The method of conjugate gradients (CG) is widely used for the iterative solution of large sparse systems of equations $Ax=b$, where $A\in\Re^{n\times n}$ is symmetric positive definite. Let $x_k$ denote the $k$–th iterate of CG. In this paper we obtain an expression for $J_k$, the Jacobian matrix of $x_k$ with respect to $b$. We use … Read more
Chen and Mangasarian (1995) developed smoothing approximations to the plus function built on integral-convolution with density functions. X. Chen (2012) has recently picked up this idea constructing a large class of smoothing functions for nonsmooth minimization through composition with smooth mappings. In this paper, we generalize this idea by substituting the plus function for an … Read more
We consider the minimization of a convex function on a compact polyhedron defined by linear equality constraints and nonnegative variables. We define the Levenberg-Marquardt (L-M) and central trajectories starting at the analytic center and using the same parameter, and show that they satisfy a primal-dual relationship, being close to each other for large values of … Read more
It is shown how functions that are defined by evaluation programs involving the absolute value function (besides smooth elementals), can be approximated locally by piecewise-linear models in the style of algorithmic, or automatic, differentiation (AD). The model can be generated by a minor modification of standard AD tools and it is Lipschitz continuous with respect … Read more
This paper presents a branch-and-lift algorithm for solving optimal control problems with smooth nonlinear dynamics and nonconvex objective and constraint functionals to guaranteed global optimality. This algorithm features a direct sequential method and builds upon a spatial branch-and-bound algorithm. A new operation, called lifting, is introduced which refines the control parameterization via a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization … Read more
Smoothing methods have become part of the standard tool set for the study and solution of nondifferentiable and constrained optimization problems as well as a range of other variational and equilibrium problems. In this note we synthesize and extend recent results due to Beck and Teboulle on infimal convolution smoothing for convex functions with those … Read more
We present an approach for nonlinear programming (NLP) based on the direct minimization of an exact di erentiable penalty function using trust-region Newton techniques. As opposed to existing algorithmic approaches to NLP, the approach provides all the features required for scalability: it can eciently detect and exploit directions of negative curvature, it is superlinearly convergent, and … Read more
Matrix rank minimization problem is widely applicable in many fields such as control, signal processing and system identification. However, the problem is in general NP-hard, and it is computationally hard to solve directly in practice. In this paper, we provide a new kind of approximation functions for the rank of matrix, and the corresponding approximation … Read more
During the last 40 years, simplicial partitioning has shown itself to be highly useful, including in the field of Nonlinear Optimisation. In this article, we consider results on the exhaustivity of simplicial partitioning schemes. We consider conjectures on this exhaustivity which seem at first glance to be true (two of which have been stated as … Read more
In this paper we introduce a new numerical optimization technique, a Probabilistic-Driven Search Algorithm. This algorithm has the following characteristics: 1) In each iteration of loop, the algorithm just changes the value of k variables to find a new solution better than the current one; 2) In each variable of the solution of the problem, … Read more