We consider the problem of computing the Lebesgue volume of compact basic semi-algebraic sets. In full generality, it can be approximated as closely as desired by a converging hierarchy of upper bounds obtained by applying the Moment-SOS (sums of squares) methodology to a certain infinite-dimensional linear program (LP). At each step one solves a semidefinite … Read more
We present a mathematical and computational framework for the problem of learning a dynamical system from noisy observations of a few trajectories and subject to side information. Side information is any knowledge we might have about the dynamical system we would like to learn besides trajectory data. It is typically inferred from domain-specific knowledge or … Read more
We consider the problem of minimizing an objective function that is the sum of a convex function and a group sparsity-inducing regularizer. Problems that integrate such regularizers arise in modern machine learning applications, often for the purpose of obtaining models that are easier to interpret and that have higher predictive accuracy. We present a new … Read more
In this paper, we propose and analyze an inexact version of the symmetric proximal alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for solving linearly constrained optimization problems. Basically, the method allows its first subproblem to be solved inexactly in such way that a relative approximate criterion is satisfied. In terms of the iteration number $k$, we … Read more
The augmented Lagrangian method (ALM) provides a benchmark for tackling the canonical convex minimization problem with linear constraints. We consider a special case where the objective function is the sum of $m$ individual subfunctions without coupled variables. The recent study reveals that the direct extension of ALM for separable convex programming problems is not necessarily … Read more
The primal-dual hybrid gradient algorithm (PDHG), which is indeed the Arrow-Hurwicz method, has been widely used in image processing areas. However, the convergence of PDHG was established only under some restrictive conditions in the literature, and it is still missing for the case without extra constraints. In this paper, from a perspective of the variational … Read more
This short paper describes a simple subgradient-based techniques for deriving bounds on the optimal solution value when using the ADMM to solve convex optimization problems. The technique requires a bound on the magnitude of some optimal solution vector, but is otherwise completely general. Some computational examples using LASSO problems demonstrate that the technique can produce … Read more
In this paper we conduct a study of both superiorization and optimization approaches for the reconstruction problem of superiorized/regularized solutions to underdetermined systems of linear equations with nonnegativity variable bounds. Specifically, we study a (smoothed) total variation regularized least-squares problem with nonnegativity constraints. We consider two approaches: (a) a superiorization approach that, in contrast to … Read more
It was recently found that the standard version of multi-block cyclic ADMM diverges. Interestingly, Gaussian Back Substitution ADMM (GBS-ADMM) and symmetric Gauss-Seidel ADMM (sGS-ADMM) do not have the divergence issue. Therefore, it seems that symmetrization can improve the performance of the classical cyclic order. In another recent work, cyclic CD (Coordinate Descent) was shown to … Read more
Domain-Driven Solver (DDS) is a MATLAB-based software package for convex optimization problems in Domain-Driven form [11]. The current version of DDS accepts every combination of the following function/set constraints: (1) symmetric cones (LP, SOCP, and SDP); (2) quadratic constraints; (3) direct sums of an arbitrary collection of 2-dimensional convex sets defined as the epigraphs of … Read more