An inexact scalarization proximal point method for multiobjective quasiconvex minimization

Annals of Operations Research - In this paper we present an inexact scalarization proximal point algorithm to solve unconstrained multiobjective minimization problems where the objective functions...     

A partial proximal point algorithm for nuclear norm regularized matrix least squares problems

We introduce a partial proximal point algorithm for solving nuclear norm regularized matrix least squares problems with equality and inequality constraints. The inner subproblems, reformulated as a system of semismooth equations, are solved by an inexact smoothing Newton method, which is proved to be quadratically convergent under a constraint non-degeneracy condition, together with the strong semi-smoothness property of the singular value thresholding operator. Numerical experiments on a variety of problems including those arising from low-rank approximations of transition matrices show that our algorithm is efficient and robust.     

An alternating direction method for linear‐constrained matrix nuclear norm minimization

The aim of the nuclear norm minimization problem is to find a matrix that minimizes the sum of its singular values and satisfies some constraints simultaneously. Such a problem has received more attention largely because it is closely related to the affine rank minimization problem, which appears in many control applications including controller design, realization theory, and model reduction. In this paper, we first propose an exact version alternating direction method for solving the nuclear norm minimization problem with linear equality constraints. At each iteration, the method involves a singular value thresholding and linear matrix equations which are solved exactly. Convergence of the proposed algorithm is followed directly. To broaden the capacity of solving larger problems, we solve approximately the subproblem by an iterative method with the Barzilai–Borwein steplength. Some extensions to the noisy problems and nuclear norm regularized least‐square problems are also discussed. Numerical experiments and comparisons with the state‐of‐the‐art method FPCA show that the proposed method is effective and promising. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alternating direction and Taylor expansion minimization algorithms for unconstrained nuclear norm optimization

Numerical Algorithms - In the past decade, robust principal component analysis (RPCA) and low-rank matrix completion (LRMC), as two very important optimization problems with the view of recovering...     

Stable recovery of low rank matrices from nuclear norm minimization

Low rank matrix recovery is a new topic drawing the attention of many researchers which addresses the problem of recovering an unknown low rank matrix from few linear measurements. The matrix Dantzig selector and the matrix Lasso are two important algorithms based on nuclear norm minimization. In this paper,we first prove some decay properties of restricted isometry constants, then we discuss the recovery errors of these two algorithms and give a new bound of restricted isometry constant to guarantee stable recovery, which improves the results of [11].     

Low-rank matrix completion using nuclear norm minimization and facial reduction

We consider a global optimization problem for Lipschitz-continuous functions with an unknown Lipschitz constant. Our approach is based on the well-known DIRECT (DIviding RECTangles) algorithm and motivated by the diagonal partitioning strategy. One of the main advantages of the diagonal partitioning scheme is that the objective function is evaluated at two points at each hyper-rectangle and, therefore, more comprehensive information about the objective function is considered than using the central sampling strategy used in most DIRECT-type algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a new DIRECT-type algorithm, which we call BIRECT (BIsecting RECTangles). In this algorithm, a bisection is used instead of a trisection which is typical for diagonal-based and DIRECT-type algorithms. The bisection is preferable to the trisection because of the shapes of hyper-rectangles, but usual evaluation of the objective function at the center or at the endpoints of the diagonal are not favorable for bisection. In the proposed algorithm the objective function is evaluated at two points on the diagonal equidistant between themselves and the endpoints of a diagonal. This sampling strategy enables reuse of the sampling points in descendant hyper-rectangles. The developed algorithm gives very competitive numerical results compared to the DIRECT algorithm and its well know modifications.     

A customized proximal point algorithm for convex minimization with linear constraints

This paper demonstrates a customized application of the classical proximal point algorithm (PPA) to the convex minimization problem with linear constraints. We show that if the proximal parameter in metric form is chosen appropriately, the application of PPA could be effective to exploit the simplicity of the objective function. The resulting subproblems could be easier than those of the augmented Lagrangian method (ALM), a benchmark method for the model under our consideration. The efficiency of the customized application of PPA is demonstrated by some image processing problems.     

An algorithmic framework for convex mixed integer nonlinear programs

This paper is motivated by the fact that mixed integer nonlinear programming is an important and difficult area for which there is a need for developing new methods and software for solving large-scale problems. Moreover, both fundamental building blocks, namely mixed integer linear programming and nonlinear programming, have seen considerable and steady progress in recent years. Wishing to exploit expertise in these areas as well as on previous work in mixed integer nonlinear programming, this work represents the first step in an ongoing and ambitious project within an open-source environment. COIN-OR is our chosen environment for the development of the optimization software. A class of hybrid algorithms, of which branch-and-bound and polyhedral outer approximation are the two extreme cases, are proposed and implemented. Computational results that demonstrate the effectiveness of this framework are reported. Both the library of mixed integer nonlinear problems that exhibit convex continuous relaxations, on which the experiments are carried out, and a version of the software used are publicly available.     

An implementable augmented Lagrange method for solving fixed point problems with coupled constraints

An augmented Lagrange function method for solving fixed point problems with coupled constraints is studied, and a theorem of its global convergence is demonstrated. The semismooth Newton method is used to solve the inner problems for obtaining approximate solutions, and numerical results are reported to verify the effectiveness of the augmented Lagrange function method for solving three examples with more than 1000 variables.     

Self-similar fractals: An algorithmic point of view

This paper studies the self-similar fractals with overlaps from an algorithmic point of view.A decidable problem is a question such that there is an algorithm to answer"yes"or"no"to the question for every possible input.For a classical class of self-similar sets{E b.d}b,d where E b.d=Sn i=1(E b,d/d+b i)with b=(b1,...,b n)∈Qn and d∈N∩[n,∞),we prove that the following problems on the class are decidable:To test if the Hausdorff dimension of a given self-similar set is equal to its similarity dimension,and to test if a given self-similar set satisfies the open set condition(or the strong separation condition).In fact,based on graph algorithm,there are polynomial time algorithms for the above decidable problem.     

An abstract proximal point algorithm

The proximal point algorithm is a widely used tool for solving a variety of convex optimization problems such as finding zeros of maximally monotone operators, fixed points of nonexpansive mappings, as well as minimizing convex functions. The algorithm works by applying successively so-called “resolvent” mappings associated to the original object that one aims to optimize. In this paper we abstract from the corresponding resolvents employed in these problems the natural notion of jointly firmly nonexpansive families of mappings. This leads to a streamlined method of proving weak convergence of this class of algorithms in the context of complete CAT(0) spaces (and hence also in Hilbert spaces). In addition, we consider the notion of uniform firm nonexpansivity in order to similarly provide a unified presentation of a case where the algorithm converges strongly. Methods which stem from proof mining, an applied subfield of logic, yield in this situation computable and low-complexity rates of convergence.     

A new proximal point iteration that converges weakly but not in norm

In 1991, Güler constructed a proximal point iteration that converges weakly but not in norm. By building on a recent result of Hundal, we present a new, considerably simpler, example of this type.

     

An algorithm for matching point sets using the l_1 norm

The problem is considered of matching two sets of points in , by translation and rotation. There are many applications, for example in geodesy, computer vision and in the assessment of manufactured parts. When the matching criterion is least squares, there is a well known solution process based on the singular value decomposition of an matrix. Here we consider the use of the norm, which may be more appropriate than least squares in the context of wild points in the data. An algorithm is developed, and is illustrated by some examples for the case .     

An extension of proximal methods for quasiconvex minimization on the nonnegative orthant

In this paper we propose an extension of proximal methods to solve minimization problems with quasiconvex objective functions on the nonnegative orthant. Assuming that the function is bounded from below and lower semicontinuous and using a general proximal distance, it is proved that the iterations given by our algorithm are well defined and stay in the positive orthant. If the objective function is quasiconvex we obtain the convergence of the iterates to a certain set which contains the set of optimal solutions and convergence to a KKT point if the function is continuously differentiable and the proximal parameters are bounded. Furthermore, we introduce a sufficient condition on the proximal distance such that the sequence converges to an optimal solution of the problem.     

Customized proximal point algorithms for linearly constrained convex minimization and saddle-point problems: a unified approach

This paper focuses on some customized applications of the proximal point algorithm (PPA) to two classes of problems: the convex minimization problem with linear constraints and a generic or separable objective function, and a saddle-point problem. We treat these two classes of problems uniformly by a mixed variational inequality, and show how the application of PPA with customized metric proximal parameters can yield favorable algorithms which are able to make use of the models’ structures effectively. Our customized PPA revisit turns out to unify some algorithms including some existing ones in the literature and some new ones to be proposed. From the PPA perspective, we establish the global convergence and a worst-case O(1/t) convergence rate for this series of algorithms in a unified way.     

Nuclear norm minimization for the planted clique and biclique problems

We consider the problems of finding a maximum clique in a graph and finding a maximum-edge biclique in a bipartite graph. Both problems are NP-hard. We write both problems as matrix-rank minimization and then relax them using the nuclear norm. This technique, which may be regarded as a generalization of compressive sensing, has recently been shown to be an effective way to solve rank optimization problems. In the special case that the input graph has a planted clique or biclique (i.e., a single large clique or biclique plus diversionary edges), our algorithm successfully provides an exact solution to the original instance. For each problem, we provide two analyses of when our algorithm succeeds. In the first analysis, the diversionary edges are placed by an adversary. In the second, they are placed at random. In the case of random edges for the planted clique problem, we obtain the same bound as Alon, Krivelevich and Sudakov as well as Feige and Krauthgamer, but we use different techniques.     

An inexact proximal point method for solving generalized fractional programs

In this paper, we present several new implementable methods for solving a generalized fractional program with convex data. They are Dinkelbach-type methods where a prox-regularization term is added to avoid the numerical difficulties arising when the solution of the problem is not unique. In these methods, at each iteration a regularized parametric problem is solved inexactly to obtain an approximation of the optimal value of the problem. Since the parametric problem is nonsmooth and convex, we propose to solve it by using a classical bundle method where the parameter is updated after each ‘serious step’. We mainly study two kinds of such steps, and we prove the convergence and the rate of convergence of each of the corresponding methods. Finally, we present some numerical experience to illustrate the behavior of the proposed algorithms, and we discuss the practical efficiency of each one.