Magnetic Resonance Tissue Density Estimation using Optimal SSFP Pulse-Sequence Design

In this paper, we formulate a nonlinear, nonconvex semidefinite optimization problem to select the steady-state free precession (SSFP) pulse-sequence design variables which maximize the contrast to noise ratio in tissue segmentation. The method could be applied to other pulse sequence types, arbitrary numbers of tissues, and numbers of images. To solve the problem we use … Read more

The Bundle Method in Combinatorial Optimization

We propose a dynamic version of the bundle method to get approximate solutions to semidefinite programs with a nearly arbitrary number of linear inequalities. Our approach is based on Lagrangian duality, where the inequalities are dualized, and only a basic set of constraints is maintained explicitly. This leads to function evaluations requiring to solve a … Read more

Bounds for the Quadratic Assignment Problem Using the Bundle Method

Semidefinite Programming (SDP) has recently turned out to be a very powerful tool for approximating some NP-hard problems. The nature of the Quadratic Assignment Problem suggests SDP as a way to derive tractable relaxation. We recall some SDP relaxations of QAP and solve them approximately using the Bundle Method. The computational results demonstrate the efficiency … Read more

A Simplified/Improved HKM Direction for Certain Classes of Semidefinite Programming

Semidefinite Programming (SDP) provides strong bounds for many NP-hard combinatorial problems. Arguably the most popular/efficient search direction for solving SDPs using a primal-dual interior point (p-d i-p) framework is the {\em HKM direction}. This direction is a Newton direction found from the linearization of a symmetrized version of the optimality conditions. For many of the … Read more