We present a practical algorithm for computing the minimum volume n-dimensional ellipsoid that must contain m given points a_1, …, a_m \in R^n. This convex constrained problem arises in a variety of applied computational settings, particularly in data mining and robust statistics. Its structure makes it particularly amenable to solution by interior-point methods, and it … Read more
We describe an extension of the classical cutting plane algorithm to tackle the unconstrained minimization of a nonconvex, not necessarily differentiable function of several variables. The method is based on the construction of both a lower and an upper polyhedral approximation to the objective function and it is related to the use of the concept … Read more
Recently Gilbert, Gonzaga and Karas [2001] constructed examples of ill-behaved central paths for convex programs. In this paper we show that under mild conditions the central path has sufficient smoothness to allow construction of a path-following interior point algorithm for non-differentiable convex programs. We show that starting from a point near the center of the … Read more
We discuss in this paper a class of nonsmooth functions which can be represented, in a neighborhood of a considered point, as a composition of a positively homogeneous convex function and a smooth mapping which maps the considered point into the null vector. We argue that this is a sufficiently rich class of functions and … Read more
With every real valued function, of a real argument, can be associated a matrix function mapping a linear space of symmetric matrices into itself. In this paper we study directional differentiability properties of such matrix functions associated with directionally differentiable real valued functions. In particular, we show that matrix valued functions inherit semismooth properties of … Read more
For constrained smooth or nonsmooth optimization problems, new continuously differentiable penalty functions are derived. They are proved exact in the sense that under some nondegeneracy assumption, local optimizers of a nonlinear program are precisely the optimizers of the associated penalty function. This is achieved by augmenting the dimension of the program by a variable that … Read more
It was recently shown that, unlike in linear optimization, the central path in semidefinite optimization (SDO) does not converge to the analytic center of the optimal set in general. In this paper we analyze the limiting behavior of the central path to explain this unexpected phenomenon. This is done by deriving a new necessary and … Read more
In linear programming, the central path is known to converge to the analytic center of the set of optimal solutions. Recently, it has been shown that this is not necessarily true for linear semidefinite programming in the absence of strict complementarity. The present paper deals with the formulation of a convex problem whose solution defines … Read more
SOSTOOLS is a free MATLAB toolbox for formulating and solving sum of squares (SOS) optimization programs. It uses a simple notation and a flexible and intuitive high-level user interface to specify the SOS programs. Currently these are solved using SeDuMi, a well-known semidefinite programming solver, while SOSTOOLS handles internally all the necessary reformulations and data … Read more
Non-smoothness and non-convexity in optimization problems often arise because a combinatorial structure is imposed on smooth or convex data. The combinatorial aspect can be explicit, e.g. through the use of ”max”, ”min”, or ”if” statements in a model, or implicit as in the case of bilevel optimization where the combinatorial structure arises from the possible … Read more