Globally Solving the Trust Region Subproblem Using Simple First-Order Methods

We consider the trust region subproblem which is given by a minimization of a quadratic, not necessarily convex, function over the Euclidean ball. Based on the well-known second-order necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for this problem, we present two sufficient optimality conditions defined solely in terms of the primal variables. Each of these conditions corresponds … Read more

Balancing Communication and Computation in Distributed Optimization

Methods for distributed optimization have received significant attention in recent years owing to their wide applicability in various domains including machine learning, robotics and sensor networks. A distributed optimization method typically consists of two key components: communication and computation. More specifically, at every iteration (or every several iterations) of a distributed algorithm, each node in … Read more

On the Optimal Proximal Parameter of an ADMM-like Splitting Method for Separable Convex Programming

An ADMM-based splitting method is proposed in [11] for solving convex minimization problems with linear constraints and multi-block separable objective functions; while a relatively large proximal parameter is required for theoretically ensuring the convergence. In this paper, we further study this method and find its optimal (smallest) proximal parameter. For succinctness, we focus on the … Read more

Manifold Sampling for Optimization of Nonconvex Functions that are Piecewise Linear Compositions of Smooth Components

We develop a manifold sampling algorithm for the minimization of a nonsmooth composite function $f \defined \psi + h \circ F$ when $\psi$ is smooth with known derivatives, $h$ is a known, nonsmooth, piecewise linear function, and $F$ is smooth but expensive to evaluate. The trust-region algorithm classifies points in the domain of $h$ as … Read more

Compact Representation of Near-Optimal Integer Programming Solutions

It is often useful in practice to explore near-optimal solutions of an integer programming problem. We show how all solutions within a given tolerance of the optimal value can be efficiently and compactly represented in a weighted decision diagram, once the optimal value is known. The structure of a decision diagram facilitates rapid processing of … Read more

Time inconsistency of optimal policies of distributionally robust inventory models

In this paper, we investigate optimal policies of distributionally robust (risk averse) inventory models. We demonstrate that if the respective risk measures are not strictly monotone, then there may exist infinitely many optimal policies which are not base-stock and not time consistent. This is in a sharp contrast with the risk neutral formulation of the … Read more

Lower bounds on the lattice-free rank for packing and covering integer programs

In this paper, we present lower bounds on the rank of the split closure, the multi-branch closure and the lattice-free closure for packing sets as a function of the integrality gap. We also provide a similar lower bound on the split rank of covering polyhedra. These results indicate that whenever the integrality gap is high, … Read more

Robust Sensitivity Analysis for Linear Programming with Ellipsoidal Perturbation

Given an originally robust optimal decision and allowing perturbation parameters of the linear programming problem to run through a maximum uncertainty set controlled by a variable of perturbation radius, we do robust sensitivity analysis for the robust linear programming problem in two scenarios. One is to keep the original decision still robust optimal, the other … Read more

A mixed-integer branching approach for very small formulations of disjunctive constraints

We study the existence and construction of very small formulations for disjunctive constraints in optimization problems: that is, formulations that use very few integer variables and extra constraints. To accomplish this, we present a novel mixed-integer branching formulation framework, which preserves many of the favorable algorithmic properties of a traditional mixed-integer programming formulation, including amenability … Read more

An Inexact Regularized Newton Framework with a Worst-Case Iteration Complexity of $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^{-3/2})$ for Nonconvex Optimization

An algorithm for solving smooth nonconvex optimization problems is proposed that, in the worst-case, takes $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^{-3/2})$ iterations to drive the norm of the gradient of the objective function below a prescribed positive real number $\epsilon$ and can take $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^{-3})$ iterations to drive the leftmost eigenvalue of the Hessian of the objective above $-\epsilon$. The proposed … Read more