Trace Norm Regularization: Reformulations, Algorithms, and Multi-task Learning

We consider a recently proposed optimization formulation of multi-task learning based on trace norm regularized least squares. While this problem may be formulated as a semidefinite program (SDP), its size is beyond general SDP solvers. Previous solution approaches apply proximal gradient methods to solve the primal problem. We derive new primal and dual reformulations of … Read more

A Hierarchy of Near-Optimal Policies for Multi-stage Adaptive Optimization

In this paper, we propose a new tractable framework for dealing with multi-stage decision problems affected by uncertainty, applicable to robust optimization and stochastic programming. We introduce a hierarchy of polynomial disturbance-feedback control policies, and show how these can be computed by solving a single semidefinite programming problem. The approach yields a hierarchy parameterized by … Read more

Approximating semidefinite packing problems

In this paper we define semidefinite packing programs and describe an algorithm to approximately solve these problems. Semidefinite packing programs arise in many applications such as semidefinite programming relaxations for combinatorial optimization problems, sparse principal component analysis, and sparse variance unfolding technique for dimension reduction. Our algorithm exploits the structural similarity between semidefinite packing programs … Read more

Interior Proximal Algorithm with Variable Metric for Second-Order Cone Programming: Applications to Structural Optimization and Support Vector Machines

In this work, we propose an inexact interior proximal type algorithm for solving convex second-order cone programs. This kind of problems consists of minimizing a convex function (possibly nonsmooth) over the intersection of an affine linear space with the Cartesian product of second-order cones. The proposed algorithm uses a distance variable metric, which is induced … Read more

Covariance regularization in inverse space

This paper proposes to apply Gaussian graphical models to estimate the large-scale normal distribution in the context of data assimilation from a relatively small number of data from the satellite. Data assimilation is a field which fits simulation models to observation data developed mainly in meteorology and oceanography. The optimization problem tends to be huge … Read more

Graph Realizations Associated with Minimizing the Maximum Eigenvalue of the Laplacian

In analogy to the absolute algebraic connectivity of Fiedler, we study the problem of minimizing the maximum eigenvalue of the Laplacian of a graph by redistributing the edge weights. Via semidefinite duality this leads to a graph realization problem in which nodes should be placed as close as possible to the origin while adjacent nodes … Read more

Explicit Sensor Network Localization using Semidefinite Representations and Facial Reductions

The sensor network localization, SNL, problem in embedding dimension r, consists of locating the positions of wireless sensors, given only the distances between sensors that are within radio range and the positions of a subset of the sensors (called anchors). Current solution techniques relax this problem to a weighted, nearest, (positive) semidefinite programming, SDP, completion … Read more

Iteration-complexity of first-order augmented Lagrangian methods for convex programming

This paper considers a special class of convex programming (CP) problems whose feasible regions consist of a simple compact convex set intersected with an affine manifold. We present first-order methods for this class of problems based on an inexact version of the classical augmented Lagrangian (AL) approach, where the subproblems are approximately solved by means … Read more

Cutting Plane Methods and Subgradient Methods

Interior point methods have proven very successful at solving linear programming problems. When an explicit linear programming formulation is either not available or is too large to employ directly, a column generation approach can be used. Examples of column generation approaches include cutting plane methods for integer programming and decomposition methods for many classes of … Read more

A Numerical Algorithm for Block-Diagonal Decomposition of Matrix *-Algebras, Part II: General Algorithm

An algorithm is proposed for finding the finest simultaneous block-diagonalization of a finite number of square matrices, or equivalently the irreducible decomposition of a matrix *-algebra given in terms of its generators. This extends the approach initiated in Part I by Murota-Kanno-Kojima-Kojima. The algorithm, composed of numerical-linear algebraic computations, does not require any algebraic structure … Read more