Effective matrix adaptation strategy for noisy derivative-free optimization

In this paper, we introduce a new effective matrix adaptation evolution strategy (MADFO) for noisy derivative-free optimization problems. Like every MAES solver, MADFO consists of three phases: mutation, selection and recombination. MADFO improves the mutation phase by generating good step sizes, neither too small nor too large, that increase the probability of selecting mutation points … Read more

Inexact reduced gradient methods in nonconvex optimization

This paper proposes and develops new linesearch methods with inexact gradient information for finding stationary points of nonconvex continuously differentiable functions on finite-dimensional spaces. Some abstract convergence results for a broad class of linesearch methods are established. A general scheme for inexact reduced gradient (IRG) methods is proposed, where the errors in the gradient approximation … Read more

Multilinear formulations for computing Nash equilibrium of multi-player matrix games

We present multilinear and mixed-integer multilinear programs to find a Nash equilibrium in multi-player strategic-form games. We compare the formulations to common algorithms in Gambit, and conclude that a multilinear feasibility program finds a Nash equilibrium faster than any of the methods we compare it to, including the quantal response equilibrium method, which is recommended … Read more

Certifying Global Optimality of AC-OPF Solutions via sparse polynomial optimization

We report the experimental results on certifying 1% global optimality of solutions of AC-OPF instances from PGLiB via the CS-TSSOS hierarchy — a moment-SOS based hierarchy that exploits both correlative and term sparsity, which can provide tighter SDP relaxations than Shor’s relaxation. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the CS-TSSOS hierarchy scales well with the problem … Read more

A combined model for chain expansion including the possibility of locating a new facility and modification and/or closing of existing facilities

The problem of an expanding chain (it already has some facilities) in a given area is considered. It may locate a new facility, or vary (up or down) the quality of its existing facilities, or close some of them, or a combination of all those possibilities, whatever it is the best to maximize its profit, … Read more

Small polygons with large area

A polygon is {\em small} if it has unit diameter. The maximal area of a small polygon with a fixed number of sides $n$ is not known when $n$ is even and $n\geq14$. We determine an improved lower bound for the maximal area of a small $n$-gon for this case. The improvement affects the $1/n^3$ … Read more

Improved RIP-Based Bounds for Guaranteed Performance of Two Compressed Sensing Algorithms

Iterative hard thresholding (IHT) and compressive sampling matching pursuit (CoSaMP) are two mainstream compressed sensing algorithms using the hard thresholding operator. The guaranteed performance of the two algorithms for signal recovery was mainly analyzed in terms of the restricted isometry property (RIP) of sensing matrices. At present, the best known bound using RIP of order … Read more

An Algorithm for Stochastic Convex-Concave Fractional Programs with Applications to Production Efficiency and Equitable Resource Allocation

We propose an algorithm to solve convex and concave fractional programs and their stochastic counterparts in a common framework. Our approach is based on a novel reformulation that involves differences of square terms in the constraints, and subsequent employment of piecewise-linear approximations of the concave terms. Using the branch-and-bound (B&B) framework, our algorithm adaptively refines … Read more

MatQapNB User Guide: A branch-and-bound program for QAPs in Matlab with the Newton-Bracketing method

MatQapNB is a MATLAB toolbox that implements a parallel branch-and-bound method using NewtBracket (the Newton bracketing method [4]) for its lower bounding procedure. It can solve small to medium scale Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) instances with dimension up to 30. MatQapNB was used in the numerical experiments on QAPs in the recent article “Solving challenging … Read more

Penetration depth between two convex polyhedra: An efficient global optimization approach

During the detailed design phase of an aerospace program, one of the most important consistency checks is to ensure that no two distinct objects occupy the same physical space. Since exact geometrical modeling is usually intractable, geometry models are discretized, which often introduces small interferences not present in the fully detailed model. In this paper, … Read more