitively model mixed-integer linear and quadratic optimization problems and moreover provide examples on how new Python plug-ins can be added to SCIP.
The SCIP Optimization Suite is a software toolbox for generating and solving various classes of mathematical optimization problems. Its major components are the modeling language ZIMPL, the linear programming solver SoPlex, the constraint integer programming framework and mixed-integer linear and nonlinear programming solver SCIP, the UG framework for parallelization of branch-and-bound-based solvers, and the generic branch-cut-and-price solver GCG. It has been used in many applications from both academia and industry and is one of the leading non-commercial solvers.
This paper highlights the new features of version 3.2 of the SCIP Optimization Suite. Version 3.2 was released in July 2015. This release comes with new presolving steps, primal heuristics, and branching rules within SCIP. In addition, version 3.2 includes a reoptimization feature and improved handling of quadratic constraints and special ordered sets. SoPlex can now solve LPs exactly over the rational number and performance improvements have been achieved by exploiting sparsity in more situations. UG has been tested successfully on 80,000 cores. A major new feature of UG is the functionality to parallelize a customized SCIP solver. GCG has been enhanced with a new separator, new primal heuristics, and improved column management. Finally, new and improved extensions of SCIP are presented, namely solvers for multi-criteria optimization, Steiner tree problems, and mixed-integer semidefinite programs.