arXiv subjects

Pietro Belotti

Publications and source records attributed to Pietro Belotti.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Computer-aided Characterization of Fundamental Limits of Coded Caching with Linear Coding

Inspired by prior work by Tian and by Cao and Xu, this paper presents an efficient computer-aided framework to characterize the fundamental limits of coded caching systems under the constraint of linear coding. The proposed framework considers non-Shannon-type inequalities which are valid for representable polymatroids (and hence for linear codes), and leverages symmetric structure and problem-specific constraints of coded caching to reduce the complexity of the linear program. The derived converse bounds are tighter compared to previous known analytic methods, and prove the optimality of some achievable memory-load tradeoff points under the constraint of linear coding placement and delivery. These results seem to indicate that small, structured demand subsets combined with minimal common information constructions may be sufficient to characterize optimal tradeoffs under linear coding.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

Solving Sparse Mixed-Integer Quadratic Problems: Application to the Unit Commitment Problem with Optimal Power Flow

Mixed-Integer Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Programs (MIQCQP) arise in a variety of applications, particularly in energy, water, and gas systems, where discrete decisions interact with nonconvex quadratic constraints. These problems are computationally challenging due to the combination of combinatorial complexity and nonconvexity, often rendering traditional exact methods ineffective for large-scale instances. We propose a solution framework for sparse MIQCQPs that integrates semidefinite programming relaxations with chordal decomposition techniques to exploit sparsity. By leveraging problem structure, we significantly reduce the size of the semidefinite constraints into smaller, tractable blocks, improving the scalability of the relaxation and the overall branch-and-bound procedure. We evaluate our framework on the Unit Commitment problem with AC Optimal Power Flow constraints, a practically relevant and highly challenging problem that couples discrete generation decisions with nonlinear AC network physics. Computational results on standard IEEE test cases with up to 118 buses show that our approach provides strong bounds and high-quality solutions, while scaling significantly better than state-of-the-art global optimization solvers.

math.OC↗

arXiv2023

Convex envelopes of bounded monomials on two-variable cones

We consider an $n$-variate monomial function that is restricted both in value by lower and upper bounds and in domain by two homogeneous linear inequalities. Such functions are building blocks of several problems found in practical applications, and that fall under the class of Mixed Integer Nonlinear Optimization. We show that the upper envelope of the function in the given domain, for $n\ge 2$ is given by a conic inequality. We also present the lower envelope for $n=2$. To assess the applicability of branching rules based on homogeneous linear inequalities, we also derive the volume of the convex hull for $n=2$.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Efficient storage of Pareto points in biobjective mixed integer programming

In biobjective mixed integer linear programs (BOMILPs), two linear objectives are minimized over a polyhedron while restricting some of the variables to be integer. Since many of the techniques for finding or approximating the Pareto set of a BOMILP use and update a subset of nondominated solutions, it is highly desirable to efficiently store this subset. We present a new data structure, a variant of a binary tree that takes as input points and line segments in $\R^2$ and stores the nondominated subset of this input. When used within an exact solution procedure, such as branch-and-bound (BB), at termination this structure contains the set of Pareto optimal solutions. We compare the efficiency of our structure in storing solutions to that of a dynamic list which updates via pairwise comparison. Then we use our data structure in two biobjective BB techniques available in the literature and solve three classes of instances of BOMILP, one of which is generated by us. The first experiment shows that our data structure handles up to $10^7$ points or segments much more efficiently than a dynamic list. The second experiment shows that our data structure handles points and segments much more efficiently than a list when used in a BB.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2012

Linear Programming Relaxations of Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Programs

We investigate the use of linear programming tools for solving semidefinite programming relaxations of quadratically constrained quadratic problems. Classes of valid linear inequalities are presented, including sparse PSD cuts, and principal minors PSD cuts. Computational results based on instances from the literature are presented.

math.CO↗

arXiv2008

A local branching heuristic for MINLPs

Local branching is an improvement heuristic, developed within the context of branch-and-bound algorithms for MILPs, which has proved to be very effective in practice. For the binary case, it is based on defining a neighbourhood of the current incumbent solution by allowing only a few binary variables to flip their value, through the addition of a local branching constraint. The neighbourhood is then explored with a branch-and-bound solver. We propose a local branching scheme for (nonconvex) MINLPs which is based on iteratively solving MILPs and NLPs. Preliminary computational experiments show that this approach is able to improve the incumbent solution on the majority of the test instances, requiring only a short CPU time. Moreover, we provide algorithmic ideas for a primal heuristic whose purpose is to find a first feasible solution, based on the same scheme.

math.CO↗