Random permutations fix a worst case for cyclic coordinate descent

Variants of the coordinate descent approach for minimizing a nonlinear function are distinguished in part by the order in which coordinates are considered for relaxation. Three common orderings are cyclic (CCD), in which we cycle through the components of $x$ in order; randomized (RCD), in which the component to update is selected randomly and independently … Read more

Step lengths in BFGS method for monotone gradients

In this paper, we consider how to directly apply the BFGS method to finding a zero point of any given monotone gradient and thus suggest new conditions to locate the corresponding step lengths. The suggested conditions involve curvature condition and merely use gradients’ computations. Furthermore, they can guarantee convergence without any other restrictions. Finally, preliminary … Read more

A highly efficient semismooth Newton augmented Lagrangian method for solving Lasso problems

We develop a fast and robust algorithm for solving large scale convex composite optimization models with an emphasis on the $\ell_1$-regularized least squares regression (Lasso) problems. Despite the fact that there exist a large number of solvers in the literature for the Lasso problems, we found that no solver can efficiently handle difficult large scale … Read more

Perturbation Analysis of Singular Semidefinite Program and Its Application to a Control Problem

We consider the sensitivity of semidefinite programs (SDPs) under perturbations. It is well known that the optimal value changes continuously under perturbations on the right hand side in the case where the Slater condition holds in the primal problems. In this manuscript, we observe by investigating a concrete SDP that the optimal value can be … Read more

Faster Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers with a Worst-case O(1/n^2) Convergence Rate

The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is being widely used for various convex programming models with separable structures arising in specifically many scientific computing areas. The ADMM’s worst-case O(1/n) convergence rate measured by the iteration complexity has been established in the literature when its penalty parameter is a constant, where n is the iteration … Read more

Complexity bounds for primal-dual methods minimizing the model of objective function

We provide Frank-Wolfe ($\equiv$ Conditional Gradients) method with a convergence analysis allowing to approach a primal-dual solution of convex optimization problem with composite objective function. Additional properties of complementary part of the objective (strong convexity) significantly accelerate the scheme. We also justify a new variant of this method, which can be seen as a trust-region … Read more

Multiple cuts in separating plane algorithms

This paper presents an extended version of the separation plane algorithms for subgradient-based finite-dimensional nondifferentiable convex blackbox optimization. The extension introduces additional cuts for epigraph of the conjugate of objective function which improve the convergence of the algorithm. The case of affine cuts is considered in more details and it is shown that it requires … Read more

Invariance conditions for nonlinear dynamical systems

Recently, Horv\’ath, Song, and Terlaky [\emph{A novel unified approach to invariance condition of dynamical system, submitted to Applied Mathematics and Computation}] proposed a novel unified approach to study, i.e., invariance conditions, sufficient and necessary conditions, under which some convex sets are invariant sets for linear dynamical systems. In this paper, by utilizing analogous methodology, we … Read more

Frechet inequalities via convex optimization

Quantifying the risk carried by an aggregate position $S_d\defn\sum_{i=1}^d X_i$ comprising many risk factors $X_i$ is fundamental to both insurance and financial risk management. Frechet inequalities quantify the worst-case risk carried by the aggregate position given distributional information concerning its composing factors but without assuming independence. This marginal factor modeling of the aggregate position in … Read more

Steplength thresholds for invariance preserving of discretization methods of dynamical systems on a polyhedron

Steplength thresholds for invariance preserving of three types of discretization methods on a polyhedron are considered. For Taylor approximation type discretization methods we prove that a valid steplength threshold can be obtained by finding the first positive zeros of a finite number of polynomial functions. Further, a simple and efficient algorithm is proposed to numerically … Read more