Magnetic Resonance Tissue Density Estimation using Optimal SSFP Pulse-Sequence Design

In this paper, we formulate a nonlinear, nonconvex semidefinite optimization problem to select the steady-state free precession (SSFP) pulse-sequence design variables which maximize the contrast to noise ratio in tissue segmentation. The method could be applied to other pulse sequence types, arbitrary numbers of tissues, and numbers of images. To solve the problem we use … Read more

Large-Scale Semidefinite Programming via Saddle Point Mirror-Prox Algorithm

In this paper, we first develop “economical” representations for positive semidefinitness of well-structured sparse symmetric matrix. Using the representations, we then reformulate well-structured large-scale semidefinite problems into smooth convex-concave saddle point problems, which can be solved by a Prox-method with efficiency ${\cal O}(\epsilon^{-1})$ developed in \cite{Nem}. Some numerical implementations for large-scale Lovasz capacity and MAXCUT … Read more

A survey of the S-lemma

In this survey we review the many faces of the S-lemma, a result about the correctness of the S-procedure. The basic idea of this widely used method came from control theory but it has important consequences in quadratic and semidefinite optimization, convex geometry and linear algebra as well. These were active research areas, but as … Read more

Recovering Risk-Neutral Probability Density Functions from Options Prices using Cubic Splines

We present a new approach to estimate the risk-neutral probability density function (pdf) of the future prices of an underlying asset from the prices of options written on the asset. The estimation is carried out in the space of cubic spline functions, yielding appropriate smoothness. The resulting optimization problem, used to invert the data and … Read more

A direct formulation for sparse PCA using semidefinite programming

We examine the problem of approximating, in the Frobenius-norm sense, a positive, semidefinite symmetric matrix by a rank-one matrix, with an upper bound on the cardinality of its eigenvector. The problem arises in the decomposition of a covariance matrix into sparse factors, and has wide applications ranging from biology to finance. We use a modification … Read more

Invariance and efficiency of convex representations

We consider two notions for the representations of convex cones: $G$-representation and lifted-$G$-representation. The former represents a convex cone as a slice of another; the latter allows in addition, the usage of auxiliary variables in the representation. We first study the basic properties of these representations. We show that some basic properties of convex cones … Read more

Solving Lift-and-Project Relaxations of Binary Integer Programs

We propose a method for optimizing the lift-and-project relaxations of binary integer programs introduced by Lov\’asz and Schrijver. In particular, we study both linear and semidefinite relaxations. The key idea is a restructuring of the relaxations, which isolates the complicating constraints and allows for a Lagrangian approach. We detail an enhanced subgradient method and discuss … Read more

Primal-Dual Interior-Point Algorithms for Semidefinite Optimization Based on a Simple Kernel Function

Interior-point methods (IPMs) for semidefinite optimization (SDO) have been studied intensively, due to their polynomial complexity and practical efficiency. Recently, J.Peng et al. introduced so-called self-regular kernel (and barrier) functions and designed primal-dual interior-point algorithms based on self-regular proximity for linear optimization (LO) problems. They have also extended the approach for LO to SDO. In … Read more

A semidefinite programming based polyhedral cut and price algorithm for the maxcut problem

We investigate solution of the maximum cut problem using a polyhedral cut and price approach. The dual of the well-known SDP relaxation of maxcut is formulated as a semi-infinite linear programming problem, which is solved within an interior point cutting plane algorithm in a dual setting; this constitutes the pricing (column generation) phase of the … Read more

An Extension of Sums of Squares Relaxations to Polynomial Optimization Problems over Symmetric Cones

This paper is based on a recent work by Kojima which extended sums of squares relaxations of polynomial optimization problems to polynomial semidefinite programs. Let ${\cal E}$ and ${\cal E}_+$ be a finite dimensional real vector space and a symmetric cone embedded in ${\cal E}$; examples of $\calE$ and $\calE_+$ include a pair of the … Read more