Sensitivity analysis for variational inequalities and nonlinear complementarity problems

This paper surveys the main results in the area of sensitivity analysis for finite-dimensional variational inequality and nonlinear complementarity problems. It provides an overview of Lipschitz continuity and differentiability properties of perturbed solutions for variational inequality problems, defined on both fixed and perturbed sets, and for nonlinear complementarity problems.     

Sensitivity analysis framework for variational inequalities

In this paper a sensitivity analysis framework is developed for variational inequalities. The perturbed solution to a parametric variational inequality problem is shown to be continuous and directionally differentiable under appropriate second order and regularity assumptions. Moreover, this solution is once continuously differentiable if strict complementarity also holds.     

Solution differentiability for variational inequalities

In this paper we study solution differentiability properties for variational inequalities. We characterize Fréchet differentiability of perturbed solutions to parametric variational inequality problems defined on polyhedral sets. Our result extends the recent result of Pang and it directly specializes to nonlinear complementarity problems, variational inequality problems defined on perturbed sets and to nonlinear programming problems.     

Weighted variational inequalities in normed spaces

In this article, we consider weighted variational inequalities over a product of sets and a system of weighted variational inequalities in normed spaces. We extend most results established in Ansari, Q.H., Khan, Z. and Siddiqi, A.H., (Weighted variational inequalities, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, 127(2005), pp. 263–283), from Euclidean spaces ordered by their respective non-negative orthants to normed spaces ordered by their respective non-trivial closed convex cones with non-empty interiors.     

Dynamical systems and variational inequalities

The variational inequality problem has been utilized to formulate and study a plethora of competitive equilibrium problems in different disciplines, ranging from oligopolistic market equilibrium problems to traffic network equilibrium problems. In this paper we consider for a given variational inequality a naturally related ordinary differential equation. The ordinary differential equations that arise are nonstandard because of discontinuities that appear in the dynamics. These discontinuities are due to the constraints associated with the feasible region of the variational inequality problem. The goals of the paper are two-fold. The first goal is to demonstrate that although non-standard, many of the important quantitative and qualitative properties of ordinary differential equations that hold under the standard conditions, such as Lipschitz continuity type conditions, apply here as well. This is important from the point of view of modeling, since it suggests (at least under some appropriate conditions) that these ordinary differential equations may serve as dynamical models. The second goal is to prove convergence for a class of numerical schemes designed to approximate solutions to a given variational inequality. This is done by exploiting the equivalence between the stationary points of the associated ordinary differential equation and the solutions of the variational inequality problem. It can be expected that the techniques described in this paper will be useful for more elaborate dynamical models, such as stochastic models, and that the connection between such dynamical models and the solutions to the variational inequalities will provide a deeper understanding of equilibrium problems.     

Lexicographic variational inequalities with applications

In this article, we consider equivalence properties between various kinds of lexicographic variational inequalities. By employing various concepts of monotonicity, we show that the usual sequential variational inequality is equivalent to the direct lexicographic variational inequality or to the dual lexicographic variational inequality. We establish several existence results for lexicographic variational inequalities. Also, we introduce the lexicographic complementarity problem and establish its equivalence with the lexicographic variational inequality. We illustrate our approach by several examples of applications to vector transportation and vector spatial equilibrium problems.     

Error bounds and strong upper semicontinuity for monotone affine variational inequalities

Global error bounds for possibly degenerate or nondegenerate monotone affine variational inequality problems are given. The error bounds are on an arbitrary point and are in terms of the distance between the given point and a solution to a convex quadratic program. For the monotone linear complementarity problem the convex program is that of minimizing a quadratic function on the nonnegative orthant. These bounds may form the basis of an iterative quadratic programming procedure for solving affine variational inequality problems. A strong upper semicontinuity result is also obtained which may be useful for finitely terminating any convergent algorithm by periodically solving a linear program.This material is based on research supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant AFOSR-89-0410 and National Science Foundation Grants CCR-9101801 and CCR-9157632.     

Finite convergence of algorithms for nonlinear programs and variational inequalities

Algorithms for nonlinear programming and variational inequality problems are, in general, only guaranteed to converge in the limit to a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker point, in the case of nonlinear programs, or to a solution in the case of variational inequalities. In this paper, we derive sufficient conditions for nonlinear programs with convex feasible sets such that any convergent algorithm can be modified, by adding a convex subproblem with a linear objective function, to guarantee finite convergence in a generalized sense. When the feasible set is polyhedral, the subproblem is a linear program and finite convergence is obtained. Similar results are also developed for variational inequalities.The research of the first author was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under Contract No. N00014-86-K-0173.The authors are indebted to Professors Olvi Mangasarian, Garth McCormick, Jong-Shi Pang, Hanif Sherali, and Hoang Tuy for helpful comments and suggestions and to two anonymous referees for constructive remarks and for bringing to their attention the results in Refs. 13 and 14.     

Inverse problems for multi-valued quasi variational inequalities and noncoercive variational inequalities with noisy data

ABSTRACT

We study the inverse problem of identifying a variable parameter in variational and quasi-variational inequalities. We consider a quasi-variational inequality involving a multi-valued monotone map and give a new existence result. We then formulate the inverse problem as an optimization problem and prove its solvability. We also conduct a thorough study of the inverse problem of parameter identification in noncoercive variational inequalities which appear commonly in applied models. We study the inverse problem by posing optimization problems using the output least-squares and the modified output least-squares. Using regularization, penalization, and smoothing, we obtain a single-valued parameter-to-selection map and study its differentiability. We consider optimization problems using the output least-squares and the modified output least-squares for the regularized, penalized and smoothened variational inequality. We give existence results, convergence analysis, and optimality conditions. We provide applications and numerical examples to justify the proposed framework.     

A network formulation of market equilibrium problems and variational inequalities

This paper shows that market equilibrium problems of production may generally be modelled as equilibrium flow problems in networks and that their equilibrium conditions can be visualized as a variational inequality. This connection would allow us to transplant directly elements of the well-developed theory of equilibrium flow in networks to the theory of market equilibrium.