解可分离结构变分不等式的一种新的交替方向法

交替方向法是求解可分离结构变分不等式问题的经典方法之一, 它将一个大型的变分不等式问题分解成若干个小规模的变分不等式问题进行迭代求解. 但每步迭代过程中求解的子问题仍然摆脱不了求解变分不等式子问题的瓶颈. 从数值计算上来说, 求解一个变分不等式并不是一件容易的事情.因此, 本文提出一种新的交替方向法, 每步迭代只需要求解一个变分不等式子问题和一个强单调的非线性方程组子问题. 相对变分不等式问题而言, 我们更容易、且有更多的有效算法求解一个非线性方程组问题. 在与经典的交替方向法相同的假设条件下, 我们证明了新算法的全局收敛性. 进一步的数值试验也验证了新算法的有效性.     

Separable nonlinear least squares fitting with linear bound constraints and its application in magnetic resonance spectroscopy data quantification

An application in magnetic resonance spectroscopy quantification models a signal as a linear combination of nonlinear functions. It leads to a separable nonlinear least squares fitting problem, with linear bound constraints on some variables. The variable projection (VARPRO) technique can be applied to this problem, but needs to be adapted in several respects. If only the nonlinear variables are subject to constraints, then the Levenberg–Marquardt minimization algorithm that is classically used by the VARPRO method should be replaced with a version that can incorporate those constraints. If some of the linear variables are also constrained, then they cannot be projected out via a closed-form expression as is the case for the classical VARPRO technique. We show how quadratic programming problems can be solved instead, and we provide details on efficient function and approximate Jacobian evaluations for the inequality constrained VARPRO method.     

Convergent Lagrangian and domain cut method for nonlinear knapsack problems

The nonlinear knapsack problem, which has been widely studied in the OR literature, is a bounded nonlinear integer programming problem that maximizes a separable nondecreasing function subject to separable nondecreasing constraints. In this paper we develop a convergent Lagrangian and domain cut method for solving this kind of problems. The proposed method exploits the special structure of the problem by Lagrangian decomposition and dual search. The domain cut is used to eliminate the duality gap and thus to guarantee the finding of an optimal exact solution to the primal problem. The algorithm is first motivated and developed for singly constrained nonlinear knapsack problems and is then extended to multiply constrained nonlinear knapsack problems. Computational results are presented for a variety of medium- or large-size nonlinear knapsack problems. Comparison results with other existing methods are also reported.     

Solution of a class of stochastic linear-convex control problems using deterministic equivalents

In this paper, we identify a new class of stochastic linearconvex optimal control problems, whose solution can be obtained by solving appropriate equivalent deterministic optimal control problems. The term linear-convex is meant to imply that the dynamics is linear and the cost function is convex in the state variables, linear in the control variables, and separable. Moreover, some of the coefficients in the dynamics are allowed to be random and the expectations of the control variables are allowed to be constrained. For any stochastic linear-convex problem, the equivalent deterministic problem is obtained. Furthermore, it is shown that the optimal feedback policy of the stochastic problem is affine in its current state, where the affine transformation depends explicitly on the optimal solution of the equivalent deterministic problem in a simple way. The result is illustrated by its application to a simple stochastic inventory control problem.This research was supported in part by NSERC Grant A4617, by SSHRC Grant 410-83-0888, and by an INRIA Post-Doctoral Fellowship.     

Implementation and Test of Auction Methods for Solving Generalized Network Flow Problems with Separable Convex Cost

We describe the implementation and testing of two methods, based on the auction approach, for solving the problem of minimizing a separable convex cost subject to generalized network flow conservation constraints. The first method is the -relaxation method of Ref. 1; the second is an extension of the auction sequential/shortest path algorithm for ordinary network flow to generalized network flow. We report test results on a large set of randomly generated problems with varying topology, arc gains, and cost function. Comparison with the commercial code CPLEX on linear/quadratic cost problems and with the public-domain code PPRN on nonlinear cost ordinary network problems are also made. The test results show that the auction sequential/shortest path algorithm is generally fastest for solving quadratic cost problems and mixed linear/nonlinear cost problems with arc gain range near 1. The -relaxation method is generally fastest for solving nonlinear cost ordinary network problems and mixed linear/nonlinear cost problems with arc gain range away from 1. CPLEX is generally fastest for solving linear cost and mixed linear/quadratic cost problems with arc gain range near 1.     

Computing exact solution to nonlinear integer programming: Convergent Lagrangian and objective level cut method

In this paper, we propose a convergent Lagrangian and objective level cut method for computing exact solution to two classes of nonlinear integer programming problems: separable nonlinear integer programming and polynomial zero-one programming. The method exposes an optimal solution to the convex hull of a revised perturbation function by successively reshaping or re-confining the perturbation function. The objective level cut is used to eliminate the duality gap and thus to guarantee the convergence of the Lagrangian method on a revised domain. Computational results are reported for a variety of nonlinear integer programming problems and demonstrate that the proposed method is promising in solving medium-size nonlinear integer programming problems.     

A global optimization method for nonconvex separable programming problems

Conventional methods of solving nonconvex separable programming (NSP) problems by mixed integer programming methods requires adding numerous 0–1 variables. In this work, we present a new method of deriving the global optimum of a NSP program using less number of 0–1 variables. A separable function is initially expressed by a piecewise linear function with summation of absolute terms. Linearizing these absolute terms allows us to convert a NSP problem into a linearly mixed 0–1 program solvable for reaching a solution which is extremely close to the global optimum.     

Nonlinear Proximal Decomposition Method for Convex Programming

In this paper, we propose a new decomposition method for solving convex programming problems with separable structure. The proposed method is based on the decomposition method proposed by Chen and Teboulle and the nonlinear proximal point algorithm using the Bregman function. An advantage of the proposed method is that, by a suitable choice of the Bregman function, each subproblem becomes essentially the unconstrained minimization of a finite-valued convex function. Under appropriate assumptions, the method is globally convergent to a solution of the problem.     

Moving boundary value problems for the wave equation

We study certain boundary value problems for the one-dimensional wave equation posed in a time-dependent domain. The approach we propose is based on a general transform method for solving boundary value problems for integrable nonlinear PDE in two variables, that has been applied extensively to the study of linear parabolic and elliptic equations. Here we analyse the wave equation as a simple illustrative example to discuss the particular features of this method in the context of linear hyperbolic PDEs, which have not been studied before in this framework.     

Performance Optimization of a Class of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems Using Calculus of Variations Techniques

We explore an approach involving the use of calculus of variations techniques for discrete event dynamic system (DEDS) performance optimization problems. The approach is motivated by the observation that such problems can be described by separable cost functions and recursive dynamics of the same form as that used to describe conventional discrete-time continuous-variable optimal control problems. Three important difficulties are that DEDS are generally stochastic, their dynamics typically involve max and min operations, which are not everywhere differentiable, and the state variables are often discrete. We demonstrate how to overcome these difficulties by applying the approach to a transportation problem, modeled as a polling system, where we are able to derive an explicit and intuitive analytic expression for an optimal control policy.     

Primal-dual proximal point algorithm for linearly constrained convex programming problems

A primal-dual version of the proximal point algorithm is developed for linearly constrained convex programming problems. The algorithm is an iterative method to find a saddle point of the Lagrangian of the problem. At each iteration of the algorithm, we compute an approximate saddle point of the Lagrangian function augmented by quadratic proximal terms of both primal and dual variables. Specifically, we first minimize the function with respect to the primal variables and then approximately maximize the resulting function of the dual variables. The merit of this approach exists in the fact that the latter function is differentiable and the maximization of this function is subject to no constraints. We discuss convergence properties of the algorithm and report some numerical results for network flow problems with separable quadratic costs.     

Global optimization of concave functions subject to quadratic constraints: An application in nonlinear bilevel programming

When the follower's optimality conditions are both necessary and sufficient, the nonlinear bilevel program can be solved as a global optimization problem. The complementary slackness condition is usually the complicating constraint in such problems. We show how this constraint can be replaced by an equivalent system of convex and separable quadratic constraints. In this paper, we propose different methods for finding the global minimum of a concave function subject to quadratic separable constraints. The first method is of the branch and bound type, and is based on rectangular partitions to obtain upper and lower bounds. Convergence of the proposed algorithm is also proved. For computational purposes, different procedures that accelerate the convergence of the proposed algorithm are analysed. The second method is based on piecewise linear approximations of the constraint functions. When the constraints are convex, the problem is reduced to global concave minimization subject to linear constraints. In the case of non-convex constraints, we use zero-one integer variables to linearize the constraints. The number of integer variables depends only on the concave parts of the constraint functions.Parts of the present paper were prepared while the second author was visiting Georgia Tech and the University of Florida.     

A General Iterative Method for Solving Constrained Convex Minimization Problems

It is well known that the gradient-projection algorithm plays an important role in solving minimization problems. In this paper, we will use the idea of regularization to establish a general method so that the sequence generated by the general method can be strongly convergent to a minimizer of constrained convex minimization problems, which solves a variational inequality under suitable conditions.     

Systems of nonlinear Volterra integro-differential equations

An efficient method based on operational Tau matrix is developed, to solve a type of system of nonlinear Volterra integro-differential equations (IDEs). The presented method is also modified for the problems with separable kernel. Error estimation of the new schemes are analyzed and discussed. The advantages of this approach and its modification is that, the solution can be expressed as a truncated Taylor series, and the error function at any stage can be estimated. Methods are applied on the four problems with separable kernel to show the applicability and efficiency of our schemes, specially for those problems at broad intervals.     

AN EFFECTIVE CONTINUOUS ALGORITHM FOR APPROXIMATE SOLUTIONS OF LARGE SCALE MAX-CUT PROBLEMS

An effective continuous algorithm is proposed to find approximate solutions of NP-hardmax-cut problems.The algorithm relaxes the max-cut problem into a continuous nonlinearprogramming problem by replacing n discrete constraints in the original problem with onesingle continuous constraint.A feasible direction method is designed to solve the resultingnonlinear programming problem.The method employs only the gradient evaluations ofthe objective function,and no any matrix calculations and no line searches are required.This greatly reduces the calculation cost of the method,and is suitable for the solutionof large size max-cut problems.The convergence properties of the proposed method toKKT points of the nonlinear programming are analyzed.If the solution obtained by theproposed method is a global solution of the nonlinear programming problem,the solutionwill provide an upper bound on the max-cut value.Then an approximate solution to themax-cut problem is generated from the solution of the nonlinear programming and providesa lower bound on the max-cut value.Numerical experiments and comparisons on somemax-cut test problems(small and large size)show that the proposed algorithm is efficientto get the exact solutions for all small test problems and well satisfied solutions for mostof the large size test problems with less calculation costs.     

A Haar wavelets based approximation for nonlinear inverse problems influenced by unknown heat source

In this discussion, a new numerical algorithm focused on the Haar wavelet is used to solve linear and nonlinear inverse problems with unknown heat source. The heat source is dependent on time and space variables. These types of inverse problems are ill-posed and are challenging to solve accurately. The linearization technique converted the nonlinear problem into simple nonhomogeneous partial differential equation. In this Haar wavelet collocation method (HWCM), the time part is discretized by using finite difference approximation, and space variables are handled by Haar series approximation. The main contribution of the proposed method is transforming this ill-posed problem into well-conditioned algebraic equation with the help of Haar functions, and hence, there is no need to implement any sort of regularization technique. The results of numerical method are efficient and stable for this ill-posed problems containing different noisy levels. We have utilized the proposed method on several numerical examples and have valuable efficiency and accuracy.     

Implementation of gradient methods by tangential discretization

This paper deals with a procedure for implementing iterative methods for nonlinear programming. For constrained problems, we examine the procedure in relation to the gradient-projection method. At each iteration, the domain of suboptimization is replaced by an infinite but discrete set of points, satisfying thetangential properties for the convergence of the algorithm. It should be possible to use this procedure on other iterative methods which proceed by a series of suboptimizations, if the domain of these suboptimizations is of small dimension.The subject of this paper was presented at the Colloque National d'Analyse Numérique, La Grande Motte, France, 1975.The author is indebted to the referees for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Existence theorems in optimal control problems without convexity assumptions

We give existence theorems of solutions for Lagrange and Bolza problems of optimal control. These results are obtained without convexity assumptions on the cost function with respect to the control variable. We extend a Cesari's theorem to cost functions which are nonlinear with respect to the space variable and to problems which are governed by a differential inclusion. Moreover, we consider the case where the control variable belongs to a space of measurable functions and the case where this variable belongs to a Lebesgue space.     

Complexity Results for Some Global Optimization Problems

We discuss the complexity of a class of highly structured global optimization problems, namely the maximization of separable functions, with each one-dimensional component convex and nondecreasing, over polytopes defined by a 0-1 constraint matrix with at most two variables involved in each constraint. In particular, we prove some inapproximability and approximability results.     

Dual multilevel optimization

We study the structure of dual optimization problems associated with linear constraints, bounds on the variables, and separable cost. We show how the separability of the dual cost function is related to the sparsity structure of the linear equations. As a result, techniques for ordering sparse matrices based on nested dissection or graph partitioning can be used to decompose a dual optimization problem into independent subproblems that could be solved in parallel. The performance of a multilevel implementation of the Dual Active Set algorithm is compared with CPLEX Simplex and Barrier codes using Netlib linear programming test problems.