There aren't many examples of reusable functionality shared as a result of research or commercial software development.
Has anyone come across any?
Here is one I just learned of:
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2$\begingroup$ Are you just asking if there are public repos that contain code generated as part of research projects? $\endgroup$ – LarrySnyder610♦ Jun 13 '19 at 19:12
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1$\begingroup$ Yes, I agree it would be helpful to clarify. Also, if there are particular areas you're interested in (e.g., power systems), that may help respondents as well. $\endgroup$ – E. Tucker Jun 13 '19 at 19:14
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2$\begingroup$ @MichaelTrick I think [soft-question] was the right tag (eg, math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/soft-question) so I rolled back your edit. You or the OP can reverse me if I was wrong. $\endgroup$ – LarrySnyder610♦ Jun 13 '19 at 20:36
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$\begingroup$ @larrysnyder610 See the discussion at or.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/163/… Cartaino, as SE Director of Community Development, has a certain legitimacy here. or.meta.stackexchange.com/users/11/robert-cartaino $\endgroup$ – Michael Trick Jun 13 '19 at 20:47
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1$\begingroup$ @MichaelTrick aha, got it. So we should remove [soft-question] not because we can’t ask this kind of question but because it’s a meta tag. That makes sense. Sorry, I missed that question on meta. So, shall we remove the tag here (again!)? $\endgroup$ – LarrySnyder610♦ Jun 13 '19 at 20:56
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I try to publish all my O.R. code on my GitHub page. There are both exact and heuristic algorithms.
I am learning about better coding practices every day, so there is no guarantee that code I published 1-4 years ago is of acceptable quality (for my standards of today and even less for my future standards), but perhaps it is better than nothing!
Frameworks
as: this is my general-purpose C++ library with a few goodies for operational research. For example, a class to parse TSPLIB and derived instances (such as for the orienteering problem); one to solve TSP problems calling either Concorde or a simple MTZ model; a simple implementation of the Adaptive large Neighbourhood Search (ALNS) metaheuristic; utilities to work with and plot graphs, which can be used e.g. to visualise routes in routing problems; tools for solving the maximum weighted independent set and the max-clique problems, using respectively the
exactcolorsand thepmclibraries, which are also available online here and here.adaptive-large-neighbourhood-search: as the name suggests, it is a C++ framework to implement ALNS heuristics. There is also a version of ALNS hybridised with Tabu Search to solve flat-landscape problems.
biased-random-key-ga: a C++ implementation of the BRKGA framework, with an example application to the TSP. I also have a Java implementation of the same framework; in the beginning I implemented it to do some experimentation, but in the end I think it is modular enough that it can be used as a framework.
simple-ga-cpp: a toy, but working, C++ implementation of a Genetic Algorithm framework.
Solvers
tsp_bc: is a work-in-progress branch & cut solver for the TSP. It's not going to be state-of-the-art; just a quick experiment to give a more data-driven answer to this question.
selective-graph-colouring: mainly a branch & price solver for the Selective Graph Colouring Problem (SGCP). You can have a look at the corresponding paper for more information.
sgcp-via-cliques: another SGCP solver which uses a transformation into a max-clique problem; here is the corresponding work-in-progress paper.
orienteering-alns: an ALNS heuristic solver for the Orienteering Problem, presented in this paper.
maritime-vrp: a branch-and-price solver for a maritime vehicle routing problem for container shipping feeder networks. This is the corresponding paper.
fast-bwkp: a C implementation of a collection of exact and heuristic solvers for the black-and-white knapsack problem.
tsppddl: a C++ branch & cut solver for the TSP with Pickup, Delivery, and Draught Limits, a problem arising in the shipping industry and detailed in this paper.
train-energy-genetic-algorithm: is an attempted C implementation of a genetic algorithm to come up with driving profiles for electric and diesel trains, which would minimise energy consumption. I abandoned it half-way through.
Tutorials
- cplex-example: example code I use to teach students the basics of modelling with CPLEX's C++ API.
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This may be a related question: Why is the programming code of many algorithms not public in the OR community?
A recent example I've liked is this large-scale location modeling paper by Cordeau, Furini and Ljubic, 2019. Here's their code.
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1$\begingroup$ Yes indeed this is a step in the right direction. But I am interested in a framework or suite whereby multiple can be run in the same manner. Perhaps then even deployed as part of a larger solution! $\endgroup$ – fhk Jun 13 '19 at 20:57
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For biased random-key genetic algorithms (BRKGA) there is a paper of Toso & Resende and accompanying software. In a BRKGA the solution is represented as vector $v\in\mathbb{R}^n$ of real "keys" and all you have to do is to provide a "decoder" that maps $v$ to a solution and computes its fitness.
A bit dated, but still useful is the chapter on Metaheuristic Class Libraries in the Handbook of Metaheuristics.
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1$\begingroup$ Hi! I also have my BRKGA implementations out there. This one is in C++, and this one is in Java. $\endgroup$ – Alberto Santini Jun 14 '19 at 7:18
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Hastie, Tibshirani and Tibshirani did a comparison of Best Subset Selection (the MIP-formulation introduced by Bertsimas, King and Mazumder), Forward Stepwise Selection and the Lasso. For their calculations they created an R-package which they shared here.
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One group at LANL published several collections of model formulations around infrastructure optimization (power grid, gas pipelines, etc.): https://lanl-ansi.github.io/software/
The formulations are implemented with JuMP and highly configurable. So it's a good setup for comparing different formulations on the same problem type and input data.
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The Python package PyPSA does power system analysis, including optimal power flow (OPF) and a bunch of other optimization routines (built on Pyomo). It's a bit like MATPOWER for Python but (I believe) has more functionality. I haven't played around with it much yet, but I mean to—it seems rather awesome.
