Regularized Interior Proximal Alternating Direction Method for Separable Convex Optimization Problems

In this article we present a version of the proximal alternating direction method for a convex problem with linear constraints and a separable objective function, in which the standard quadratic regularizing term is replaced with an interior proximal metric for those variables that are required to satisfy some additional convex constraints. Moreover, the proposed method … Read more

Conditional gradient type methods for composite nonlinear and stochastic optimization

In this paper, we present a conditional gradient type (CGT) method for solving a class of composite optimization problems where the objective function consists of a (weakly) smooth term and a (strongly) convex regularization term. While including a strongly convex term in the subproblems of the classical conditional gradient (CG) method improves its rate of … Read more

Distributed Stochastic Variance Reduced Gradient Methods and a Lower Bound for Communication Complexity

We study distributed optimization algorithms for minimizing the average of convex functions. The applications include empirical risk minimization problems in statistical machine learning where the datasets are large and have to be stored on different machines. We design a distributed stochastic variance reduced gradient algorithm that, under certain conditions on the condition number, simultaneously achieves … Read more

The Riemannian Barzilai-Borwein method with nonmonotone line search and the matrix geometric mean computation

The Barzilai-Borwein method, an effective gradient descent method with clever choice of the step-length, is adapted from nonlinear optimization to Riemannian manifold optimization. More generally, global convergence of a nonmonotone line-search strategy for Riemannian optimization algorithms is proved under some standard assumptions. By a set of numerical tests, the Riemannian Barzilai-Borwein method with nonmonotone line-search … Read more

Local Nonglobal Minima for Solving Large Scale Extended Trust Region Subproblems

We study large scale extended trust region subproblems (eTRS) i.e., the minimization of a general quadratic function subject to a norm constraint, known as the trust region subproblem (TRS) but with an additional linear inequality constraint. It is well known that strong duality holds for the TRS and that there are efficient algorithms for solving … Read more

The use of squared slack variables in nonlinear second-order cone programming

In traditional nonlinear programming, the technique of converting a problem with inequality constraints into a problem containing only equality constraints, by the addition of squared slack variables, is well-known. Unfortunately, it is considered to be an avoided technique in the optimization community, since the advantages usually do not compensate for the disadvantages, like the increase … Read more

Optimality conditions for nonlinear semidefinite programming via squared slack variables

In this work, we derive second-order optimality conditions for nonlinear semidefinite programming (NSDP) problems, by reformulating it as an ordinary nonlinear programming problem using squared slack variables. We first consider the correspondence between Karush-Kuhn-Tucker points and regularity conditions for the general NSDP and its reformulation via slack variables. Then, we obtain a pair of “no-gap” … Read more

Optimization over Structured Subsets of Positive Semidefinite Matrices via Column Generation

We develop algorithms for inner approximating the cone of positive semidefinite matrices via linear programming and second order cone programming. Starting with an initial linear algebraic approximation suggested recently by Ahmadi and Majumdar, we describe an iterative process through which our approximation is improved at every step. This is done using ideas from column generation … Read more

Strengthening the SDP Relaxation of AC Power Flows with Convex Envelopes, Bound Tightening, and Lifted Nonlinear Cuts

This paper considers state-of-the-art convex relaxations for the AC power flow equations and introduces new valid cuts based on convex envelopes and lifted nonlinear constraints. These valid linear inequalities strengthen existing semidefinite and quadratic programming relaxations and dominate existing cuts proposed in the litterature. Together with model intersections and bound tightening, the new linear cuts … Read more

Solutions of a constrained Hermitian matrix-valued function optimization problem with applications

Let $f(X) =\left( XC + D\right)M\left(XC + D \right)^{*} – G$ be a given nonlinear Hermitian matrix-valued function with $M = M^*$ and $G = G^*$, and assume that the variable matrix $X$ satisfies the consistent linear matrix equation $XA = B$. This paper shows how to characterize the semi-definiteness of $f(X)$ subject to all … Read more