arXiv:2411.03520math.OCcs.LG2024-11被引 2

用一个特殊场景解决随机优化问题,提升预测精度与决策效果。

Forecasting Outside the Box: Application-Driven Optimal Pointwise Forecasts for Stochastic Optimization

  • 通过一个最优场景替代多组数据,简化两阶段随机规划求解。
  • 在上下文信息下,点对点预测逼近最优场景,渐近最优。
  • 适用于库存、共享出行等实际优化问题,适合做决策导向的预测建模。

我们研究一类具有固定资源矩阵和固定成本、第二阶段为线性的两阶段随机规划问题。在温和假设下,证明仅需一个称为“最优场景”的样本即可求解该问题,该场景可不在原始分布支撑集内,且未必唯一。尽管一般情况下寻找最优场景可能困难,但在存在上下文信息(如历史需求、客户类型)的场景中,该结果尤为有用。此时目标是基于上下文信息优化某函数的期望值。利用机器学习方法对目标量进行更优估计,本文聚焦于决策导向学习方法——通过双层优化联合学习与优化过程,确定点对点预测参数。基于最优场景理论,我们证明:当此类模型应用于本文考虑的上下文型两阶段问题时,由双层优化得出的点对点预测,在模型预设的参数化预测函数集合中,渐近逼近最优场景。数值实验使用文献中的库存问题(合成数据)及真实自行车共享数据,验证了该方法优于现有基准方法。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

We study a class of two-stage stochastic programs, namely, those with fixed recourse matrix and fixed costs, and linear second stage. We show that, under mild assumptions, the problem can be solved with just one scenario, which we call an ``optimal scenario.'' Such a scenario does not have to be unique and may fall outside the support of the underlying distribution. Although finding an optimal scenario in general might be hard, we show that the result can be particularly useful in the case of stochastic optimization problems with contextual information, where the goal is to optimize the expected value of a certain function given some contextual information (e.g., previous demand, customer type, etc.) that accompany the main data of interest. The contextual information allows for a better estimation of the quantity of interest via machine learning methods. We focus on a class of learning methods -- sometimes called in the literature decision-focused learning -- that integrate the learning and optimization procedures by means of a bilevel optimization formulation, which determines the parameters for pointwise forecasts. By using the optimal scenario result, we prove that when such models are applied to the class of contextual two-stage problems considered in this paper, the pointwise forecasts computed from the bilevel optimization formulation actually yield asymptotically the best approximation of an optimal scenario within the modeler's pre-specified set of parameterized forecast functions. Numerical results conducted with inventory problems from the literature (with synthetic data) as well as a bike-sharing problem with real data demonstrate that the proposed approach performs well when compared to benchmark methods from the literature.

随机优化决策导向点对点预测上下文学习

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