Approximations in proximal bundle methods and decomposition of convex programs

A proximal bundle method is presented for minimizing a nonsmooth convex functionf. At each iteration, it requires only one approximate evaluation off and its -subgradient, and it finds a search direction via quadratic programming. When applied to the Lagrangian decomposition of convex programs, it allows for inexact solutions of decomposed subproblems; yet, increasing their required accuracy automatically, it asymptotically finds both the primal and dual solutions. It is an implementable approximate version of the proximal point algorithm. Some encouraging numerical experience is reported.The author thanks two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.Research supported by the State Committee for Scientific Research under Grant 8550502206.     

Coercivity conditions and variational inequalities

Received November 17, 1997 / Revised version received August 6, 1998?Published online March 16, 1999     

Conditions ensuring the applicability of cutting-plane methods for solving variational inequalities

Let VIP(F,C) denote the variational inequality problem associated with the mapping F and the closed convex set C. In this paper we introduce weak conditions on the mapping F that allow the development of a convergent cutting-plane framework for solving VIP(F,C). In the process we introduce, in a natural way, new and useful notions of generalized monotonicity for which first order characterizations are presented. Received: September 25, 1997 / Accepted: March 2, 1999?Published online July 20, 2000     

An inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal augmented Lagrangian method for a class of constrained variational inequalities

The augmented Lagrangian method is attractive in constraint optimizations. When it is applied to a class of constrained variational inequalities, the sub-problem in each iteration is a nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP). By introducing a logarithmic-quadratic proximal term, the sub-NCP becomes a system of nonlinear equations, which we call the LQP system. Solving a system of nonlinear equations is easier than the related NCP, because the solution of the NCP has combinatorial properties. In this paper, we present an inexact logarithmic-quadratic proximal augmented Lagrangian method for a class of constrained variational inequalities, in which the LQP system is solved approximately under a rather relaxed inexactness criterion. The generated sequence is Fejér monotone and the global convergence is proved. Finally, some numerical test results for traffic equilibrium problems are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the method.      

A bundle Bregman proximal method for convex nondifferentiable minimization

k } by taking x^k to be an approximate minimizer of , where is a piecewise linear model of f constructed from accumulated subgradient linearizations of f, D_h is the D-function of a generalized Bregman function h and t_k>0. Convergence under implementable criteria is established by extending our recent framework of Bregman proximal minimization, which is of independent interest, e.g., for nonquadratic multiplier methods for constrained minimization. In particular, we provide new insights into the convergence properties of bundle methods based on h=?|·|². Received September 18, 1997 / Revised version received June 30, 1998 Published online November 24, 1998     

Asymptotic constraint qualifications and global error bounds for convex inequalities

Received October 26, 1996 / Revised version received October 1, 1997 Published online October 9, 1998     

On the convergence of projection methods: Application to the decomposition of affine variational inequalities

In this paper, we first discuss the global convergence of symmetric projection methods for solving nonlinear monotone variational inequalities under a cocoercivity assumption. A similar analysis is applied to asymmetric projection methods, when the mapping is affine and monotone. Under a suitable choice of the projection matrix, decomposition can be achieved. It is proved that this scheme achieves a linear convergence rate, thus enhancing results previously obtained by Tseng (Ref. 1) and by Luo and Tseng (Ref. 2).The research of the first author was supported by NSERC Grant A5789 and DND-FUHBP. The research of the second author was supported by NSERC Grant OGP-0157735.The authors are indebted to the referees and Associate Editor P. Tseng for their constructive comments.     

Projected subgradient methods with non-Euclidean distances for non-differentiable convex minimization and variational inequalities

We study subgradient projection type methods for solving non-differentiable convex minimization problems and monotone variational inequalities. The methods can be viewed as a natural extension of subgradient projection type algorithms, and are based on using non-Euclidean projection-like maps, which generate interior trajectories. The resulting algorithms are easy to implement and rely on a single projection per iteration. We prove several convergence results and establish rate of convergence estimates under various and mild assumptions on the problem’s data and the corresponding step-sizes. We dedicate this paper to Boris Polyak on the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

Sample-path solution of stochastic variational inequalities

Received July 30, 1997 / Revised version received June 4, 1998 Published online October 21, 1998     

Inexact implicit methods for monotone general variational inequalities

Solving a variational inequality problem is equivalent to finding a solution of a system of nonsmooth equations. Recently, we proposed an implicit method, which solves monotone variational inequality problem via solving a series of systems of nonlinear smooth (whenever the operator is smooth) equations. It can exploit the facilities of the classical Newton–like methods for smooth equations. In this paper, we extend the method to solve a class of general variational inequality problems Moreover, we improve the implicit method to allow inexact solutions of the systems of nonlinear equations at each iteration. The method is shown to preserve the same convergence properties as the original implicit method. Received July 31, 1995 / Revised version received January 15, 1999? Published online May 28, 1999     

A new look at smoothing Newton methods for nonlinear complementarity problems and box constrained variational inequalities

In this paper we take a new look at smoothing Newton methods for solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) and the box constrained variational inequalities (BVI). Instead of using an infinite sequence of smoothing approximation functions, we use a single smoothing approximation function and Robinson’s normal equation to reformulate NCP and BVI as an equivalent nonsmooth equation H(u,x)=0, where H:ℜ ²ⁿ →ℜ ²ⁿ , u∈ℜ ⁿ is a parameter variable and x∈ℜ ⁿ is the original variable. The central idea of our smoothing Newton methods is that we construct a sequence {z ^k =(u ^k ,x ^k )} such that the mapping H(·) is continuously differentiable at each z ^k and may be non-differentiable at the limiting point of {z ^k }. We prove that three most often used Gabriel-Moré smoothing functions can generate strongly semismooth functions, which play a fundamental role in establishing superlinear and quadratic convergence of our new smoothing Newton methods. We do not require any function value of F or its derivative value outside the feasible region while at each step we only solve a linear system of equations and if we choose a certain smoothing function only a reduced form needs to be solved. Preliminary numerical results show that the proposed methods for particularly chosen smoothing functions are very promising. Received June 23, 1997 / Revised version received July 29, 1999?Published online December 15, 1999     

A Log-Barrier method with Benders decomposition for solving two-stage stochastic linear programs

An algorithm incorporating the logarithmic barrier into the Benders decomposition technique is proposed for solving two-stage stochastic programs. Basic properties concerning the existence and uniqueness of the solution and the underlying path are studied. When applied to problems with a finite number of scenarios, the algorithm is shown to converge globally and to run in polynomial-time. Received: August 1998 / Accepted: August 2000?Published online April 12, 2001     

求解单调变分不等式的近似邻近点算法的收敛性分析

为了求解单调变分不等式,建立了一个新的误差准则,并且在不需要增加诸如投影,外梯度等步骤的情况下证明了邻近点算法的收敛性.     

Generalized convex functions and vector variational inequalities

In this paper, (, ,Q)-invexity is introduced, where :X ×X intR _m ⁺ , :X ×X X,X is a Banach space,Q is a convex cone ofR ^m . This unifies the properties of many classes of functions, such asQ-convexity, pseudo-linearity, representation condition, null space condition, andV-invexity. A generalized vector variational inequality is considered, and its equivalence with a multi-objective programming problem is discussed using (, ,Q)-invexity. An existence theorem for the solution of a generalized vector variational inequality is proved. Some applications of (, ,Q)-invexity to multi-objective programming problems and to a special kind of generalized vector variational inequality are given.The author is indebted to Dr. V. Jeyakumar for his constant encouragement and useful discussion and to Professor P. L. Yu for encouragement and valuable comments about this paper.     

Inexact proximal point method for general variational inequalities

In this paper, we suggest and analyze a new inexact proximal point method for solving general variational inequalities, which can be considered as an implicit predictor-corrector method. An easily measurable error term is proposed with further relaxed error bound and an optimal step length is obtained by maximizing the profit-function and is dependent on the previous points. Our results include several known and new techniques for solving variational inequalities and related optimization problems. Results obtained in this paper can be viewed as an important improvement and refinement of the previously known results. Preliminary numerical experiments are included to illustrate the advantage and efficiency of the proposed method.     

Some proximal algorithms for linearly constrained general variational inequalities

Based on the classical proximal point algorithm (PPA), some PPA-based numerical algorithms for general variational inequalities (GVIs) have been developed recently. Inspired by these algorithms, in this article we propose some proximal algorithms for solving linearly constrained GVIs (LCGVIs). The resulted subproblems are regularized proximally, and they are allowed to be solved either exactly or approximately.     

Parallel splitting augmented Lagrangian methods for monotone structured variational inequalities

The typical structured variational inequalities can be interpreted as a system of equilibrium problems with a leader and two cooperative followers. Assume that, based on the instruction given by the leader, each follower can solve the individual equilibrium sub-problems in his own way. The responsibility of the leader is to give a more reasonable instruction for the next iteration loop based on the feedback information from the followers. This consideration leads us to present a parallel splitting augmented Lagrangian method (abbreviated to PSALM). The proposed method can be extended to solve the system of equilibrium problems with three separable operators. Finally, it is explained why we cannot use the same technique to develop similar methods for problems with more than three separable operators.     

解单障碍问题的Lagrangian乘子非匹配网格区域分解法

针对二阶椭圆型单障碍问题提出了一类基于非匹配网格的Lagrang ian乘子非重叠型区域分解方法.并在适当条件下给出了该方法的收敛性分析和收敛速度估计.     

Dual conditions characterizing optimality for convex multi-objective programs

Received June 13, 1995 / Revised version received February 6, 1998 Published online August 18, 1998