A First-Order Algorithm for the A-Optimal Experimental Design Problem: A Mathematical Programming Approach

We develop and analyse a first-order algorithm for the A-optimal experimental design problem. The problem is first presented as a special case of a parametric family of optimal design problems for which duality results and optimality conditions are given. Then, two first-order (Frank-Wolfe type) algorithms are presented, accompanied by a detailed time-complexity analysis of the … Read more

Fast implementation for semidefinite programs with positive matrix completion

Solving semidefinite programs (SDP) in a short time is the key to managing various mathematical optimization problems in practical time. The matrix-completion primal-dual interior-point method (MC-PDIPM) extracts a structural sparsity of input SDP by factorizing the variable matrices, and it shrinks the computation time. In this paper, we propose a new factorization based on the … Read more

Semidefinite Programming Based Preconditioning for More Robust Near-Separable Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) under the separability assumption can provably be solved efficiently, even in the presence of noise, and has been shown to be a powerful technique in document classification and hyperspectral unmixing. This problem is referred to as near-separable NMF and requires that there exists a cone spanned by a small subset of … Read more

A Convex Optimization Approach for Computing Correlated Choice Probabilities with Many Alternatives

A popular discrete choice model that incorporates correlation information is the Multinomial Probit (MNP) model where the random utilities of the alternatives are chosen from a multivariate normal distribution. Computing the choice probabilities is challenging in the MNP model when the number of alternatives is large and simulation is used to approximate the choice probabilities. … Read more

Stability of Polynomial Differential Equations: Complexity and Converse Lyapunov Questions

We consider polynomial differential equations and make a number of contributions to the questions of (i) complexity of deciding stability, (ii) existence of polynomial Lyapunov functions, and (iii) existence of sum of squares (sos) Lyapunov functions. (i) We show that deciding local or global asymptotic stability of cubic vector fields is strongly NP-hard. Simple variations … Read more

A Polynomial Time Constraint-Reduced Algorithm for Semidefinite Optimization Problems, with Convergence Proofs

We present an infeasible primal-dual interior point method for semidefinite optimization problems, making use of constraint reduction. We show that the algorithm is globally convergent and has polynomial complexity, the first such complexity result for primal-dual constraint reduction algorithms for any class of problems. Our algorithm is a modification of one with no constraint reduction … Read more

A Semidefinite Hierarchy for Containment of Spectrahedra

A spectrahedron is the positivity region of a linear matrix pencil, thus defining the feasible set of a semidefinite program. We propose and study a hierarchy of sufficient semidefinite conditions to certify the containment of a spectrahedron in another one. This approach comes from applying a moment relaxation to a suitable polynomial optimization formulation. The … Read more

Worst-Case Results For Positive Semidefinite Rank

This paper presents various worst-case results on the positive semidefinite (psd) rank of a nonnegative matrix, primarily in the context of polytopes. We prove that the psd rank of a generic n-dimensional polytope with v vertices is at least (nv)^(1/4) improving on previous lower bounds. For polygons with v vertices, we show that psd rank … Read more

A Perturbed Sums of Squares Theorem for Polynomial Optimization and its Applications

We consider a property of positive polynomials on a compact set with a small perturbation. When applied to a Polynomial Optimization Problem (POP), the property implies that the optimal value of the corresponding SemiDefinite Programming (SDP) relaxation with sufficiently large relaxation order is bounded from below by $(f^¥ast – ¥epsilon)$ and from above by $f^¥ast … Read more

A generalization of the Lowner-John’s ellipsoid theorem

We address the following generalization $P$ of the Lowner-John’s ellipsoid problem. Given a (non necessarily convex) compact set $K\subset R^n$ and an even integer $d, find an homogeneous polynomial $g$ of degree $d$ such that $K\subset G:=\{x:g(x)\leq1\}$ and $G$ has minimum volume among all such sets. We show that $P$ is a convex optimization problem … Read more