Stochastic Decomposition: A Statistical Method for Large Scale Stochastic Linear Programming

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

This work summarizes developments related to a class of methods called Stochastic Decomposition (SD) algorithms, which represent an important shift in the design of optimization algorithms. Unlike traditional deterministic algorithms, SD combines sampling approaches from the statistical literature with traditional mathematical programming constructs (for example decomposition and cutting planes). This marriage of two highly computationally oriented disciplines leads to a line of work that is most definitely driven by computational considerations. Furthermore, the use of sampled data in SD makes it extremely flexible in its ability to accommodate various representations of uncertainty, including situations in which outcomes/scenarios can only be generated by an algorithm/simulation. The authors report computational results with some of the largest stochastic programs arising in applications. These results (mathematical as well as computational) are the tip of the iceberg . Further research will uncover extensions of SD to a wider class of problems.