A Gauss–Newton Approach for Solving Constrained Optimization Problems Using Differentiable Exact Penalties

We propose a Gauss–Newton-type method for nonlinear constrained optimization using the exact penalty introduced recently by André and Silva for variational inequalities. We extend their penalty function to both equality and inequality constraints using a weak regularity assumption, and as a result, we obtain a continuously differentiable exact penalty function and a new reformulation of the KKT conditions as a system of equations. Such reformulation allows the use of a semismooth Newton method, so that local superlinear convergence rate can be proved under an assumption weaker than the usual strong second-order sufficient condition and without requiring strict complementarity. Besides, we note that the exact penalty function can be used to globalize the method. We conclude with some numerical experiments using the collection of test problems CUTE.     

Generalized Newton methods for crack problems with nonpenetration condition

A class of semismooth Newton methods for unilaterally constrained variational problems modeling cracks under a nonpenetration condition is introduced and investigated. On the continuous level, a penalization technique is applied that allows to argue generalized differentiability of the nonlinear mapping associated to its first‐order optimality characterization. It is shown that the corresponding semismooth Newton method converges locally superlinearly. For the discrete version of the problem, fast local as well as global and monotonous convergence of a discrete semismooth Newton method are proved. A comprehensive report on numerical tests for the two‐dimensional Lamé problem with three collinear cracks under the nonpenetration condition ends the article. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005     

A Smoothing Newton Method for Semi-Infinite Programming

This paper is concerned with numerical methods for solving a semi-infinite programming problem. We reformulate the equations and nonlinear complementarity conditions of the first order optimality condition of the problem into a system of semismooth equations. By using a perturbed Fischer–Burmeister function, we develop a smoothing Newton method for solving this system of semismooth equations. An advantage of the proposed method is that at each iteration, only a system of linear equations is solved. We prove that under standard assumptions, the iterate sequence generated by the smoothing Newton method converges superlinearly/quadratically.     

A special newton-type optimization method

The Kuhn–Tucker conditions of an optimization problem with inequality constraints are transformed equivalently into a special nonlinear system of equations T ₀(z) = 0. It is shown that Newton's method for solving this system combines two valuable properties: The local Q-quadratic convergence without assuming the strict complementary slackness condition and the regularity of the Jacobian of T ₀ at a point z under reasonable conditions, so that Newton’s method can be used also far from a Kuhn–Tucker point     

A Smoothing Newton Method for Semi-Infinite Programming

This paper is concerned with numerical methods for solving a semi-infinite programming problem. We reformulate the equations and nonlinear complementarity conditions of the first order optimality condition of the problem into a system of semismooth equations. By using a perturbed Fischer–Burmeister function, we develop a smoothing Newton method for solving this system of semismooth equations. An advantage of the proposed method is that at each iteration, only a system of linear equations is solved. We prove that under standard assumptions, the iterate sequence generated by the smoothing Newton method converges superlinearly/quadratically.     

The penalized Fischer-Burmeister SOC complementarity function

In this paper, we study the properties of the penalized Fischer-Burmeister (FB) second-order cone (SOC) complementarity function. We show that the function possesses similar desirable properties of the FB SOC complementarity function for local convergence; for example, with the function the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) can be reformulated as a (strongly) semismooth system of equations, and the corresponding nonsmooth Newton method has local quadratic convergence without strict complementarity of solutions. In addition, the penalized FB merit function has bounded level sets under a rather weak condition which can be satisfied by strictly feasible monotone SOCCPs or SOCCPs with the Cartesian R ₀₁-property, although it is not continuously differentiable. Numerical results are included to illustrate the theoretical considerations.     

Properties of equation reformulation of the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker condition for nonlinear second order cone optimization problems

We give an equation reformulation of the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) condition for the second order cone optimization problem. The equation is strongly semismooth and its Clarke subdifferential at the KKT point is proved to be nonsingular under the constraint nondegeneracy condition and a strong second order sufficient optimality condition. This property is used in an implicit function theorem of semismooth functions to analyze the convergence properties of a local sequential quadratic programming type (for short, SQP-type) method by Kato and Fukushima (Optim Lett 1:129–144, 2007). Moreover, we prove that, a local solution x* to the second order cone optimization problem is a strict minimizer of the Han penalty merit function when the constraint nondegeneracy condition and the strong second order optimality condition are satisfied at x*.     

An Augmented Lagrangian based Semismooth Newton Method for a Class of Bilinear Programming Problems

This paper proposes a semismooth Newton method for a class of bilinear programming problems(BLPs) based on the augmented Lagrangian, in which the BLPs are reformulated as a system of nonlinear equations with original variables and Lagrange multipliers. Without strict complementarity, the convergence of the method is studied by means of theories of semismooth analysis under the linear independence constraint qualification and strong second order sufficient condition. At last, numerical results are reported to show the performance of the proposed method.     

New reformulation and feasible semismooth Newton method for a class of stochastic linear complementarity problems

A class of stochastic linear complementarity problems (SLCPs) with finitely many realizations is considered. We first formulate the problem as a new constrained minimization problem. Then, we propose a feasible semismooth Newton method which yields a stationary point of the constrained minimization problem. We study the condition for the level set of the objective function to be bounded. As a result, the condition for the solution set of the constrained minimization problem is obtained. The global and quadratic convergence of the proposed method is proved under certain assumptions. Preliminary numerical results show that this method yields a reasonable solution with high safety and within a small number of iterations.     

Robust best approximation with interpolation constraints under ellipsoidal uncertainty: Strong duality and nonsmooth Newton methods

In this paper we present a duality approach for finding a robust best approximation from a set involving interpolation constraints and uncertain inequality constraints in a Hilbert space that is immunized against the data uncertainty using a nonsmooth Newton method. Following the framework of robust optimization, we assume that the input data of the inequality constraints are not known exactly while they belong to an ellipsoidal data uncertainty set. We first show that finding a robust best approximation is equivalent to solving a second-order cone complementarity problem by establishing a strong duality theorem under a strict feasibility condition. We then examine a nonsmooth version of Newton’s method and present their convergence analysis in terms of the metric regularity condition.     

A monotone semismooth Newton type method for a class of complementarity problems

In this paper, we propose a modified semismooth Newton method for a class of complementarity problems arising from the discretization of free boundary problems and establish its monotone convergence. We show that under appropriate conditions, the method reduces to semismooth Newton method. We also do some preliminary numerical experiments to show the efficiency of the proposed method.     

A semismooth Newton method for a class of semilinear optimal control problems with box and volume constraints

In this paper we consider optimal control problems subject to a semilinear elliptic state equation together with the control constraints 0≤u≤1 and ∫u=m. Optimality conditions for this problem are derived and reformulated as a nonlinear, nonsmooth equation which is solved using a semismooth Newton method. A regularization of the nonsmooth equation is necessary to obtain the superlinear convergence of the semismooth Newton method. We prove that the solutions of the regularized problems converge to a solution of the original problem and a path-following technique is used to ensure a constant decrease rate of the residual. We show that, in certain situations, the optimal controls take 0–1 values, which amounts to solving a topology optimization problem with volume constraint.     

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.     

Semismooth Newton Methods for Solving Semi-Infinite Programming Problems

In this paper we present some semismooth Newton methods for solving the semi-infinite programming problem. We first reformulate the equations and nonlinear complementarity conditions derived from the problem into a system of semismooth equations by using NCP functions. Under some conditions a solution of the system of semismooth equations is a solution of the problem. Then some semismooth Newton methods are proposed for solving this system of semismooth equations. These methods are globally and superlinearly convergent. Numerical results are also given.     

An accelerated Newton method for equations with semismooth Jacobians and nonlinear complementarity problems

We discuss local convergence of Newton’s method to a singular solution x ^* of the nonlinear equations F(x) =  0, for $F:{\mathbb{R}}^n \rightarrow {\mathbb{R}}^n$ . It is shown that an existing proof of Griewank, concerning linear convergence to a singular solution x ^* from a starlike domain around x ^* for F twice Lipschitz continuously differentiable and x ^* satisfying a particular regularity condition, can be adapted to the case in which F′ is only strongly semismooth at the solution. Further, Newton’s method can be accelerated to produce fast linear convergence to a singular solution by overrelaxing every second Newton step. These results are applied to a nonlinear-equations reformulation of the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) whose derivative is strongly semismooth when the function f arising in the NCP is sufficiently smooth. Conditions on f are derived that ensure that the appropriate regularity conditions are satisfied for the nonlinear-equations reformulation of the NCP at x ^*.     

The Josephy–Newton Method for Semismooth Generalized Equations and Semismooth SQP for Optimization

While generalized equations with differentiable single-valued base mappings and the associated Josephy–Newton method have been studied extensively, the setting with semismooth base mapping had not been previously considered (apart from the two special cases of usual nonlinear equations and of Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality systems). We introduce for the general semismooth case appropriate notions of solution regularity and prove local convergence of the corresponding Josephy–Newton method. As an application, we immediately recover the known primal-dual local convergence properties of semismooth sequential quadratic programming algorithm (SQP), but also obtain some new results that complete the analysis of the SQP primal rate of convergence, including its quasi-Newton variant.     

Generalized semi-infinite programming: numerical aspects

Generalized semi-infinite optimization problems (GSIP) are considered. It is investigated how the numerical methods for standard semi-infinite programming (SIP) can be extended to GSIP. Newton methods can be extended immediately. For discretization methods the situation is more complicated. These difficulties are discussed and convergence results for a discretization- and an exchange method are derived under fairly general assumptions on GSIP. The question is answered under which conditions GSIP represents a convex problem.     

On the local convergence of a stochastic semismooth Newton method for nonsmooth nonconvex optimization

Science China Mathematics - In this work, we present probabilistic local convergence results for a stochastic semismooth Newton method for a class of stochastic composite optimization problems...     

复合凸优化的快速邻近点算法

在大数据时代,随着数据采集手段的不断提升,大规模复合凸优化问题大量的出现在包括统计数据分析,机器与统计学习以及信号与图像处理等应用中.本文针对大规模复合凸优化问题介绍了一类快速邻近点算法.在易计算的近似准则和较弱的平稳性条件下,本文给出了该算法的全局收敛与局部渐近超线性收敛结果.同时,我们设计了基于对偶原理的半光滑牛顿法来高效稳定求解邻近点算法所涉及的重要子问题.最后,本文还讨论了如何通过深入挖掘并利用复合凸优化问题中由非光滑正则函数所诱导的非光滑二阶信息来极大减少半光滑牛顿算法中求解牛顿线性系统所需的工作量,从而进一步加速邻近点算法.     

A new smoothing Newton-type algorithm for semi-infinite programming

We consider a semismooth reformulation of the KKT system arising from the semi-infinite programming (SIP) problem. Based upon this reformulation, we present a new smoothing Newton-type method for the solution of SIP problem. The main properties of this method are: (a) it is globally convergent at least to a stationary point of the SIP problem, (b) it is locally superlinearly convergent under a certain regularity condition, (c) the feasibility is ensured via the aggregated constraint, and (d) it has to solve just one linear system of equations at each iteration. Preliminary numerical results are reported.