Coercivity and Strong Semismoothness of the Penalized Fischer-Burmeister Function for the Symmetric Cone Complementarity Problem

For the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP), Chen et al. (Math. Program., 88:211–216, 2000) proposed a penalized Fischer-Burmeister (FB) function that has most desirable properties among complementarity functions (C-functions). Motivated by their work, the authors showed (Kum and Lim in Penalized Complementarity Functions on Symmetric Cones, submitted, 2009) that this function naturally extends to a C-function for the symmetric cone complementarity problem (SCCP). In this note, we show that the main coercivity property of this function for NCP also extends to the SCCP. The proof uses a new trace inequality on Euclidean Jordan algebras. We also show that the penalized FB function is strongly semismooth in the case of a semidefinite cone and a second-order cone. This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant KRF-2008-314-C00039.     

A linearly convergent derivative-free descent method for the second-order cone complementarity problem

We consider a class of derivative-free descent methods for solving the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP). The algorithm is based on the Fischer–Burmeister (FB) unconstrained minimization reformulation of the SOCCP, and utilizes a convex combination of the negative partial gradients of the FB merit function ψ_FB as the search direction. We establish the global convergence results of the algorithm under monotonicity and the uniform Jordan P-property, and show that under strong monotonicity the merit function value sequence generated converges at a linear rate to zero. Particularly, the rate of convergence is dependent on the structure of second-order cones. Numerical comparisons are also made with the limited BFGS method used by Chen and Tseng (An unconstrained smooth minimization reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem, Math. Program. 104(2005), pp. 293–327), which confirm the theoretical results and the effectiveness of the algorithm.     

A semismooth Newton method for SOCCPs based on a one-parametric class of SOC complementarity functions

In this paper, we present a detailed investigation for the properties of a one-parametric class of SOC complementarity functions, which include the globally Lipschitz continuity, strong semismoothness, and the characterization of their B-subdifferential. Moreover, for the merit functions induced by them for the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP), we provide a condition for each stationary point to be a solution of the SOCCP and establish the boundedness of their level sets, by exploiting Cartesian P-properties. We also propose a semismooth Newton type method based on the reformulation of the nonsmooth system of equations involving the class of SOC complementarity functions. The global and superlinear convergence results are obtained, and among others, the superlinear convergence is established under strict complementarity. Preliminary numerical results are reported for DIMACS second-order cone programs, which confirm the favorable theoretical properties of the method.     

A one-parametric class of merit functions for the second-order cone complementarity problem

We investigate a one-parametric class of merit functions for the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) which is closely related to the popular Fischer–Burmeister (FB) merit function and natural residual merit function. In fact, it will reduce to the FB merit function if the involved parameter τ equals 2, whereas as τ tends to zero, its limit will become a multiple of the natural residual merit function. In this paper, we show that this class of merit functions enjoys several favorable properties as the FB merit function holds, for example, the smoothness. These properties play an important role in the reformulation method of an unconstrained minimization or a nonsmooth system of equations for the SOCCP. Numerical results are reported for some convex second-order cone programs (SOCPs) by solving the unconstrained minimization reformulation of the KKT optimality conditions, which indicate that the FB merit function is not the best. For the sparse linear SOCPs, the merit function corresponding to τ=2.5 or 3 works better than the FB merit function, whereas for the dense convex SOCPs, the merit function with τ=0.1, 0.5 or 1.0 seems to have better numerical performance.     

A Damped Gauss-Newton Method for the Second-Order Cone Complementarity Problem

We investigate some properties related to the generalized Newton method for the Fischer-Burmeister (FB) function over second-order cones, which allows us to reformulate the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) as a semismooth system of equations. Specifically, we characterize the B-subdifferential of the FB function at a general point and study the condition for every element of the B-subdifferential at a solution being nonsingular. In addition, for the induced FB merit function, we establish its coerciveness and provide a weaker condition than Chen and Tseng (Math. Program. 104:293–327, 2005) for each stationary point to be a solution, under suitable Cartesian P-properties of the involved mapping. By this, a damped Gauss-Newton method is proposed, and the global and superlinear convergence results are obtained. Numerical results are reported for the second-order cone programs from the DIMACS library, which verify the good theoretical properties of the method. S. Pan’s work is partially supported by the Doctoral Starting-up Foundation (B13B6050640) of GuangDong Province. J.-S. Chen is member of Mathematics Division, National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Taipei Office. J.-S. Chen’s work is partially supported by National Science Council of Taiwan.     

Analysis of a smoothing Newton method for second-order cone complementarity problem

In this paper, we consider the second-order cone complementarity problem with P ₀-property. By introducing a smoothing parameter into the Fischer-Burmeister function, we present a smoothing Newton method for the second-order cone complementarity problem. The proposed algorithm solves only a linear system of equations and performs only one line search at each iteration. At the same time, the algorithm does not have restrictions on its starting point and has global convergence. Under the assumption of nonsingularity, we establish the locally quadratic convergence of the algorithm without strict complementarity condition. Preliminary numerical results show that the algorithm is promising.     

A regularization smoothing method for second-order cone complementarity problem

In this paper, the second-order cone complementarity problem is studied. Based on the Fischer–Burmeister function with a perturbed parameter, which is also called smoothing parameter, a regularization smoothing Newton method is presented for solving the sequence of regularized problems of the second-order cone complementarity problem. Under proper conditions, the global convergence and local superlinear convergence of the proposed algorithm are obtained. Moreover, the local superlinear convergence is established without strict complementarity conditions. Preliminary numerical results suggest the effectiveness of the algorithm.     

An unconstrained smooth minimization reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem

A popular approach to solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) is to reformulate it as the global minimization of a certain merit function over ℝⁿ. A popular choice of the merit function is the squared norm of the Fischer-Burmeister function, shown to be smooth over ℝⁿ and, for monotone NCP, each stationary point is a solution of the NCP. This merit function and its analysis were subsequently extended to the semidefinite complementarity problem (SDCP), although only differentiability, not continuous differentiability, was established. In this paper, we extend this merit function and its analysis, including continuous differentiability, to the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP). Although SOCCP is reducible to a SDCP, the reduction does not allow for easy translation of the analysis from SDCP to SOCCP. Instead, our analysis exploits properties of the Jordan product and spectral factorization associated with the second-order cone. We also report preliminary numerical experience with solving DIMACS second-order cone programs using a limited-memory BFGS method to minimize the merit function. In honor of Terry Rockafellar on his 70th birthday     

A descent method for a reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem

Analogous to the nonlinear complementarity problem and the semi-definite complementarity problem, a popular approach to solving the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) is to reformulate it as an unconstrained minimization of a certain merit function over Rⁿ${\mathbb{R}}^n$. In this paper, we present a descent method for solving the unconstrained minimization reformulation of the SOCCP which is based on the Fischer–Burmeister merit function (FBMF) associated with second-order cone [J.-S. Chen, P. Tseng, An unconstrained smooth minimization reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem, Math. Programming 104 (2005) 293–327], and prove its global convergence. Particularly, we compare the numerical performance of the method for the symmetric affine SOCCP generated randomly with the FBMF approach [J.-S. Chen, P. Tseng, An unconstrained smooth minimization reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem, Math. Programming 104 (2005) 293–327]. The comparison results indicate that, if a scaling strategy is imposed on the test problem, the descent method proposed is comparable with the merit function approach in the CPU time for solving test problems although the former may require more function evaluations.     

Smoothing Newton method for nonsmooth second-order cone complementarity problems with application to electric power markets

This paper is dedicated to solving a nonsmooth second-order cone complementarity problem, in which the mapping is assumed to be locally Lipschitz continuous, but not necessarily to be continuously differentiable everywhere. With the help of the vector-valued Fischer-Burmeister function associated with second-order cones, the nonsmooth second-order cone complementarity problem can be equivalently transformed into a system of nonsmooth equations. To deal with this reformulated nonsmooth system, we present an approximation function by smoothing the inner mapping and the outer Fischer-Burmeister function simultaneously. Different from traditional smoothing methods, the smoothing parameter introduced is treated as an independent variable. We give some conditions under which the Jacobian of the smoothing approximation function is guaranteed to be nonsingular. Based on these results, we propose a smoothing Newton method for solving the nonsmooth second-order cone complementarity problem and show that the proposed method achieves globally superlinear or quadratic convergence under suitable assumptions. Finally, we apply the smoothing Newton method to a network Nash-Cournot game in oligopolistic electric power markets and report some numerical results to demonstrate its effectiveness.

     

Local reduction based SQP-type method for semi-infinite programs with an infinite number of second-order cone constraints

The second-order cone program (SOCP) is an optimization problem with second-order cone (SOC) constraints and has achieved notable developments in the last decade. The classical semi-infinite program (SIP) is represented with infinitely many inequality constraints, and has been studied extensively so far. In this paper, we consider the SIP with infinitely many SOC constraints, called the SISOCP for short. Compared with the standard SIP and SOCP, the studies on the SISOCP are scarce, even though it has important applications such as Chebychev approximation for vector-valued functions. For solving the SISOCP, we develop an algorithm that combines a local reduction method with an SQP-type method. In this method, we reduce the SISOCP to an SOCP with finitely many SOC constraints by means of implicit functions and apply an SQP-type method to the latter problem. We study the global and local convergence properties of the proposed algorithm. Finally, we observe the effectiveness of the algorithm through some numerical experiments.     

一个求解二阶锥规划的光滑牛顿算法

本文研究了二阶锥规划问题.利用新的最小值函数的光滑函数,给出一个求解二阶锥规划的光滑牛顿算法.算法可以从任意点出发,在每一步迭代只需求解一个线性方程组并进行一次线性搜索.在不需要满足严格互补假设条件下,证明了算法是全局收敛和局部二阶收敛的.数值试验表明算法是有效的.     

Lipschitz continuity of the gradient of a one-parametric class of SOC merit functions

In this article, we show that a one-parametric class of SOC merit functions has a Lipschitz continuous gradient; and moreover, the Lipschitz constant is related to the parameter in this class of SOC merit functions. This fact will lay a building block when the merit function approach as well as the Newton-type method are employed for solving the second-order cone complementarity problem with this class of merit functions.     

解P_0非线性互补问题的光滑Levenberg-Marquardt方法

本文研究了一个P0非线性互补问题.利用信赖域技术获得了求解该问题的光滑Levenberg-Marquardt算法,该算法在一定条件下具有全局性.利用局部误差界还获得了该算法的超线性和二次收敛.数值结果表明该算法是有效的.     

A New Class of Complementarity Function and the Boundedness of Its Merit Function for Symmetric Cone Complementarity Problem

In this paper, we introduce a new class of two-parametric penalized function, which includes the penalized minimum function and the penalized Fischer-Burmeister flmc- tion over symmetric cone complementarity problems. We propose that this class of function is a class of complementarity functions（C-function）. Moreover, its merit function has bounded level set under a weak condition.     

Superlinear／Quadratic One-step Smoothing Newton Methodf or P0-NCP

We propose a one-step smoothing Newton method for solving the non-linear complementarity problem with P0-function (P0-NCP) based on the smoothing symmetric perturbed Fisher function(for short, denoted as the SSPF-function). The proposed algorithm has to solve only one linear system of equations and performs only one line search per iteration. Without requiring any strict complementarity assumption at the P0-NCP solution, we show that the proposed algorithm converges globally and superlinearly under mild conditions. Furthermore, the algorithm has local quadratic convergence under suitable conditions. The main feature of our global convergence results is that we do not assume a priori the existence of an accumulation point. Compared to the previous literatures, our algorithm has stronger convergence results under weaker conditions.     

A regularization semismooth Newton method based on the generalized Fischer–Burmeister function for -NCPs

We consider a regularization method for nonlinear complementarity problems with F being a P₀-function which replaces the original problem with a sequence of the regularized complementarity problems. In this paper, this sequence of regularized complementarity problems are solved approximately by applying the generalized Newton method for an equivalent augmented system of equations, constructed by the generalized Fischer–Burmeister (FB) NCP-functions φ_p with p>1. We test the performance of the regularization semismooth Newton method based on the family of NCP-functions through solving all test problems from MCPLIB. Numerical experiments indicate that the method associated with a smaller p, for example p[1.1,2], usually has better numerical performance, and the generalized FB functions φ_p with p[1.1,2) can be used as the substitutions for the FB function φ₂.     

A nonmonotone smoothing Newton method for circular cone programming

The circular cone programming (CCP) problem is to minimize or maximize a linear function over the intersection of an affine space with the Cartesian product of circular cones. In this paper, we study nondegeneracy and strict complementarity for the CCP, and present a nonmonotone smoothing Newton method for solving the CCP. We reformulate the CCP as a second-order cone programming (SOCP) problem using the algebraic relation between the circular cone and the second-order cone. Then based on a one parametric class of smoothing functions for the SOCP, a smoothing Newton method is developed for the CCP by adopting a new nonmonotone line search scheme. Without restrictions regarding its starting point, our algorithm solves one linear system of equations approximately and performs one line search at each iteration. Under mild assumptions, our algorithm is shown to possess global and local quadratic convergence properties. Some preliminary numerical results illustrate that our nonmonotone smoothing Newton method is promising for solving the CCP.     

Existence of optimal solutions for general stochastic linear complementarity problems

In this paper we show the solvability of the expected residual minimization (ERM) formulation for the general stochastic linear complementarity problem (SLCP) under mild assumptions. The properties of the ERM formulation are dependent on the choice of NCP functions. We focus on the ERM formulations defined by the “min” NCP function and the penalized FB function, both of which are nonconvex programs on the nonnegative orthant.