A LQP BASED INTERIOR PREDICTION-CORRECTION METHOD FOR NONLINEAR COMPLEMENTARITY PROBLEMS

To solve nonlinear complementarity problems （NCP）, at each iteration, the classical proximal point algorithm solves a well-conditioned sub-NCP while the Logarithmic-Quadratic Proximal （LQP） method solves a system of nonlinear equations （LQP system）. This paper presents a practical LQP method-based prediction-correction method for NCP. The predictor is obtained via solving the LQP system approximately under significantly relaxed restriction, and the new iterate （the corrector） is computed directly by an explicit formula derived from the original LQP method. The implementations are very easy to be carried out. Global convergence of the method is proved under the same mild assumptions as the original LQP method. Finally, numerical results for traffic equilibrium problems are provided to verify that the method is effective for some practical problems.     

A new hybrid method for nonlinear complementarity problems

In this paper, a new hybrid method is proposed for solving nonlinear complementarity problems (NCP) with P ₀ function. In the new method, we combine a smoothing nonmonotone trust region method based on a conic model and line search techniques. We reformulate the NCP as a system of semismooth equations using the Fischer-Burmeister function. Using Kanzow’s smooth approximation function to construct the smooth operator, we propose a smoothing nonmonotone trust region algorithm of a conic model for solving the NCP with P ₀ functions. This is different from the classical trust region methods, in that when a trial step is not accepted, the method does not resolve the trust region subproblem but generates an iterative point whose steplength is defined by a line search. We prove that every accumulation point of the sequence generated by the algorithm is a solution of the NCP. Under a nonsingularity condition, the superlinear convergence of the algorithm is established without a strict complementarity condition.     

An inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal augmented Lagrangian method for a class of constrained variational inequalities

The augmented Lagrangian method is attractive in constraint optimizations. When it is applied to a class of constrained variational inequalities, the sub-problem in each iteration is a nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP). By introducing a logarithmic-quadratic proximal term, the sub-NCP becomes a system of nonlinear equations, which we call the LQP system. Solving a system of nonlinear equations is easier than the related NCP, because the solution of the NCP has combinatorial properties. In this paper, we present an inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal augmented Lagrangian method for a class of constrained variational inequalities, in which the LQP system is solved approximately under a rather relaxed inexactness criterion. The generated sequence is Fejér monotone and the global convergence is proved. Finally, some numerical test results for traffic equilibrium problems are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the method.      

A new criterion for the inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal method and its derived hybrid methods

To solve nonlinear complementarity problems, the inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal (LQP) method solves a system of nonlinear equations (LQP system) approximately at each iteration. Therefore, the efficiencies of inexact-type LQP methods depend greatly on the involved inexact criteria used to solve the LQP systems. This paper relaxes inexact criteria of existing inexact-type LQP methods and thus makes it easier to solve the LQP system approximately. Based on the approximate solutions of the LQP systems, a descent method, and a prediction–correction method are presented. Convergence of the new methods are proved under mild assumptions. Numerical experiments for solving traffic equilibrium problems demonstrate that the new methods are more efficient than some existing methods and thus verify that the new inexact criterion is attractive in practice.     

The non-interior continuation methods for solving theP0 function nonlinear complementarity problem

In this paper, we propose a new smooth function that possesses a property not satisfied by the existing smooth functions. Based on this smooth function, we discuss the existence and continuity of the smoothing path for solving theP ₀ function nonlinear complementarity problem ( NCP). Using the characteristics of the new smooth function, we investigate the boundedness of the iteration sequence generated by the non-interior continuation methods for solving theP ₀ function NCP under the assumption that the solution set of the NCP is nonempty and bounded. We show that the assumption that the solution set of the NCP is nonempty and bounded is weaker than those required by a few existing continuation methods for solving the NCP     

A Smoothing Newton Method for General Nonlinear Complementarity Problems

Smoothing Newton methods for nonlinear complementarity problems NCP(F) often require F to be at least a P ₀-function in order to guarantee that the underlying Newton equation is solvable. Based on a special equation reformulation of NCP(F), we propose a new smoothing Newton method for general nonlinear complementarity problems. The introduction of Kanzow and Pieper's gradient step makes our algorithm to be globally convergent. Under certain conditions, our method achieves fast local convergence rate. Extensive numerical results are also reported for all complementarity problems in MCPLIB and GAMSLIB libraries with all available starting points.     

Predictor-Corrector Smoothing Newton Method,Based on a New Smoothing Function,for Solving the Nonlinear Complementarity Problem with a P 0 Function

By smoothing a perturbed minimum function, we propose in this paper a new smoothing function. The existence and continuity of a smooth path for solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) with a P ₀ function are discussed. We investigate the boundedness of the iteration sequence generated by noninterior continuation/smoothing methods under the assumption that the solution set of the NCP is nonempty and bounded. Based on the new smoothing function, we present a predictor-corrector smoothing Newton algorithm for solving the NCP with a P ₀ function, which is shown to be globally linearly and locally superlinearly convergent under suitable assumptions. Some preliminary computational results are reported.     

Extended LQP Method for Monotone Nonlinear Complementarity Problems

To solve nonlinear complementarity problems (NCP), the logarithmic-quadratic proximal (LQP) method solves a system of nonlinear equations at each iteration. In this paper, the iterates generated by the original LQP method are extended by explicit formulas and thus an extended LQP method is presented. It is proved theoretically that the lower bound of the progress obtained by the extended LQP method is greater than that by the original LQP method. Preliminary numerical results are provided to verify the theoretical assertions and the effectiveness of both the original and the extended LQP method.     

Smoothing Trust Region Methods for Nonlinear Complementarity Problems with P 0-Functions

By using the Fischer–Burmeister function to reformulate the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) as a system of semismooth equations and using Kanzow’s smooth approximation function to construct the smooth operator, we propose a smoothing trust region algorithm for solving the NCP with P ₀ functions. We prove that every accumulation point of the sequence generated by the algorithm is a solution of the NCP. Under a nonsingularity condition, local Q-superlinear/Q-quadratic convergence of the algorithm is established without the strict complementarity condition. This work was partially supported by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 10171030).     

A Regularization Newton Method for Solving Nonlinear Complementarity Problems

In this paper we construct a regularization Newton method for solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP(F )) and analyze its convergence properties under the assumption that F is a P ₀ -function. We prove that every accumulation point of the sequence of iterates is a solution of NCP(F ) and that the sequence of iterates is bounded if the solution set of NCP(F ) is nonempty and bounded. Moreover, if F is a monotone and Lipschitz continuous function, we prove that the sequence of iterates is bounded if and only if the solution set of NCP(F ) is nonempty by setting , where is a parameter. If NCP(F) has a locally unique solution and satisfies a nonsingularity condition, then the convergence rate is superlinear (quadratic) without strict complementarity conditions. At each step, we only solve a linear system of equations. Numerical results are provided and further applications to other problems are discussed. Accepted 25 March 1998     

The non-interior continuation methods for solving theP 0 function nonlinear complementarity problem

In this paper, we propose a new smooth function that possesses a property not satisfied by the existing smooth functions. Based on this smooth function, we discuss the existence and continuity of the smoothing path for solving theP ₀ function nonlinear complementarity problem ( NCP). Using the characteristics of the new smooth function, we investigate the boundedness of the iteration sequence generated by the non-interior continuation methods for solving theP ₀ function NCP under the assumption that the solution set of the NCP is nonempty and bounded. We show that the assumption that the solution set of the NCP is nonempty and bounded is weaker than those required by a few existing continuation methods for solving the NCP     

A new class of smoothing functions and a smoothing Newton method for complementarity problems

In this paper, we introduce a new class of smoothing functions, which include some popular smoothing complementarity functions. We show that the new smoothing functions possess a system of favorite properties. The existence and continuity of a smooth path for solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) with a P ₀ function are discussed. The Jacobian consistency of this class of smoothing functions is analyzed. Based on the new smoothing functions, we investigate a smoothing Newton algorithm for the NCP and discuss its global and local superlinear convergence. Some preliminary numerical results are reported.     

A new smoothing and regularization Newton method for <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis><Subscript>0</Subscript>-NCP

The nonlinear complementarity problem (denoted by NCP(F)) can be reformulated as the solution of a nonsmooth system of equations. In this paper, we propose a new smoothing and regularization Newton method for solving nonlinear complementarity problem with P ₀-function (P ₀-NCP). Without requiring strict complementarity assumption at the P ₀-NCP solution, the proposed algorithm is proved to be convergent globally and superlinearly under suitable assumptions. Furthermore, the algorithm has local quadratic convergence under mild conditions. Numerical experiments indicate that the proposed method is quite effective. In addition, in this paper, the regularization parameter ε in our algorithm is viewed as an independent variable, hence, our algorithm seems to be simpler and more easily implemented compared to many previous methods.     

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 smoothing inexact Newton method for nonlinear complementarity problems

In this article, we propose a new smoothing inexact Newton algorithm for solving nonlinear complementarity problems (NCP) base on the smoothed Fischer-Burmeister function. In each iteration, the corresponding linear system is solved only approximately. The global convergence and local superlinear convergence are established without strict complementarity assumption at the NCP solution. Preliminary numerical results indicate that the method is effective for large-scale NCP.     

非线性互补问题的水平值估计算法

本文研究非线性互补问题（NCP）的求解算法，先将NCP转化为约束全局优化问题（CGOP），然后直接移植求解问题（CGOP）的水平值估计算法^[4,5]来求解问题（NCP）．文章证明了算法对于NCP是收敛的，数值实验说明了算法的有效性．     

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 family of NCP functions and a descent method for the nonlinear complementarity problem

In last decades, there has been much effort on the solution and the analysis of the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) by reformulating NCP as an unconstrained minimization involving an NCP function. In this paper, we propose a family of new NCP functions, which include the Fischer-Burmeister function as a special case, based on a p-norm with p being any fixed real number in the interval (1,+∞), and show several favorable properties of the proposed functions. In addition, we also propose a descent algorithm that is indeed derivative-free for solving the unconstrained minimization based on the merit functions from the proposed NCP functions. Numerical results for the test problems from MCPLIB indicate that the descent algorithm has better performance when the parameter p decreases in (1,+∞). This implies that the merit functions associated with p∈(1,2), for example p=1.5, are more effective in numerical computations than the Fischer-Burmeister merit function, which exactly corresponds to p=2. J.-S. Chen is a 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.     

A class of smoothing functions for nonlinear and mixed complementarity problems

We propose a class of parametric smooth functions that approximate the fundamental plus function, (x)₊=max{0, x}, by twice integrating a probability density function. This leads to classes of smooth parametric nonlinear equation approximations of nonlinear and mixed complementarity problems (NCPs and MCPs). For any solvable NCP or MCP, existence of an arbitrarily accurate solution to the smooth nonlinear equations as well as the NCP or MCP, is established for sufficiently large value of a smoothing parameter . Newton-based algorithms are proposed for the smooth problem. For strongly monotone NCPs, global convergence and local quadratic convergence are established. For solvable monotone NCPs, each accumulation point of the proposed algorithms solves the smooth problem. Exact solutions of our smooth nonlinear equation for various values of the parameter , generate an interior path, which is different from the central path for interior point method. Computational results for 52 test problems compare favorably with these for another Newton-based method. The smooth technique is capable of solving efficiently the test problems solved by Dirkse and Ferris [6], Harker and Xiao [11] and Pang & Gabriel [28].This material is based on research supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-94-1-0036 and National Science Foundation Grant CCR-9322479.