A hybrid HS and PRP type conjugate gradient method for smooth optimization is presented, which reduces to the classical RPR or HS method if exact linear search is used and converges globally and R-linearly for nonconvex functions with an inexact backtracking line search under standard assumption. An inexact version of the proposed method which admits … Read more
This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the link between a now conventional framework in hierarchical optimization spread under the name of the optimistic bilevel problem and its initial more dicult formulation that we call here the original optimistic bilevel optimization problem. It follows from this research that, although the process of deriving necessary … Read more
Conjugate gradient methods have been paid attention to, because they can be directly applied to large-scale unconstrained optimization problems. In order to incorporate second order information of the objective function into conjugate gradient methods, Dai and Liao (2001) proposed a conjugate gradient method based on the secant condition. However, their method does not necessarily generate … Read more
It is well-known that the search direction generated by the standard (unmodified) PRP nonlinear conjugate gradient method is not necessarily a descent direction of the objective function, which brings difficulty for its global convergence for general functions. However, to our surprise, it is easily proved in this short note that the unmodified PRP method still … Read more
Simple modifiations of the limited-memory BFGS method (L-BFGS) for large scale unconstrained optimization are considered, which consist in corrections (derived from the idea of conjugate directions) of the used difference vectors, utilizing information from the preceding iteration. In case of quadratic objective functions, the improvement of convergence is the best one in some sense and … Read more
The Nelder-Mead algorithm, a longstanding direct search method for unconstrained optimization published in 1965, is designed to minimize a scalar-valued function $f$ of $n$ real variables using only function values, without any derivative information. Each Nelder–Mead iteration is associated with a nondegenerate simplex defined by $n + 1$ vertices and their function values; a typical … Read more
This short note considers and resolves the apparent contradiction between known worst-case complexity results for first and second-order methods for solving unconstrained smooth nonconvex optimization problems and a recent note by Jarre (2011) implying a very large lower bound on the number of iterations required to reach the solution’s neighbourhood for a specific problem with … Read more
In this paper, we seek the conjugate gradient direction closest to the direction of the scaled memoryless BFGS method and propose a family of conjugate gradient methods for unconstrained optimization. An improved Wolfe line search is also proposed, which can avoid a numerical drawback of the Wolfe line search and guarantee the global convergence of … Read more
We discuss a modification of the chained Rosenbrock function introduced by Nesterov, a polynomial of degree four of $n$ variables. Its only stationary point is the global minimizer with optimal value zero. An initial point is given such that any continuous piecewise linear descent path consists of at least an exponential number of $0.72 \cdot … Read more
Gaussian processes are the cornerstone of statistical analysis in many application ar- eas. Nevertheless, most of the applications are limited by their need to use the Cholesky factorization in the computation of the likelihood. In this work, we present a matrix-free approach for comput- ing the solution of the maximum likelihood problem involving Gaussian processes. … Read more