We focus on two central themes in this dissertation. The first one is on decomposing polytopes and polynomials in ways that allow us to perform nonlinear optimization. We start off by explaining important results on decomposing a polytope into special polyhedra. We use these decompositions and develop methods for computing a special class of integrals exactly. Namely, we are interested in computing the exact value of integrals of polynomial functions over convex polyhedra. We present prior work and new extensions of the integration algorithms. Every integration method we present requires that the polynomial has a special form. We explore two special polynomial decomposition algorithms that are useful for integrating polynomial functions. Both polynomial decompositions have strengths and weaknesses, and we experiment with how to practically use them. After developing practical algorithms and efficient software tools for integrating a polynomial over a polytope, we focus on the problem of maximizing a polynomial function over the continuous domain of a polytope. This maximization problem is NP-hard, but we develop approximation methods that run in polynomial time when the dimension is fixed. Moreover, our algorithm for approximating the maximum of a polynomial over a polytope is related to integrating the polynomial over the polytope. We show how the integration methods can be used for optimization. The second central topic in this dissertation is on problems in data science. We first consider a heuristic for mixed-integer linear optimization. We show how many practical mixed-integer linear have a special substructure containing set partition constraints. We then describe a nice data structure for finding feasible zero-one integer solutions to systems of set partition constraints. Finally, we end with an applied project using data science methods in medical research.

We investigate a way to approximate the maximum of a polynomial over a polytopal region by using Handelman's polynomial decomposition and continuous multivariate generating functions. The maximization problem is NP-hard, but our approximation methods will run in polynomial time when the dimension is fixed.

We are interested in the fast computation of the exact value of integrals of polynomial functions over convex polyhedra. We present speed ups and extensions of the algorithms presented in previous work. We present the new software implementation and provide benchmark computations. The computation of integrals of polynomials over polyhedral regions has many applications; here we demonstrate our algorithmic tools solving a challenge from combinatorial voting theory.

For a given sequence $\mathbf{\alpha} = [\alpha_1,\alpha_2,\dots,\alpha_{N+1}]$ of $N+1$ positive integers, we consider the combinatorial function $E(\mathbf{\alpha})(t)$ that counts the nonnegative integer solutions of the equation $\alpha_1x_1+\alpha_2 x_2+\cdots+\alpha_{N} x_{N}+\alpha_{N+1}x_{N+1}=t$, where the right-hand side $t$ is a varying nonnegative integer. It is well-known that $E(\mathbf{\alpha})(t)$ is a quasi-polynomial function in the variable $t$ of degree $N$. In combinatorial number theory this function is known as Sylvester's denumerant. Our main result is a new algorithm that, for every fixed number $k$, computes in polynomial time the highest $k+1$ coefficients of the quasi-polynomial $E(\mathbf{\alpha})(t)$ as step polynomials of $t$ (a simpler and more explicit representation). Our algorithm is a consequence of a nice poset structure on the poles of the associated rational generating function for $E(\mathbf{\alpha})(t)$ and the geometric reinterpretation of some rational generating functions in terms of lattice points in polyhedral cones. Our algorithm also uses Barvinok's fundamental fast decomposition of a polyhedral cone into unimodular cones. This paper also presents a simple algorithm to predict the first non-constant coefficient and concludes with a report of several computational experiments using an implementation of our algorithm in LattE integrale. We compare it with various Maple programs for partial or full computation of the denumerant.