First and second order optimality conditions for piecewise smooth objective functions

Any piecewise smooth function that is specified by an evaluation procedures involving smooth elemental functions and piecewise linear functions like min and max can be represented in the so-called abs-normal form. By an extension of algorithmic, or automatic differentiation, one can then compute certain first and second order derivative vectors and matrices that represent a … Read more

A note on robust descent in differentiable optimization

In this note, we recall two solutions to alleviate the catastrophic cancellations that occur when comparing function values in descent algorithms. The automatic finite differencing approach (Dussault and Hamelin) was shown useful to trust region and line search variants. The main original contribution is to successfully adapt the line search strategy (Hager and Zhang) for … Read more

Relationships between constrained and unconstrained multi-objective optimization and application in location theory

This article deals with constrained multi-objective optimization problems. The main purpose of the article is to investigate relationships between constrained and unconstrained multi-objective optimization problems. Under suitable assumptions (e.g., generalized convexity assumptions) we derive a characterization of the set of (strictly, weakly) efficient solutions of a constrained multi-objective optimization problem using characterizations of the sets … Read more

On solving large-scale limited-memory quasi-Newton equations

We consider the problem of solving linear systems of equations with limited- memory members of the restricted Broyden class and symmetric rank-one matrices. In this paper, we present various methods for solving these linear systems, and propose a new approach based on a practical implementation of the compact representation for the inverse of these limited-memory … Read more

Robust Numerical Calibration for Implied Volatility Expansion Models

Implied volatility expansions allow calibration of sophisticated volatility models. They provide an accurate fit and parametrization of implied volatility surfaces that is consistent with empirical observations. Fine-grained higher order expansions offer a better fit but pose the challenge of finding a robust, stable and computationally tractable calibration procedure due to a large number of market … Read more

Evaluation complexity bounds for smooth constrained nonlinear optimization using scaled KKT conditions and high-order models

Evaluation complexity for convexly constrained optimization is considered and it is shown first that the complexity bound of $O(\epsilon^{-3/2})$ proved by Cartis, Gould and Toint (IMAJNA 32(4) 2012, pp.1662-1695) for computing an $\epsilon$-approximate first-order critical point can be obtained under significantly weaker assumptions. Moreover, the result is generalized to the case where high-order derivatives are … Read more

Combinatorial Optimal Control of Semilinear Elliptic PDEs

Optimal control problems (OCP) containing both integrality and partial differential equation (PDE) constraints are very challenging in practice. The most wide-spread solution approach is to first discretize the problem, it results in huge and typically nonconvex mixed-integer optimization problems that can be solved to proven optimality only in very small dimensions. In this paper, we … Read more

Sum of Squares Basis Pursuit with Linear and Second Order Cone Programming

We devise a scheme for solving an iterative sequence of linear programs (LPs) or second order cone programs (SOCPs) to approximate the optimal value of any semidefinite program (SDP) or sum of squares (SOS) program. The first LP and SOCP-based bounds in the sequence come from the recent work of Ahmadi and Majumdar on diagonally … Read more

Polynomial SDP Cuts for Optimal Power Flow

The use of convex relaxations has lately gained considerable interest in Power Systems. These relaxations play a major role in providing quality guarantees for non-convex optimization problems. For the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) prob- lem, the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation is known to produce tight lower bounds. Unfortunately, SDP solvers still suffer from a lack … Read more

Improved Damped Quasi-Newton Methods for Unconstrained Optimization

Recently, Al-Baali (2014) has extended the damped-technique in the modified BFGS method of Powell (1978) for Lagrange constrained optimization functions to the Broyden family of quasi-Newton methods for unconstrained optimization. Appropriate choices for the damped-parameter, which maintain the global and superlinear con- vergence property of these methods on convex functions and correct the Hessian approximations … Read more