Operations Research 2025
Abstract Submission

228. Solving the Partial Inverse Knapsack Problem

Invited abstract in session WC-2: Bilevel Optimization, stream Discrete and Combinatorial Optimization.

Wednesday, 13:30-15:00
Room: H4

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Nikolas Lykourinos
TU Clausthal
2. Andreas M. Tillmann
Institute for Mathematics, TU Clausthal
3. Maximilian Merkert
Institute for Mathematical Optimization, TU Braunschweig
4. Eva Ley
Institute for Mathematical Optimization

Abstract

We investigate the partial inverse knapsack problem. In this NP-hard bilevel optimization problem, the follower subproblem is a classical 0/1-knapsack problem with fixed item weights and item values, which are determined by the leader. Specifically, the leader problem is a partial inverse problem, i.e., the leader seeks a minimal change to given item values such that there is a follower optimum selecting or discarding items according to two given disjoint subsets. Partial inverse problems appear, e.g., in economic applications when a planner wants to incentivize rational followers to act in a desired way or to estimate unknown parameters in a model to (partially) explain certain observations such as market agent behavior. Based on a single-level mixed-integer formulation for the considered problem, we develop a branch-and-cut solution algorithm that utilizes a new exponential-size class of valid inequalities for the leader. We demonstrate in computational experiments that these cuts allow to reduce the number of iterations and the overall solution time.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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