Asynchronous Stochastic Coordinate Descent: Parallelism and Convergence Properties

We describe an asynchronous parallel stochastic proximal coordinate descent algorithm for minimizing a composite objective function, which consists of a smooth convex function plus a separable convex function. In contrast to previous analyses, our model of asynchronous computation accounts for the fact that components of the unknown vector may be written by some cores simultaneously … Read more

A Fast Active Set Block Coordinate Descent Algorithm for l1-regularized least squares

The problem of finding sparse solutions to underdetermined systems of linear equations arises in several real-world problems (e.g. signal and image processing, compressive sensing, statistical inference). A standard tool for dealing with sparse recovery is the l1-regularized least-squares approach that has been recently attracting the attention of many researchers. In this paper, we describe an … Read more

A Scalarization Proximal Point Method for Quasiconvex Multiobjective Minimization

In this paper we propose a scalarization proximal point method to solve multiobjective unconstrained minimization problems with locally Lipschitz and quasiconvex vector functions. We prove, under natural assumptions, that the sequence generated by the method is well defined and converges globally to a Pareto-Clarke critical point. Our method may be seen as an extension, for … Read more

A Family of Subgradient-Based Methods for Convex Optimization Problems in a Unifying Framework

We propose a new family of subgradient- and gradient-based methods which converges with optimal complexity for convex optimization problems whose feasible region is simple enough. This includes cases where the objective function is non-smooth, smooth, have composite/saddle structure, or are given by an inexact oracle model. We unified the way of constructing the subproblems which … Read more

Forward-backward truncated Newton methods for convex composite optimization

This paper proposes two proximal Newton-CG methods for convex nonsmooth optimization problems in composite form. The algorithms are based on a a reformulation of the original nonsmooth problem as the unconstrained minimization of a continuously differentiable function, namely the forward-backward envelope (FBE). The first algorithm is based on a standard line search strategy, whereas the … Read more

Provable Low-Rank Tensor Recovery

In this paper, we rigorously study tractable models for provably recovering low-rank tensors. Unlike their matrix-based predecessors, current convex approaches for recovering low-rank tensors based on incomplete (tensor completion) and/or grossly corrupted (tensor robust principal analysis) observations still suffer from the lack of theoretical guarantees, although they have been used in various recent applications and … Read more

A Trust Region Method for the Solution of the Surrogate Dual in Integer Programming

We propose an algorithm for solving the surrogate dual of a mixed integer program. The algorithm uses a trust region method based on a piecewise affine model of the dual surrogate value function. A new and much more flexible way of updating bounds on the surrogate dual’s value is proposed, which numerical experiments prove to … Read more

On the Maximal Extensions of Monotone Operators and Criteria for Maximality

Within a nonzero, real Banach space we study the problem of characterising a maximal extension of a monotone operator in terms of minimality properties of representative functions that are bounded by the Penot and Fitzpatrick functions. We single out a property of this space of representative functions that enable a very compact treatment of maximality … Read more

Problem Formulations for Simulation-based Design Optimization using Statistical Surrogates and Direct Search

Typical challenges of simulation-based design optimization include unavailable gradients and unreliable approximations thereof, expensive function evaluations, numerical noise, multiple local optima and the failure of the analysis to return a value to the optimizer. One possible remedy to alleviate these issues is to use surrogate models in lieu of the computational models or simulations and … Read more

Joint Variable Selection for Data Envelopment Analysis via Group Sparsity

This study develops a data-driven group variable selection method for data envelopment analysis (DEA), a non-parametric linear programming approach to the estimation of production frontiers. The proposed method extends the group Lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) designed for variable selection on (often predefined) groups of variables in linear regression models to DEA models. … Read more