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mixed-integer linear optimization

mixed-integer linear optimization

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Sertalp B. CayNovember 9, 2020 0

Why Venue Optimization is Critical and How It Works

A year ago we could not imagine stadiums being empty during the most exciting sports events, but it is a common sight now. The entertainment sector is one of the hardest hit sectors because of the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. Social distancing requirements made it impossible to have viewers in stadiums

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Subramanian Pazhani

Subramanian PazhaniOctober 26, 2020 0

Back to School Optimization

Public and private schools are struggling to figure out how to bring face-to-face instruction to students during this pandemic. Health risks to students and teachers, parents struggling with child-care options and/or support for virtual learning, and schools’ capacities and budget limitations make this problem a severe logistical challenge. Schools need

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Michelle OppSeptember 14, 2020 0

Workforce Scheduling at an Animal Shelter

[Nabaruna Karmakar was coauthor of this post] A study was conducted at the University of Denver on The Economic Impacts of the Austin, Texas "No Kill" Resolution. The study found great value in creating an animal welfare-focused community. It highlighted the benefits of economic growth due to an increased need in

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Nabaruna Karmakar

Nabaruna KarmakarMarch 11, 2020 0

SAS® Optimization Web App Using REST APIs with Embedded SAS® Visual Analytics Reports

Mathematical optimization can help business leaders make better decisions in every aspect of their business. After a model has been built, end users are usually interested in doing some sort of scenario analysis to test its robustness and visualizing key performance metrics. SAS has various products that can work with

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Sertalp B. CayJune 18, 2019 0

Bringing Analytics to the Soccer Transfer Season

Major European football (soccer) leagues came to an end after an intensive year. Manchester City claimed the Premier League title after a high-intensity title race against Liverpool. It is unbelievable that Liverpool would have won 25 out of the last 27 PL titles with 97 points. Luckily, the Reds

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Sertalp B. CayJune 13, 2018 0

Visiting all 30 Major League Baseball Stadiums - with Python and SAS® Viya®

Ballpark Chasers A cross-country trip is pretty much an all-American experience, and so is baseball. Traveling around the country to see all 30 Major League Baseball (MLB) stadiums is not a new idea; there's even a social network between so-called "Ballpark Chasers" where people communicate and share their journeys. Even

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Imre PólikNovember 16, 2017 0

Optimizing your way in the woods -- Orienteering for real

When I shared a status update a few months ago that I would spend my Sunday morning "trying to solve an asymmetric prize-collecting traveling salesman problem with uncertain data and side constraints" my colleagues knew that I wouldn't be working. Instead, I would spend my morning at an orienteering event,

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Ed HughesOctober 16, 2017 0

SAS at the 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting

SAS will be represented by more than 20 attendees at the INFORMS Annual Meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center (GBCC) in Houston, Texas. Officially the conference runs from Sunday, Oct. 22 through Wednesday, Oct. 25, but our activities in Houston start even earlier. Technology Workshops on Saturday, October

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Jared EricksonMay 17, 2017 0

Creating Synthetic Data with SAS/OR

A common barrier to quantitative research, especially in health and financial areas, is the inability to share sensitive data due to confidentiality and privacy. It can be difficult and time consuming to get permission to share the data, which means useful research is delayed or not even attempted. However, collaborators seeking

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Ed HughesMarch 31, 2017 0

Operations Research Talks at SAS Global Forum 2017

The 2017 edition of SAS Global Forum, the largest annual SAS user group meeting, will be held at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida on April 2-5. Among the many analytic talks at SAS Global Forum 2017, several focus on operations research topics like optimization and simulation. If

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Rob PrattFebruary 24, 2017 0

Solving Kakuro Puzzles with SAS/OR

Erwin Kalvelagen recently posted about a logic puzzle called Kakuro, also known as Cross Sums. As in traditional crossword puzzles, there are horizontal and vertical clues. As in Sudoku, each white cell is to be filled in with a digit from 1 to 9, with no digit repeated within the

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Imre PólikDecember 19, 2016 0

How good is the MILP solver in SAS/OR?

There has been a lot of speculation over the years about the quality of the optimization solvers in SAS/OR, in particular the mixed integer linear optimization (MILP) solver. Measuring the performance of optimization solvers and comparing different solvers on a test set is a crucial part of modern optimization solver development.

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Rob PrattMarch 3, 2016 0

Solving a Golf Puzzle with Mixed Integer Linear Programming

Here's a golf puzzle from Sam Loyd: Everybody is playing golf now, and even the lazy ones who a few weeks ago declared how much pleasanter it was to swing in a shady hammock, have caught the golf fever and are chasing the ball around the golf links. I am

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Rob PrattFebruary 5, 2016 0

Detecting Anomalies in the NFL Schedule

Super Bowl 50 (L?) is this Sunday, so it's time for another (American) football-related post. Steven Miller, a mathematics professor at Rutgers University, recently noted that the 2015 NFL schedule allowed a competitive advantage for some teams (including the Carolina Panthers). This figure he generated displays the 2015 regular season

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Rob PrattDecember 14, 2015 0

Solving the British Spy Agency's Christmas Puzzle

The British spy agency GCHQ recently posted a grid-shading puzzle that the director sent out in his Christmas cards this year. The puzzle, shown here, is known as a nonogram and by various other names, including Paint by Numbers and FigurePic: Each cell is to be colored black or white,

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Ed HughesSeptember 4, 2015 0

SAS/OR 14.1: Improvements and New Features

SAS/OR 14.1, which became available on July 14, delivers a number of new and enhanced features in optimization and simulation. These changes are designed to make SAS/OR even easier to use and to enable you to model and solve larger, more complex problems more efficiently. If you're using SAS/OR now,

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Imre PólikJuly 11, 2015 0

SAS talks and activities at the ISMP2015 conference in Pittsburgh

During the week of July 13-17, 2015 most optimization experts will attend the 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP2015), which is this year's most important optimization conference. Several members of the SAS/OR team will attend. We will give various talks during the week, here is our schedule.

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Imre PólikJune 25, 2015 0

Finding the Beauty in Optimization Models - Visualizing MPS data sets

In 2013, Rick Wicklin blogged about visualizing matrices as heat maps using SAS/IML. That post reminded me that we had done a similar thing for the coefficient matrices in our optimization problems. In particular, we have developed some SAS macros to visualize the input data sets for the OPTLP (linear

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Ed HughesMay 20, 2015 0

Dinner with a side order of optimization

Good Old Country-Style Optimization In an odd way, Imre Polik's recent post, How to solve puzzles? Peg solitaire with optimization, reminded me of one more reason why I like to eat at Cracker Barrel, an American chain of country-style restaurants.

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Emily LadaMay 5, 2015 0

Simulate to validate

The primary objective of many discrete-event simulation projects is system investigation. Output data from the simulation model are used to better understand the operation of the system (whether that system is real or theoretical), as well as to conduct various "what-if"-type analyses. However, I recently worked on another model

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Rob PrattApril 3, 2015 0

The traveling baseball fan problem

In the traveling salesman problem (TSP), a salesman must minimize travel distance while visiting each of a given set of cities exactly once. Recently, the TSP has generated some buzz in the popular media, after a blog post by Randy Olson. The tour shown was not quite optimal, and Bill

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Imre PólikMarch 11, 2015 0

How to solve puzzles? - Peg solitaire with optimization

Peg solitaire I love puzzles; I have a few of them in my office. I regularly use them at interviews: I ask the candidate either to solve a puzzle or to devise a (clever) mathematical algorithm that solves it. I'm sure a lot of readers are familiar with the standard

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Matthew GalatiFebruary 6, 2015 0

The kidney exchange problem

Suppose someone needs a kidney transplant and a family member is willing to donate one. If the donor and recipient are incompatible (because of blood types, tissue mismatch, and so on), the transplant cannot happen. Now suppose two donor-recipient pairs A and B are in this situation, but donor A

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Matthew GalatiDecember 16, 2014 0

Santa's gift assignment problem

Just yesterday, Santa called my cell phone asking for a favor... Yes, Santa has my direct line, and I owe him (he once did me a solid, back in 1984, for Christmas, scoring me an awesome Optimus Prime Transformer). That's me there in the front - sporting plaid duds and

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Matthew GalatiNovember 10, 2014 0

Do you have an Uncle Louie? Optimal wedding seat assignments

Do you have an Uncle Louie? Yep - we all do! You know what I mean - this guy: When my wife and I were planning to get married, we had all sorts of big decisions to make. Where would our future home be? How many kids would we have?

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