A convex variational framework is proposed for solving inverse problems in Hilbert spaces with a priori information on the representation of the target solution in a frame. The objective function to be minimized consists of a separable term penalizing each frame coefficient individually and of a smooth term modeling the data formation model as well … Read more
The regularization of a convex program is exact if all solutions of the regularized problem are also solutions of the original problem for all values of the regularization parameter below some positive threshold. For a general convex program, we show that the regularization is exact if and only if a certain selection problem has a … Read more
The notion of soft thresholding plays a central role in problems from various areas of applied mathematics, in which the ideal solution is known to possess a sparse decomposition in some orthonormal basis. Using convex-analytical tools, we extend this notion to that of proximal thresholding and investigate its properties, providing in particular several characterizations of … Read more
With the objective of generating “shape-preserving” smooth interpolating curves that represent data with abrupt changes in magnitude and/or knot spacing, we study a class of first-derivative-based ${\cal C}^1$-smooth univariate cubic $L_1$ splines. An $L_1$ spline minimizes the $L_1$ norm of the difference between the first-order derivative of the spline and the local divided difference of … Read more
An algorithm is developed for minimizing nonsmooth convex functions. This algorithm extends Elzinga-Moore cutting plane algorithm by enforcing the search of the next test point not too far from the previous ones, thus removing compactness assumption. Our method is to Elzinga-Moore’s algorithm what a proximal bundle method is to Kelley’s algorithm. Instead of lower approximations … Read more
In http://www.optimizationonline.org/DB_HTML/2005/05/1136.html 05/25/05, we have demonstrated that the family of all affine non-anticipative output-based control laws in a discrete time linear dynamical system affected by uncertain disturbances is equivalent, as far as state-control trajectories are concerned, to the family of all affine non-anticipative “purified-output-based” control laws. The advantage of the latter representation of affine controls … Read more
The inclusion of transaction costs is an essential element of any realistic portfolio optimization. In this paper, we consider an extension of the standard portfolio problem in which convex transaction costs are incurred to rebalance an investment portfolio. In particular, we consider linear, piecewise linear, and quadratic transaction costs. The Markowitz framework of mean-variance efficiency … Read more
We consider a chance constrained problem, where one seeks to minimize a convex objective over solutions satisfying, with a given (close to one) probability, a system of randomly perturbed convex constraints. Our goal is to build a computationally tractable approximation of this (typically intractable) problem, i.e., an explicitly given convex optimization program with the feasible … Read more
We introduce a new approach to minimizing a function defined as the pointwise maximum over finitely many convex real functions (next referred to as the “component functions”), with the aim of working on the basis of “incomplete knowledge” of the objective function. In fact, a descent algorithm is proposed which does not necessarily require at … Read more
We propose a pattern search method to solve a classical nonsmooth optimization problem. In a deep analogy with pattern search methods for linear constrained optimization, the set of search directions at each iteration is defined in such a way that it conforms to the local geometry of the set of points of nondifferentiability near the … Read more