Gaddum’s test for symmetric cones

A real symmetric matrix “A” is copositive if the inner product if Ax and x is nonnegative for all x in the nonnegative orthant. Copositive programming has attracted a lot of attention since Burer showed that hard nonconvex problems can be formulated as completely-positive programs. Alas, the power of copositive programming is offset by its … Read more

Understanding Limitation of Two Symmetrized Orders by Worst-case Complexity

It was recently found that the standard version of multi-block cyclic ADMM diverges. Interestingly, Gaussian Back Substitution ADMM (GBS-ADMM) and symmetric Gauss-Seidel ADMM (sGS-ADMM) do not have the divergence issue. Therefore, it seems that symmetrization can improve the performance of the classical cyclic order. In another recent work, cyclic CD (Coordinate Descent) was shown to … Read more

Gamma-Robust Linear Complementarity Problems with Ellipsoidal Uncertainty Sets

We study uncertain linear complementarity problems (LCPs), i.e., problems in which the LCP vector q or the LCP matrix M may contain uncertain parameters. To this end, we use the concept of Gamma-robust optimization applied to the gap function formulation of the LCP. Thus, this work builds upon [16]. There, we studied Gamma-robustified LCPs for … Read more

Dynamic Optimization with Complementarity Constraints: Smoothing for Direct Shooting

We consider optimization of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) with complementarity constraints (CCs) of algebraic state pairs. Formulating the CCs as smoothed nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) functions leads to a smooth DAE, allowing for the solution in direct shooting. We provide sufficient conditions for well-posedness. Thus, we can prove that with the smoothing parameter going to zero, … Read more

Continuous selections of solutions for locally Lipschitzian equations

This paper answers in affirmative the long-standing question of nonlinear analysis, concerning the existence of a continuous single-valued local selection of the right inverse to a locally Lipschitzian mapping. Moreover, we develop a much more general result, providing conditions for the existence of a continuous single-valued selection not only locally, but rather on any given … Read more

Complementary problems with polynomial data

Given polynomial maps $f, g \colon \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}^n,$ we consider the {\em polynomial complementary problem} of finding a vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ such that \begin{equation*} f(x) \ \ge \ 0, \quad g(x) \ \ge \ 0, \quad \textrm{ and } \quad \langle f(x), g(x) \rangle \ = \ 0. \end{equation*} In this paper, we … Read more

Near-optimal Robust Bilevel Optimization

Bilevel optimization studies problems where the optimal response to a second mathematical optimization problem is integrated in the constraints. Such structure arises in a variety of decision-making problems in areas such as market equilibria, policy design or product pricing. We introduce near-optimal robustness for bilevel problems, protecting the upper-level decision-maker from bounded rationality at the … Read more

Single-Forward-Step Projective Splitting: Exploiting Cocoercivity

This work describes a new variant of projective splitting for monotone inclusions, in which cocoercive operators can be processed with a single forward step per iteration. This result establishes a symmetry between projective splitting algorithms, the classical forward backward splitting method (FB), and Tseng’s forward-backward-forward method (FBF). Another symmetry is that the new procedure allows … Read more

There’s No Free Lunch: On the Hardness of Choosing a Correct Big-M in Bilevel Optimization

One of the most frequently used approaches to solve linear bilevel optimization problems consists in replacing the lower-level problem with its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and by reformulating the KKT complementarity conditions using techniques from mixed-integer linear optimization. The latter step requires to determine some big-M constant in order to bound the lower level’s dual feasible … Read more

An Enhanced Logical Benders Approach for Linear Programs with Complementarity

This work extends the ones of Hu et al. (2008) and Bai et al. (2013) of a logical Benders approach for globally solving Linear Programs with Complementarity Constraints. By interpreting the logical Benders method as a reversed branch-and-bound method, where the whole exploration procedure starts from the leaf nodes in an enumeration tree, we provide … Read more