Logarithmic barriers for sparse matrix cones

Algorithms are presented for evaluating gradients and Hessians of logarithmic barrier functions for two types of convex cones: the cone of positive semidefinite matrices with a given sparsity pattern, and its dual cone, the cone of sparse matrices with the same pattern that have a positive semidefinite completion. Efficient large-scale algorithms for evaluating these barriers … Read more

Customizing the Solution Process of COIN-OR’s Linear Solvers with Python

Implementations of the Simplex method differ only in very specific aspects such as the pivot rule. Similarly, most relaxation methods for mixed-integer programming differ only in the type of cuts and the exploration of the search tree. Implementing instances of those frameworks would therefore be more efficient if linear and mixed-integer programming solvers let users … Read more

Reweighted $\ell_1hBcMinimization for Sparse Solutions to Underdetermined Linear Systems

Numerical experiments have indicated that the reweighted $\ell_1$-minimization performs exceptionally well in locating sparse solutions of underdetermined linear systems of equations. Thus it is important to carry out a further investigation of this class of methods. In this paper, we point out that reweighted $\ell_1$-methods are intrinsically associated with the minimization of the so-called merit … Read more

Irreducible elements of the copositive cone

An element $A$ of the $n \times n$ copositive cone $\copos{n}$ is called irreducible with respect to the nonnegative cone~$\NNM{n}$ if it cannot be written as a nontrivial sum $A = C+N$ of a copositive matrix $C$ and an elementwise nonnegative matrix $N$. This property was studied by Baumert~\cite{Baumert65} who gave a characterisation of irreducible … Read more

A regularized simplex method

In case of a special problem class, the simplex method can be implemented as a cutting-plane method that approximates a certain convex polyhedral objective function. In this paper we consider a regularized version of this cutting-plane method, and interpret the resulting procedure as a regularized simplex method. (Regularization is performed in the dual space and … Read more

Addressing rank degeneracy in constraint-reduced interior-point methods for linear optimization

In earlier work (Tits et al., SIAM J. Optim., 17(1):119–146, 2006; Winternitz et al., COAP, doi=10.1007/s10589-010-9389-4, 2011), the present authors and their collaborators proposed primal-dual interior-point (PDIP) algorithms for linear optimization that, at each iteration, use only a subset of the (dual) inequality constraints in constructing the search direction. For problems with many more constraints … Read more

An upper bound for the number of different solutions generated by the primal simplex method with any selection rule of entering variables

Kitahara and Mizuno (2011a) obtained an upper bound for the number of different solutions generated by the primal simplex method with Dantzig’s (the most negative) pivoting rule. In this paper, we obtain an upper bound with any pivoting rule which chooses an entering variable whose reduced cost is negative at each iteration. The bound is … Read more

Warmstarting the Homogeneous and Self-Dual Interior Point Method for Linear and Conic Quadratic Problems

We present two strategies for warmstarting primal-dual interior point methods for the homogeneous self-dual model when applied to mixed linear and quadratic conic optimization problems. Common to both strategies is their use of only the final (optimal) iterate of the initial problem and their negligible computational cost. This is a major advantage when comparing to … Read more

Interior Point Methods for Optimal Experimental Designs

In this paper, we propose a primal IP method for solving the optimal experimental design problem with a large class of smooth convex optimality criteria, including A-, D- and p th mean criterion, and establish its global convergence. We also show that the Newton direction can be computed efficiently when the size of the moment … Read more

Algebraic Relaxations and Hardness Results in Polynomial Optimization and Lyapunov Analysis

The contributions of the first half of this thesis are on the computational and algebraic aspects of convexity in polynomial optimization. We show that unless P=NP, there exists no polynomial time (or even pseudo-polynomial time) algorithm that can decide whether a multivariate polynomial of degree four (or higher even degree) is globally convex. This solves … Read more