Non-asymptotic Results for Langevin Monte Carlo: Coordinate-wise and Black-box Sampling

Euler-Maruyama and Ozaki discretization of a continuous time diffusion process is a popular technique for sampling, that uses (upto) gradient and Hessian information of the density respectively. The Euler-Maruyama discretization has been used particularly for sampling under the name of Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) for sampling from strongly log-concave densities. In this work, we make … Read more

Active-set Newton methods and partial smoothness

Diverse optimization algorithms correctly identify, in finite time, intrinsic constraints that must be active at optimality. Analogous behavior extends beyond optimization to systems involving partly smooth operators, and in particular to variational inequalities over partly smooth sets. As in classical nonlinear programming, such active-set structure underlies the design of accelerated local algorithms of Newton type. … Read more

Quasi-Newton Methods for Deep Learning: Forget the Past, Just Sample

We present two sampled quasi-Newton methods: sampled LBFGS and sampled LSR1. Contrary to the classical variants of these methods that sequentially build (inverse) Hessian approximations as the optimization progresses, our proposed methods sample points randomly around the current iterate to produce these approximations. As a result, the approximations constructed make use of more reliable (recent … Read more

When a maximal angle among cones is nonobtuse

Principal angles between linear subspaces have been studied for their application to statistics, numerical linear algebra, and other areas. In 2005, Iusem and Seeger defined critical angles within a single convex cone as an extension of antipodality in a compact set. Then, in 2016, Seeger and Sossa extended that notion to two cones. This was … Read more

Analysis of the BFGS Method with Errors

The classical convergence analysis of quasi-Newton methods assumes that the function and gradients employed at each iteration are exact. In this paper, we consider the case when there are (bounded) errors in both computations and establish conditions under which a slight modification of the BFGS algorithm with an Armijo-Wolfe line search converges to a neighborhood … Read more

Generalized subdifferentials of spectral functions over Euclidean Jordan algebras

This paper is devoted to the study of generalized subdifferentials of spectral functions over Euclidean Jordan algebras. Spectral functions appear often in optimization problems playing the role of “regularizer”, “barrier”, “penalty function” and many others. We provide formulae for the regular, approximate and horizon subdifferentials of spectral functions. In addition, under local lower semicontinuity, we … Read more

An Augmented Lagrangian Method for Quasi-Equilibrium Problems

In this paper, we propose an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm for solving a general class of possible non-convex problems called quasi-equilibrium problems (QEPs). We define an Augmented Lagrangian bifunction associated with QEPs, introduce a secondary QEP as a measure of infeasibility and we discuss several special classes of QEPs within our theoretical framework. For obtaining global … Read more

Towards an efficient Augmented Lagrangian method for convex quadratic programming

Interior point methods have attracted most of the attention in the recent decades for solving large scale convex quadratic programming problems. In this paper we take a different route as we present an augmented Lagrangian method for convex quadratic programming based on recent developments for nonlinear programming. In our approach, box constraints are penalized while … Read more

Convergence and evaluation-complexity analysis of a regularized tensor-Newton method for solving nonlinear least-squares problems subject to convex constraints

Given a twice-continuously differentiable vector-valued function $r(x)$, a local minimizer of $\|r(x)\|_2$ within a convex set is sought. We propose and analyse tensor-Newton methods, in which $r(x)$ is replaced locally by its second-order Taylor approximation. Convergence is controlled by regularization of various orders. We establish global convergence to a constrained first-order critical point of $\|r(x)\|_2$, … Read more

Convexification of polynomial optimization problems by means of monomial patterns

Convexification is a core technique in global polynomial optimization. Currently, two different approaches compete in practice and in the literature. First, general approaches rooted in nonlinear programming. They are comparitively cheap from a computational point of view, but typically do not provide good (tight) relaxations with respect to bounds for the original problem. Second, approaches … Read more