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Probabilistic constraints represent a major model of stochastic optimization. A possible approach for solving probabilistically constrained optimization problems consists in applying nonlinear programming methods. To do so, one has to provide sufficiently precise approximations for values and gradients of probability functions. For linear probabilistic constraints under Gaussian distribution this can be done successfully by analytically reducing these values and gradients to values of Gaussian distribution functions and computing the latter, for instance, by Genz's code. For nonlinear models one may fall back on the spherical-radial decomposition of Gaussian random vectors and apply, for instance, Deák's sampling scheme for the uniform distribution on the sphere in order to compute values of corresponding probability functions. The present paper demonstrates how the same sampling scheme can be used to simultaneously compute gradients of these probability functions. More precisely, we prove a formula representing these gradients in the Gaussian case as a certain integral over the sphere again. The result is also extended to alternative distributions with an emphasis on the multivariate Student's (or t-) distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a distributionally robust version of a quadratic knapsack problem. In this model, a subsets of items is selected to maximizes the total profit while requiring that a set of knapsack constraints be satisfied with high probability. In contrast to the stochastic programming version of this problem, we assume that only part of the information on random data is known, i.e., the first and second moment of the random variables, their joint support, and possibly an independence assumption. As for the binary constraints, special interest is given to the corresponding semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation. While in the case that the model only has a single knapsack constraint we present an SDP reformulation for this relaxation, the case of multiple knapsack constraints is more challenging. Instead, two tractable methods are presented for providing upper and lower bounds (with its associated conservative solution) on the SDP relaxation. An extensive computational study is given to illustrate the tightness of these bounds and the value of the proposed distributionally robust approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scenario-based optimization approach ("scenario approach" ) provides an intuitive way of approximating the solution to chance-constrained optimization programs, based on finding the optimal solution under a finite number of sampled outcomes of the uncertainty ("scenarios"). A key merit of this approach is that it neither requires explicit knowledge of the uncertainty set, as in robust optimization, nor of its probability distribution, as in stochastic optimization. The scenario approach is also computationally efficient because it only requires the solution to a convex optimization program, even if the original chance-constrained problem is nonconvex. Recent research has obtained a rigorous foundation for the scenario approach, by establishing a direct link between the number of scenarios and bounds on the constraint violation probability. These bounds are tight in the general case of an uncertain optimization problem with a single chance constraint. This paper shows that the bounds can be improved in situations where the chance constraints have a limited "support rank," meaning that they leave a linear subspace unconstrained. Moreover, it shows that also a combination of multiple chance constraints, each with individual probability level, is admissible. As a consequence of these results, the number of scenarios can be reduced from that prescribed by the existing theory for problems with the indicated structural property. This leads to an improvement in the objective value and a reduction in the computational complexity of the scenario approach. The proposed extensions have many practical applications, in particular, high-dimensional problems such as multistage uncertain decision problems or design problems of large-scale systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty in classical stochastic programming models is often described solely by independent random parameters, ignoring their dependence on multidimensional features. We describe a novel contextual chance-constrained programming formulation that incorporates features, and argue that solutions that do not take them into account may not be implementable. Our formulation cannot be solved exactly in most cases, and we propose a tractable and fully data-driven approximate model that relies on weighted sums of random variables. We obtain a stochastic lower bound for the optimal value and feasibility results that include convergence to the true feasible set as the number of data points increases, as well as the minimal number of data points needed to obtain a feasible solution with high probability. We illustrate our findings in a vaccine allocation problem and compare the results with a naíve sample average approximation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An algorithm is presented for solving nonlinear optimization problems with chance constraints, i.e., those in which a constraint involving an uncertain parameter must be satisfied with at least a minimum probability. In particular, the algorithm is designed to solve cardinality-constrained nonlinear optimization problems that arise in sample average approximations of chance-constrained problems, as well as in other applications in which it is only desired to enforce a minimum number of constraints. The algorithm employs a novel exact penalty function which is minimized sequentially by solving quadratic optimization subproblems with linear cardinality constraints. Properties of minimizers of the penalty function in relation to minimizers of the corresponding nonlinear optimization problem are presented, and convergence of the proposed algorithm to stationarity with respect to the penalty function is proved. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated through numerical experiments with a nonlinear cash ow problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study approximations of optimization problems with probabilistic constraints in which the original distribution of the underlying random vector is replaced with an empirical distribution obtained from a random sample. We show that such a sample approximation problem with a risk level larger than the required risk level will yield a lower bound to the true optimal value with probability approaching one exponentially fast. This leads to an a priori estimate of the sample size required to have high confidence that the sample approximation will yield a lower bound. We then provide conditions under which solving a sample approximation problem with a risk level smaller than the required risk level will yield feasible solutions to the original problem with high probability. Once again, we obtain a priori estimates on the sample size required to obtain high confidence that the sample approximation problem will yield a feasible solution to the original problem. Finally, we present numerical illustrations of how these results can be used to obtain feasible solutions and optimality bounds for optimization problems with probabilistic constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a chance constrained problem, where one seeks to minimize a convex objective over solutions satisfying, with a given close to one probability, a system of randomly perturbed convex constraints. This problem may happen to be computationally intractable; our goal is to build its computationally tractable approximation, i.e., an efficiently solvable deterministic optimization program with the feasible set contained in the chance constrained problem. We construct a general class of such convex conservative approximations of the corresponding chance constrained problem. Moreover, under the assumptions that the constraints are affine in the perturbations and the entries in the perturbation vector are independent-of-each-other random variables, we build a large deviation-type approximation, referred to as "Bernstein approximation," of the chance constrained problem. This approximation is convex and efficiently solvable. We propose a simulation-based scheme for bounding the optimal value in the chance constrained problem and report numerical experiments aimed at comparing the Bernstein and well-known scenario approximation approaches. Finally, we extend our construction to the case of ambiguous chance constrained problems, where the random perturbations are independent with the collection of distributions known to belong to a given convex compact set rather than to be known exactly, while the chance constraint should be satisfied for every distribution given by this set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]