nonlinear optimization

D-optimal partitioning: design of experiments under heterogeneous treatment effects

  • Jiaqi Wang
  • Weijun Xie
    • Categories Combinatorial Optimization, Nonlinear Optimization, Optimization in Data Science Tags , , , ,

    Modern experimentation in business and public policy often studies targeted interventions whose effects depend on the heterogeneous attributes of individuals. We examine heterogeneous treatment effects through the lens of optimal design of experiments, which allocates treatment decisions to maximize the precision of estimated treatment-covariate interactions. We introduce the D-optimal partitioning problem for balancing the information … Read more

    Distributionally Robust Optimization with General Uncertainty Structure

  • Judith Brugman
  • Dimitris Bertsimas
  • Johan Van Leeuwaarden
  • Dick den Hertog
    • Categories Nonlinear Optimization, Robust Optimization, Stochastic Programming Tags , , , , , ,

    We develop an exact solution framework for a broad class of Distributionally Robust Optimization (DRO) problems with general uncertainty structure. Within the class of moment- and confidence-set-based ambiguity sets, existing exact methods are largely limited to max-of-affine functions under ambiguity sets with strictly nested confidence sets. To enlarge this scope while preserving tractability, we introduce … Read more

    Finite-Sample Optimality and Constraint Satisfaction: Learning-Based Optimal Control in Dynamic Dispatch Networks

  • Moustafa Rashidy
    • Categories Data Science Theory, Production and Logistics, Transportation Tags , ,

    Dynamic dispatch networks in logistics and transportation require real-time, constraint-aware decision-making under stochastic demand. This paper bridges mathematical optimization, optimal control theory, and reinforcement learning by establishing non-asymptotic theoretical guarantees for learning-based optimal control in constrained stochastic dispatch systems. We formulate the problem as a constrained Markov decision process, enforce feasibility via a projection-based policy … Read more

    Complexity of an inexact stochastic SQP algorithm for equality constrained optimization

  • Michael J. O'Neill
  • Aoji Tang
    • Categories Constrained Nonlinear Optimization, Stochastic Programming Tags , , ,

    In this paper, we consider nonlinear optimization problems with a stochastic objective function and deterministic equality constraints. We propose an inexact two-stepsize stochastic sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm and analyze its worst-case complexity under mild assumptions. The method utilizes a step decomposition strategy and handles stochastic gradient estimates by assigning different stepsizes to different components … Read more

    A Multi-Secant Limited-Memory BFGS Method

  • Fedor V. Gubarev
    • Categories Unconstrained Optimization Tags ,

    We develop multi-secant BFGS-like quasi-Newton updating scheme, which adaptively selects the number of imposed secant conditions and naturally preserves positivity of approximated Hessian. Compact representation and respective limited-memory formulation are also derived. Numerical stability is assured via unconventional damping technique, which symmetrically handles coordinate and gradient differences. Practical relevance of proposed method is demonstrated via … Read more

    Global Optimization for Combinatorial Geometry Problems Revisited in the Era of LLMs

  • Timo Berthold
  • Dominik Kamp
  • Gioni Mexi
  • Sebastian Pokutta
  • Imre Pólik
    • Categories Constrained Nonlinear Optimization, Nonlinear Optimization, Optimization Software and Modeling Systems Tags , , ,

    Recent progress in LLM-driven algorithm discovery, exemplified by DeepMind’s AlphaEvolve, has produced new best-known solutions for a range of hard geometric and combinatorial problems. This raises a natural question: to what extent can modern off-the-shelf global optimization solvers match such results when the problems are formulated directly as nonlinear optimization problems (NLPs)? We revisit a … Read more

    A Proximal-Gradient Method for Solving Regularized Optimization Problems with General Constraints

  • Daniel P. Robinson
  • Frank E. Curtis
  • Xiaoyi Qu
    • Categories Constrained Nonlinear Optimization, Nonlinear Optimization, Nonsmooth Optimization Tags , , , , , ,

    We propose, analyze, and test a proximal-gradient method for solving regularized optimization problems with general constraints. The method employs a decomposition strategy to compute trial steps and uses a merit function to determine step acceptance or rejection. Under various assumptions, we establish a worst-case iteration complexity result, prove that limit points are first-order KKT points, … Read more

    On constraint qualifications for lower-level sets and an augmented Lagrangian method

  • Roberto Andreani
  • Gabriel Haeser
  • Mariana da Rosa
  • Daiana O. Santos
    • Categories Nonlinear Optimization Tags , , ,

    In this paper we consider an augmented Lagrangian method with general lower-level constraints, that is, where some of the constraints are penalized while others are kept as subproblem constraints. Motivated by some recent results on optimization problems on manifolds, we present a general theory of global convergence when a feasible approximate KKT point is found … Read more

    Progressively Sampled Equality-Constrained Optimization

  • Frank E. Curtis
  • Lingjun Guo
  • Daniel P. Robinson
    • Categories Constrained Nonlinear Optimization, Nonlinear Optimization, Optimization in Data Science Tags , , , ,

    An algorithm is proposed, analyzed, and tested for solving continuous nonlinear-equality-constrained optimization problems where the constraints are defined by an expectation or an average over a large (finite) number of terms. The main idea of the algorithm is to solve a sequence of equality-constrained problems, each involving a finite sample of constraint-function terms, over which … Read more

    Retrospective Approximation Sequential Quadratic Programming for Stochastic Optimization with General Deterministic Nonlinear Constraints

  • Shagun Gupta
  • Raghu Bollapragada
  • Albert S. Berahas
    • Categories Constrained Nonlinear Optimization, Nonlinear Optimization, Optimization in Data Science Tags , , , ,

    In this paper, we propose a framework based on the Retrospective Approximation (RA) paradigm to solve optimization problems with a stochastic objective function and general nonlinear deterministic constraints. This framework sequentially constructs increasingly accurate approximations of the true problems which are solved to a specified accuracy via a deterministic solver, thereby decoupling the uncertainty from … Read more