A Shifted Primal-Dual Interior Method for Nonlinear Optimization

Interior methods provide an effective approach for the treatment of inequality constraints in nonlinearly constrained optimization. A new primal-dual interior method is proposed based on minimizing a sequence of shifted primal-dual penalty-barrier functions. Certain global convergence properties are established. In particular, it is shown that every limit point is either an infeasible stationary point, or … Read more

Novel Radar Waveform Optimization for a Cooperative Radar-Communications System

We develop and present the novel minimum estimation error variance waveform design method, that optimizes the spectral shape of a unimodular radar waveform such that the performance of a joint radar-communications system that shares spectrum is maximized. We also perform a numerical study to compare the performance of the new technique with the previously derived … Read more

Large-scale packing of ellipsoids

The problem of packing ellipsoids in the n-dimensional space is considered in the present work. The proposed approach combines heuristic techniques with the resolution of recently introduced nonlinear programming models in order to construct solutions with a large number of ellipsoids. Numerical experiments illustrate that the introduced approach delivers good quality solutions with a computational … Read more

Two New Weak Constraint Qualifications for Mathematical Programs with Equilibrium Constraints and Applications

We introduce two new weaker Constraint Qualifications (CQs) for Mathematical Programs with Equilibrium (or Complementarity) Constraints, MPEC for short. One of them is a tailored version of the Constant Rank of Subspace Component (CRSC) and the other is a relaxed version of the MPEC-No Nonzero Abnormal Multiplier Constraint Qualification (MPEC-NNAMCQ). Both incorporate the exact set … Read more

A Primal-Dual Augmented Lagrangian Penalty-Interior-Point Filter Line Search Algorithm

Interior-point methods have been shown to be very efficient for large-scale nonlinear programming. The combination with penalty methods increases their robustness due to the regularization of the constraints caused by the penalty term. In this paper a primal-dual penalty-interior-point algorithm is proposed, that is based on an augmented Lagrangian approach with an l2-exact penalty function. … Read more

Augmented Lagrangians with constrained subproblems and convergence to second-order stationary points

Augmented Lagrangian methods with convergence to second-order stationary points in which any constraint can be penalized or carried out to the subproblems are considered in this work. The resolution of each subproblem can be done by any numerical algorithm able to return approximate second-order stationary points. The developed global convergence theory is stronger than the … Read more

Quadratic regularization with cubic descent for unconstrained optimization

Cubic-regularization and trust-region methods with worst case first-order complexity $O(\varepsilon^{-3/2})$ and worst-case second-order complexity $O(\varepsilon^{-3})$ have been developed in the last few years. In this paper it is proved that the same complexities are achieved by means of a quadratic regularization method with a cubic sufficient-descent condition instead of the more usual predicted-reduction based descent. … Read more

A note on the squared slack variables technique for nonlinear optimization

In constrained nonlinear optimization, the squared slack variables can be used to transform a problem with inequality constraints into a problem containing only equality constraints. This reformulation is usually not considered in the modern literature, mainly because of possible numerical instabilities. However, this argument only concerns the development of algorithms, and nothing stops us in … Read more

A Multi-Objective approach to visualize proportions and similarities between individuals by rectangular maps

In this paper we address the problem of visualizing the proportions and the similarities attached to a set of individuals. We represent this information using a rectangular map, i.e., a subdivision of a rectangle into rectangular portions so that each portion is associated with one individual, their areas reflect the proportions, and the closeness between … Read more

Polynomial SDP Cuts for Optimal Power Flow

The use of convex relaxations has lately gained considerable interest in Power Systems. These relaxations play a major role in providing quality guarantees for non-convex optimization problems. For the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) prob- lem, the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation is known to produce tight lower bounds. Unfortunately, SDP solvers still suffer from a lack … Read more