Strengthening SONC Relaxations with Constraints Derived from Variable Bounds

Nonnegativity certificates can be used to obtain tight dual bounds for polynomial optimization problems. Hierarchies of certificate-based relaxations ensure convergence to the global optimum, but higher levels of such hierarchies can become very computationally expensive, and the well-known sums of squares hierarchies scale poorly with the degree of the polynomials. This has motivated research into … 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

Learning to Accelerate the Global Optimization of Quadratically-Constrained Quadratic Programs

We learn optimal instance-specific heuristics for the global minimization of nonconvex quadratically-constrained quadratic programs (QCQPs). Specifically, we consider partitioning-based mixed-integer programming relaxations for nonconvex QCQPs and propose the novel problem of strong partitioning to optimally partition variable domains without sacrificing global optimality. We design a local optimization method for solving this challenging max-min strong partitioning … Read more

Global Optimization of Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs with SCIP 8.0

For over ten years, the constraint integer programming framework SCIP has been extended by capabilities for the solution of convex and nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs). With the recently published version 8.0, these capabilities have been largely reworked and extended. This paper discusses the motivations for recent changes and provides an overview of features that … Read more

Expected Value of Matrix Quadratic Forms with Wishart distributed Random Matrices

To explore the limits of a stochastic gradient method, it may be useful to consider an example consisting of an infinite number of quadratic functions. In this context, it is appropriate to determine the expected value and the covariance matrix of the stochastic noise, i.e. the difference of the true gradient and the approximated gradient … Read more

Approximation hierarchies for copositive cone over symmetric cone and their comparison

We first provide an inner-approximation hierarchy described by a sum-of-squares (SOS) constraint for the copositive (COP) cone over a general symmetric cone. The hierarchy is a generalization of that proposed by Parrilo (2000) for the usual COP cone (over a nonnegative orthant). We also discuss its dual. Second, we characterize the COP cone over a … Read more

Subsampled cubic regularization method for finite-sum minimization

This paper proposes and analyzes  a  subsampled Cubic Regularization Method  (CRM) for solving  finite-sum optimization problems.  The new method uses  random subsampling techniques  to approximate  the  functions, gradients and Hessians in order to reduce the overall computational cost of the CRM. Under suitable hypotheses,  first- and second-order  iteration-complexity bounds and global convergence analyses  are presented. … Read more

Finding Groups with Maximum Betweenness Centrality via Integer Programming with Random Path Sampling

One popular approach to access the importance/influence of a group of nodes in a network is based on the notion of centrality. For a given group, its group betweenness centrality is computed, first, by evaluating a ratio of shortest paths between each node pair in a network that are “covered” by at least one node … Read more

An Exact Method for Nonlinear Network Flow Interdiction Problems

We study network flow interdiction problems with nonlinear and nonconvex flow models. The resulting model is a max-min bilevel optimization problem in which the follower’s problem is nonlinear and nonconvex. In this game, the leader attacks a limited number of arcs with the goal to maximize the load shed and the follower aims at minimizing … Read more