In this article, we consider solvers for large-scale trust-region subproblems when the quadratic model is defined by a limited-memory symmetric rank-one (L-SR1) quasi-Newton matrix. We propose a solver that exploits the compact representation of L-SR1 matrices. Our approach makes use of both an orthonormal basis for the eigenspace of the L-SR1 matrix and the Sherman- … Read more
The steepest descent algorithm with exact line searches (Cauchy algorithm) is inefficient, generating oscillating step lengths and a sequence of points converging to the span of the eigenvectors associated with the extreme eigenvalues. The performance becomes very good if a short step is taken at every (say) 10 iterations. We show a new method for … Read more
The pooling problem is a nonconvex nonlinear programming problem with numerous applications. The nonlinearities of the problem arise from bilinear constraints that capture the blending of raw materials. Bilinear constraints are well-studied and significant progress has been made in solving large instances of the pooling problem to global optimality. This is due in no small … Read more
In this paper we study genericity for the following parameterized class of nonlinear programs: \begin{eqnarray*} \textrm{minimize } f_u(x) := f(x) – \langle u, x \rangle \quad \textrm{subject to } \quad x \in S, \end{eqnarray*} where $f \colon \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a polynomial function and $S \subset \mathbb{R}^n$ is a closed semialgebraic set, which is … Read more
In this paper we consider the class of polynomial optimization problems with inequality and equality constraints, in which every problem of the class is obtained by perturbations of the objective function, while the constraint functions are kept fixed. Under certain assumptions, we establish some stability properties (e.g., strong H\”older stability with explicitly determined exponents, semicontinuity, … Read more
The Probabilistic Traveling Salesman Problem, introduced in 1985 by Jaillet, is one of the fundamental stochastic versions of the Traveling Salesman Problem: After the tour is chosen, each vertex is deleted with given probability 1-p. The eliminated vertices are bypassed which leads to shorter tours. The aim is to minimize the expected tour length. The … Read more
Direct-search algorithms form one of the main classes of algorithms for smooth unconstrained derivative-free optimization, due to their simplicity and their well-established convergence results. They proceed by iteratively looking for improvement along some vectors or directions. In the presence of smoothness, first-order global convergence comes from the ability of the vectors to approximate the steepest … Read more
We present a new Adaptive Regularization by Cubics (ARC) algorithm, which we name \arcq\ and which is very close in spirit to trust region methods, closer than the original ARC is. We prove global convergence to second-order critical points. We also obtain as a corollary the convergence of the original ARC method. We prove the … Read more
Mini-batch optimization has proven to be a powerful paradigm for large-scale learning. However, the state of the art parallel mini-batch algorithms assume synchronous operation or cyclic update orders. When worker nodes are heterogeneous (due to different computational capabilities or different communication delays), synchronous and cyclic operations are inefficient since they will leave workers idle waiting … Read more
The types of constraints encountered in black-box simulation-based optimization problems differ significantly from those addressed in nonlinear programming. We introduce a characterization of constraints to address this situation. We provide formal definitions for several constraint classes and present illustrative examples in the context of the resulting taxonomy. This taxonomy, denoted KARQ, is useful for modeling … Read more