Global optimization for sum of generalized fractional functions

This paper considers the solution of generalized fractional programming (GFP) problem which contains various variants such as a sum or product of a finite number of ratios of linear functions, polynomial fractional programming, generalized geometric programming, etc. over a polytope. For such problems, we present an efficient unified method. In this method, by utilizing a transformation and a two-part linearization method, a sequence of linear programming relaxations of the initial nonconvex programming problem are derived which are embedded in a branch-and-bound algorithm. Numerical results are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Accelerating method of global optimization for signomial geometric programming

Signomial geometric programming (SGP) has been an interesting problem for many authors recently. Many methods have been provided for finding locally optimal solutions of SGP, but little progress has been made for global optimization of SGP. In this paper we propose a new accelerating method for global optimization algorithm of SGP using a suitable deleting technique. This technique offers a possibility to cut away a large part of the currently investigated region in which the globally optimal solution of SGP does not exist, and can be seen as an accelerating device for global optimization algorithm of SGP problem. Compared with the method of Shen and Zhang [Global optimization of signomial geometric programming using linear relaxation, Appl. Math. Comput. 150 (2004) 99–114], numerical results show that the computational efficiency is improved obviously by using this new technique in the number of iterations, the required saving list length and the execution time of the algorithm.     

Interval method for bounding level sets: Revisited and tested with global optimization problems

An interval method for bounding level sets, modified to increase its efficiency and to get sharper bounding boxes, is presented. The new algorithm was tested with standard global optimization test problems. The test results show that, while the modified method gives a more valuable, guaranteed reliability result set, it is competitive with non-interval methods in terms of CPU time and number of function evaluations.This work was supported by Grant OTKA 1074/1987, and in part by DAAD Fellowship No. 314/108/004/8 during the author's stay at Düsseldorf University.     

An exact penalty function algorithm for semi-infinite programmes

An algorithm for semi-inifinite programming using sequential quadratic programming techniques together with anL exact penalty function is presented, and global convergence is shown. An important feature of the convergence proof is that it does not require an implicit function theorem to be applicable to the semi-infinite constraints; a much weaker assumption concerning the finiteness of the number of global maximizers of each semi-infinite constraint is sufficient. In contrast to proofs based on an implicit function theorem, this result is also valid for a large class ofC ¹ problems.     

An ODE-based trust region method for unconstrained optimization problems

In this paper, a new trust region algorithm is proposed for solving unconstrained optimization problems. This method can be regarded as a combination of trust region technique, fixed step-length and ODE-based methods. A feature of this proposed method is that at each iteration, only a system of linear equations is solved to obtain a trial step. Another is that when a trial step is not accepted, the method generates an iterative point whose step-length is defined by a formula. Under some standard assumptions, it is proven that the algorithm is globally convergent and locally superlinear convergent. Preliminary numerical results are reported.     

What can interval analysis do for global optimization?

An overview of interval arithmetical tools and basic techniques is presented that can be used to construct deterministic global optimization algorithms. These tools are applicable to unconstrained and constrained optimization as well as to nonsmooth optimization and to problems over unbounded domains. Since almost all interval based global optimization algorithms use branch-and-bound methods with iterated bisection of the problem domain we also embed our overview in such a setting.     

A sequential equality constrained quadratic programming algorithm for inequality constrained optimization

In this paper, the feasible type SQP method is improved. A new SQP algorithm is presented to solve the nonlinear inequality constrained optimization. As compared with the existing SQP methods, per single iteration, in order to obtain the search direction, it is only necessary to solve equality constrained quadratic programming subproblems and systems of linear equations. Under some suitable conditions, the global and superlinear convergence can be induced.     

Linearly constrained global optimization via piecewise-linear approximation

This paper considers the problem of optimizing a continuous nonlinear objective function subject to linear constraints via a piecewise-linear approximation. A systematic approach is proposed, which uses a lattice piecewise-linear model to approximate the nonlinear objective function on a simplicial partition and determines an approximately globally optimal solution by solving a set of standard linear programs. The new approach is applicable to any continuous objective function rather than to separable ones only and could be useful to treat more complex nonlinear problems. A numerical example is given to illustrate the practicability.     

An algorithm for a class of nonlinear fractional problems using ranking of the vertices

In this note we consider an algorithm for quasiconcave nonlinear fractional programming problems, based on ranking the vertices of a linear fractional programming problem and techniques from global optimization.     

Two descent hybrid conjugate gradient methods for optimization

In this paper, we propose two new hybrid nonlinear conjugate gradient methods, which produce sufficient descent search direction at every iteration. This property depends neither on the line search used nor on the convexity of the objective function. Under suitable conditions, we prove that the proposed methods converge globally for general nonconvex functions. The numerical results show that both hybrid methods are efficient for the given test problems from the CUTE library.     

A new nonmonotone line search technique for unconstrained optimization

In this paper, we propose a new nonmonotone line search technique for unconstrained optimization problems. By using this new technique, we establish the global convergence under conditions weaker than those of the existed nonmonotone line search techniques.     

An interior point type QP-free algorithm with superlinear convergence for inequality constrained optimization

A feasible interior point type algorithm is proposed for the inequality constrained optimization. Iterate points are prevented from leaving to interior of the feasible set. It is observed that the algorithm is merely necessary to solve three systems of linear equations with the same coefficient matrix. Under some suitable conditions, superlinear convergence rate is obtained. Some numerical results are also reported.     

A multivariate spectral projected gradient method for bound constrained optimization

In this paper, we consider a multivariate spectral projected gradient (MSPG) method for bound constrained optimization. Combined with a quasi-Newton property, the multivariate spectral projected gradient method allows an individual adaptive step size along each coordinate direction. On the basis of nonmonotone line search, global convergence is established. A numerical comparison with the traditional SPG method shows that the method is promising.     

A direct active set algorithm for large sparse quadratic programs with simple bounds

We show how a direct active set method for solving definite and indefinite quadratic programs with simple bounds can be efficiently implemented for large sparse problems. All of the necessary factorizations can be carried out in a static data structure that is set up before the numeric computation begins. The space required for these factorizations is no larger than that required for a single sparse Cholesky factorization of the Hessian of the quadratic. We propose several improvements to this basic algorithm: a new way to find a search direction in the indefinite case that allows us to free more than one variable at a time and a new heuristic method for finding a starting point. These ideas are motivated by the two-norm trust region problem. Additionally, we also show how projection techniques can be used to add several constraints to the active set at each iteration. Our experimental results show that an algorithm with these improvements runs much faster than the basic algorithm for positive definite problems and finds local minima with lower function values for indefinite problems.Research partially supported by the Applied Mathematical Sciences Research Program (KC-04-02) of the Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DE-FG02-86ER25013.A000.     

A cut-peak function method for global optimization

A new method is proposed for solving box constrained global optimization problems. The basic idea of the method is described as follows: Constructing a so-called cut-peak function and a choice function for each present minimizer, the original problem of finding a global solution is converted into an auxiliary minimization problem of finding local minimizers of the choice function, whose objective function values are smaller than the previous ones. For a local minimum solution of auxiliary problems this procedure is repeated until no new minimizer with a smaller objective function value could be found for the last minimizer. Construction of auxiliary problems and choice of parameters are relatively simple, so the algorithm is relatively easy to implement, and the results of the numerical tests are satisfactory compared to other methods.     

Combining nonmonotone conic trust region and line search techniques for unconstrained optimization

In this paper, we propose a trust region method for unconstrained optimization that can be regarded as a combination of conic model, nonmonotone and line search techniques. Unlike in traditional trust region methods, the subproblem of our algorithm is the conic minimization subproblem; moreover, our algorithm performs a nonmonotone line search to find the next iteration point when a trial step is not accepted, instead of resolving the subproblem. The global and superlinear convergence results for the algorithm are established under reasonable assumptions. Numerical results show that the new method is efficient for unconstrained optimization problems.     

A superlinearly convergent strongly sub-feasible SSLE-type algorithm with working set for nonlinearly constrained optimization

In this paper, by means of a new efficient identification technique of active constraints and the method of strongly sub-feasible direction, we propose a new sequential system of linear equations (SSLE) algorithm for solving inequality constrained optimization problems, in which the initial point is arbitrary. At each iteration, we first yield the working set by a pivoting operation and a generalized projection; then, three or four reduced linear equations with a same coefficient are solved to obtain the search direction. After a finite number of iterations, the algorithm can produced a feasible iteration point, and it becomes the method of feasible directions. Moreover, after finitely many iterations, the working set becomes independent of the iterates and is essentially the same as the active set of the KKT point. Under some mild conditions, the proposed algorithm is proved to be globally, strongly and superlinearly convergent. Finally, some preliminary numerical experiments are reported to show that the algorithm is practicable and effective.     

A class of nonmonotone stabilization methods in unconstrained optimization

Summary This paper deals with the solution of smooth unconstrained minimization problems by Newton-type methods whose global convergence is enforced by means of a nonmonotone stabilization strategy. In particular, a stabilization scheme is analyzed, which includes different kinds of relaxation of the descent requirements. An extensive numerical experimentation is reported.     

Feasible generalized monotone line search SQP algorithm for nonlinear minimax problems with inequality constraints

In this paper, the nonlinear minimax problems with inequality constraints are discussed, and a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm with a generalized monotone line search is presented. At each iteration, a feasible direction of descent is obtained by solving a quadratic programming (QP). To avoid the Maratos effect, a high order correction direction is achieved by solving another QP. As a result, the proposed algorithm has global and superlinear convergence. Especially, the global convergence is obtained under a weak Mangasarian–Fromovitz constraint qualification (MFCQ) instead of the linearly independent constraint qualification (LICQ). At last, its numerical effectiveness is demonstrated with test examples.     

Nonmonotone algorithm for minimization on closed sets with applications to minimization on Stiefel manifolds

A nonmonotone Levenberg–Marquardt-based algorithm is proposed for minimization problems on closed domains. By preserving the feasible set’s geometry throughout the process, the method generates a feasible sequence converging to a stationary point independently of the initial guess. As an application, a specific algorithm is derived for minimization on Stiefel manifolds and numerical results involving a weighted orthogonal Procrustes problem are reported.