Improved Speed with Multicore Support
The solvers have been enhanced to take advantage of computers with multicore processors to boost speed on a wide range of problems.Multicore extensions have been added to the Barrier, Global, Integer, Multistart and Stochastic solvers.
New Branch-and-Price Solver
A new Branch-and-Price solver with multicore support has been added for improved performance on problems with block structures.Detection of decomposition structures has also been improved in support of the Branch-and-Price solver.
Improved MIP Solver
The heuristics for finding good feasible solutions to integer models have been significantly improved. Simple rounding and feasibility pump now use bound propagation to improve the current path to a new feasible MIP solution. A new polishing heuristic has been added to improve the best MIP solution using a pool of previous obtained MIP solutions and the current relaxation. As a result, on many problems the solver is able to find better MIP solutions in a shorter amount of time.
Faster Better Multistart Solver
The Multistart solver has been improved significantly achieving performance improvements of up to two times compared to the previous version. The chances of finding the globally optimal solution have improved by 10-15% over a wide range of non-convex models.
More Powerful Stochastic Solver
Extensive improvements have been made to the Nested Benders Decomposition to make it up to six times faster.Chance-programming solver is now equipped with a Genetic Algorithm to find high-quality feasible solutions to large-scale instances. Models in this class can now also be solved using the Simple Benders Decomposition method.
More Probability Distributions Supported
The Beta-Binomial and Stable Paretian distributions have been added to the list of supported distributions. Stochastic programming models may also specify random variables with these distribution. The Beta-Binomial is useful in Bayesian analysis involving the Binomial distribution, e.g., in designing sampling plans for new drug trials. The Stable Paretian is sometimes used to model the movement of prices in financial markets.
