Consider the problem of finding optimal bounds on the expected value of piece-wise polynomials over all measures with a given set of moments. We show that this problem can be studied within the framework of conic programming. Relying on a key approximation result for conic programming, we show that these bounds can be numerically computed … Read more
We study the issue of updating the analytic center after multiple cutting planes have been added through the analytic center of the current polytope in Euclidean n-space. This is an important issue that arises at every `stage’ in a cutting plane algorithm. If q cuts are to be added, with q no larger than n, … Read more
We present a framework for designing and analyzing primal-dual interior-point methods for convex optimization. We assume that a self-concordant barrier for the convex domain of interest and the Legendre transformation of the barrier are both available to us. We directly apply the theory and techniques of interior-point methods to the given good formulation of the … Read more
This paper attempts to extend the notion of duality for convex cones, by basing it on a pre-described conic ordering and a fixed bilinear mapping. This is an extension of the standard definition of dual cones, in the sense that the {\em nonnegativity}\/ of the inner-product is replaced by a pre-specified conic ordering, defined by … Read more
Given a real function on a Euclidean space, we consider its “robust regularization”: the value of this new function at any given point is the maximum value of the original function in a fixed neighbourhood of the point in question. This construction allows us to impose constraints in an optimization problem *robustly*, safeguarding a constraint … Read more
The affine-scaling algorithm was initially developed for linear programming problems. Its extension to problems with a nonlinear objective performs at each iteration a scaling followed by a line search along the steepest descent direction. In this paper we prove that any accumulation point generated by this algorithm when applied to a convex function is an … Read more
The trust region subproblem (the minimization of a quadratic objective subject to one quadratic constraint and denoted TRS) has many applications in diverse areas, e.g. function minimization, sequential quadratic programming, regularization, ridge regression, and discrete optimization. In particular, it determines the step in trust region algorithms for function minimization. Trust region algorithms are popular for … Read more
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