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Akul Bansal

Publications and source records attributed to Akul Bansal.

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SDDmiP.jl: A Software Package with a Provably Convergent Benders Algorithm for Multi-Stage Stochastic Mixed-Integer Programming

We present an open-source software package that implements a provably convergent Benders-type decomposition algorithm for multistage stochastic integer programs. In addition to standard cut families, such as Benders, strengthened Benders, and Lagrangian cuts, the algorithm incorporates rectified linear unit (ReLU) cuts, which provide convergence guarantees for general mixed-integer state variables. However, the dual problems used to generate these cuts often admit multiple optimal solutions. Although each solution yields a valid cut that separates the incumbent, the resulting cuts can differ in how well they approximate the subproblem cost. To strengthen these cuts, our package implements and evaluates two cut-selection strategies based on normalization and regularization of the dual problem. We also incorporate an alternating-cut criterion that uses cheaper Benders cuts when they are effective and invokes more expensive tight cuts only when necessary. Computational experiments on four classes of multistage stochastic integer programs benchmark these methods and provide insights on how problem structure affects their practical performance.

math.OC

Normalization of ReLU Dual for Cut Generation in Stochastic Mixed-Integer Programs

We study the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) dual, an existing dual formulation for stochastic programs that reformulates non-anticipativity constraints using ReLU functions to generate tight, non-convex, and mixed-integer representable cuts. While this dual reformulation guarantees convergence with mixed-integer state variables, it admits multiple optimal solutions that can yield weak cuts. To address this issue, we propose normalizing the dual in the extended space to identify solutions that yield stronger cuts. We prove that the resulting normalized cuts are tight and Pareto-optimal in the original state space. We further compare normalization with existing regularization-based approaches for handling dual degeneracy and explain why normalization offers key advantages. In particular, we show that normalization can recover any cut obtained via regularization, whereas the converse does not hold. Computational experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods by consistently yielding stronger cuts and reducing solution times on harder instances.

math.OC

A computational study of cutting-plane methods for multi-stage stochastic integer programs

We report a computational study of cutting plane algorithms for multi-stage stochastic mixed-integer programming models with the following cuts: (i) Benders', (ii) Integer L-shaped, and (iii) Lagrangian cuts. We first show that Integer L-shaped cuts correspond to one of the optimal solutions of the Lagrangian dual problem, and, therefore, belong to the class of Lagrangian cuts. To efficiently generate these cuts, we present an enhancement strategy to reduce time-consuming exact evaluations of integer subproblems by alternating between cuts derived from the relaxed and exact computation. Exact evaluations are only employed when Benders' cut from the relaxation fails to cut off the incumbent solution. Our preliminary computational results show the merit of this approach on multiple classes of real-world problems.

math.OC