Transformation of Bilevel Optimization Problems into Single-Level Ones

Bilevel optimization problems are hierarchical problems with a constraint set which is a subset of the graph of the solution set mapping of a second optimization problem. To investigate their properties and derive solution algorithms, their transformation into single-level ones is necessary. For this, various approaches have been developed. The rst and most often used … Read more

Duality of upper bounds in stochastic dynamic programming

For multistage stochastic programming problems with stagewise independent uncertainty, dynamic programming algorithms calculate polyhedral approximations for the value functions at each stage.  The SDDP algorithm provides piecewise linear lower bounds, in the spirit of the L-shaped algorithm, and corresponding upper bounds took a longer time to appear.  One strategy uses the primal dynamic programming recursion … Read more

Exact convergence rate of the last iterate in subgradient methods

We study the convergence of the last iterate in subgradient methods applied to the minimization of a nonsmooth convex function with bounded subgradients. We first introduce a proof technique that generalizes the standard analysis of subgradient methods. It is based on tracking the distance between the current iterate and a different reference point at each … Read more

Inexact Direct-Search Methods for Bilevel Optimization Problems

In this work, we introduce new direct search schemes for the solution of bilevel optimization (BO) problems. Our methods rely on a fixed accuracy black box oracle for the lower-level problem, and deal both with smooth and potentially nonsmooth true objectives. We thus analyze for the first time in the literature direct search schemes in … Read more

On the Computation of Restricted Normal Cones

Restricted normal cones are of interest, for instance, in the theory of local error bounds, where they have recently been used to characterize the exis- tence of a constrained Lipschitzian error bound. In this paper, we establish rela- tions between two concepts for restricted normals. The first of these concepts was introduced in the late … Read more

Inverse Optimization for Routing Problems

We propose a method for learning decision-makers’ behavior in routing problems using Inverse Optimization (IO). The IO framework falls into the supervised learning category and builds on the premise that the target behavior is an optimizer of an unknown cost function. This cost function is to be learned through historical data, and in the context … Read more

Sharpness and well-conditioning of nonsmooth convex formulations in statistical signal recovery

We study a sample complexity vs. conditioning tradeoff in modern signal recovery problems where convex optimization problems are built from sampled observations. We begin by introducing a set of condition numbers related to sharpness in \(\ell_p\) or Schatten-p norms (\(p\in[1,2]\)) based on nonsmooth reformulations of a class of convex optimization problems, including sparse recovery, low-rank … Read more

Provably Faster Gradient Descent via Long Steps

This work establishes provably faster convergence rates for gradient descent in smooth convex optimization via a computer-assisted analysis technique. Our theory allows nonconstant stepsize policies with frequent long steps potentially violating descent by analyzing the overall effect of many iterations at once rather than the typical one-iteration inductions used in most first-order method analyses. We … Read more

Variational Theory and Algorithms for a Class of Asymptotically Approachable Nonconvex Problems

We investigate a class of composite nonconvex functions, where the outer function is the sum of univariate extended-real-valued convex functions and the inner function is the limit of difference-of-convex functions. A notable feature of this class is that the inner function may fail to be locally Lipschitz continuous. It covers a range of important yet … Read more

A new single-layer inverse-free fixed-time dynamical system for absolute value equations

In this technical note, a novel single-layer inverse-free fixed-time dynamical system (SIFDS) is proposed to address absolute value equations. The proposed SIFDS directly employs coefficient matrix and absolute value equation function that aims at circumventing matrix inverse operation and achieving fixed-time convergence. The equilibria of the proposed SIFDS is proved to be the unique solution … Read more