An iterative process for the feasibility-seeking problem with sets that are unions of convex sets

In this paper we deal with the feasibility-seeking problem for unions of convex sets (UCS) sets and propose an iterative process for its solution. Renewed interest in this problem stems from the fact that it was recently discovered to serve as a modeling approach in fields of applications and from the ongoing recent research efforts … Read more

Optimistic Noise-Aware Sequential Quadratic Programming for Equality Constrained Optimization with Rank-Deficient Jacobians

We propose and analyze a sequential quadratic programming algorithm for minimizing a noisy nonlinear smooth function subject to noisy nonlinear smooth equality constraints. The algorithm uses a step decomposition strategy and, as a result, is robust to potential rank-deficiency in the constraints, allows for two different step size strategies, and has an early stopping mechanism. … Read more

The Least Singular Value Function in Variational Analysis

Metric regularity is among the central concepts of nonlinear and variational analysis, constrained optimization, and their numerous applications. However, met- ric regularity can be elusive for some important ill-posed classes of problems includ- ing polynomial equations, parametric variational systems, smooth reformulations of complementarity systems with degenerate solutions, etc. The study of stability issues for such … Read more

A Universally Optimal Primal-Dual Method for Minimizing Heterogeneous Compositions

This paper proposes a universal, optimal algorithm for convex minimization problems of the composite form $g_0(x)+h(g_1(x),\dots, g_m(x)) + u(x)$. We allow each $g_j$ to independently range from being nonsmooth Lipschitz to smooth, from convex to strongly convex, described by notions of H\”older continuous gradients and uniform convexity. Note that, although the objective is built from … Read more

On Sum-Rules for Second-Order Contingent Derivatives

We are concerned with contingent derivatives and their second-order counterparts (introduced by Ngai et al.) of set-valued mappings. Special attention is given to the development of new sum-rules for second-order contingent derivatives. To be precise, we want to find conditions under which the second-order contingent derivative of the sum of a smooth and a set-valued … Read more

A Study of First-Order Methods with a Probabilistic Relative-Error Gradient Oracle

This paper investigates the problem of minimizing a smooth function over a compact set with a probabilistic relative-error gradient oracle. The oracle succeeds with some probability, in which case it provides a relative-error approximation of the true gradient, or fails and returns an arbitrary vector, while the optimizer cannot distinguish between successful and failed queries … Read more

A Sound Local Regret Methodology for Online Nonconvex Composite Optimization

Online nonconvex optimization addresses dynamic and complex decision-making problems arising in real-world decision-making tasks where the optimizer’s objective evolves with the intricate and changing nature of the underlying system. This paper studies an online nonconvex composite optimization model with limited first-order access, encompassing a wide range of practical scenarios. We define local regret using a … Read more

An Interior-Point Algorithm for Continuous Nonlinearly Constrained Optimization with Noisy Function and Derivative Evaluations

An algorithm based on the interior-point methodology for solving continuous nonlinearly constrained optimization problems is proposed, analyzed, and tested. The distinguishing feature of the algorithm is that it presumes that only noisy values of the objective and constraint functions and their first-order derivatives are available. The algorithm is based on a combination of a previously … Read more

An Augmented Lagrangian Approach to Bi-Level Optimization via an Equilibrium Constrained Problem

Optimization problems involving equilibrium constraints capture diverse optimization settings such as bi-level optimization, min-max problems and games, and the minimization over non-linear constraints. This paper introduces an Augmented Lagrangian approach with Hessian-vector product approximation to address an equilibrium constrained nonconvex nonsmooth optimization problem. The underlying model in particular captures various settings of bi-level optimization problems, … Read more

A necessary condition for the guarantee of the superiorization method

We study a method that involves principally convex feasibility-seeking and makes secondary efforts of objective function value reduction. This is the well-known superiorization method (SM), where the iterates of an asymptotically convergent iterative feasibility-seeking algorithm are perturbed by objective function nonascent steps. We investigate the question under what conditions a sequence generated by an SM … Read more