Core Discussion Paper 2000/12 New Upper Bounds for Maximum-entropy Sampling

We develop and experiment with new upper bounds for the constrained maximum-entropy sampling problem. Our partition bounds are based on Fischer’s inequality. Further new upper bounds combine the use of Fischer’s inequality with previously developed bounds. We demonstrate this in detail by using the partitioning idea to strengthen the spectral bounds of Ko, Lee and Queyranne and of Lee. Computational evidence suggests that these bounds may be useful in solving problems to optimality in a branch-and-bound framework.