Necessary and sufficient global optimality conditions for NLP reformulations of linear SDP problems

In this paper we consider the standard linear SDP problem, and its low rank nonlinear programming reformulation, based on a Gramian representation of a positive semidefinite matrix. For this nonconvex quadratic problem with quadratic equality constraints, we give necessary and sufficient conditions of global optimality expressed in terms of the Lagrangian function.     

On the Solution of Generalized Multiplicative Extremum Problems

The paper addresses the problem of maximizing a sum of products of positive and concave real-valued functions over a convex feasible set. A reformulation based on the image of the feasible set through the vector-valued function which describes the problem, combined with an adequate application of convex analysis results, lead to an equivalent indefinite quadratic extremum problem with infinitely many linear constraints. Special properties of this later problem allow to solve it by an efficient relaxation algorithm. Some numerical tests illustrate the approach proposed.     

Quadratic factorization heuristics for copositive programming

Copositive optimization problems are particular conic programs: optimize linear forms over the copositive cone subject to linear constraints. Every quadratic program with linear constraints can be formulated as a copositive program, even if some of the variables are binary. So this is an NP-hard problem class. While most methods try to approximate the copositive cone from within, we propose a method which approximates this cone from outside. This is achieved by passing to the dual problem, where the feasible set is an affine subspace intersected with the cone of completely positive matrices, and this cone is approximated from within. We consider feasible descent directions in the completely positive cone, and regularized strictly convex subproblems. In essence, we replace the intractable completely positive cone with a nonnegative cone, at the cost of a series of nonconvex quadratic subproblems. Proper adjustment of the regularization parameter results in short steps for the nonconvex quadratic programs. This suggests to approximate their solution by standard linearization techniques. Preliminary numerical results on three different classes of test problems are quite promising.     

Minimizing the sum of a linear and a linear fractional function applying conic quadratic representation: continuous and discrete problems

This paper tries to minimize the sum of a linear and a linear fractional function over a closed convex set defined by some linear and conic quadratic constraints. At first, we represent some necessary and sufficient conditions for the pseudoconvexity of the problem. For each of the conditions, under some reasonable assumptions, an appropriate second-order cone programming (SOCP) reformulation of the problem is stated and a new applicable solution procedure is proposed. Efficiency of the proposed reformulations is demonstrated by numerical experiments. Secondly, we limit our attention to binary variables and derive a sufficient condition for SOCP representability. Using the experimental results on random instances, we show that the proposed conic reformulation is more efficient in comparison with the well-known linearization technique and it produces more eligible cuts for the branch and bound algorithm.     

Linearity Embedded in Nonconvex Programs

Nonconvex programs involving bilinear terms and linear equality constraints often appear more nonlinear than they really are. By using an automatic symbolic reformulation we can substitute some of the bilinear terms with linear constraints. This has a dramatically improving effect on the tightness of any convex relaxation of the problem, which makes deterministic global optimization algorithms like spatial Branch-and-Bound much more eff- cient when applied to the problem.     

Completely positive reformulations of polynomial optimization problems with linear constraints

A polynomial optimization problem (POP) is an optimization problem in which both the objective and constraints can be written in terms of polynomials on the decision variables. Recently, it has been shown that under appropriate assumptions POPs can be reformulated as conic problems over the cone of completely positive tensors; which generalize the set of completely positive matrices. Here, we show that by explicitly handling the linear constraints in the formulation of the POP, one obtains a generalization of the completely positive reformulation of quadratically constrained quadratic programs recently introduced by Bai et al. (Math Program 1–28, 2016).     

A QP Free Feasible Method

In [12], a QP free feasible method was proposed for the minimization of a smooth function subject to smooth inequality constraints. This method is based on the solutions of linear systems of equations, the reformulation of the KKT optimality conditions by using the Fischer-Burmeister NCP function. This method ensures the feasibility of all iterations. In this paper, we modify the method in [12] slightly to obtain the local convergence under some weaker conditions. In particular, this method is implementable and globally convergent without assuming the linear independence of the gradients of active constrained functions and the uniformly positive definiteness of the submatrix obtained by the Newton or Quasi Newton methods. We also prove that the method has superlinear convergence rate under some mild conditions. Some preliminary numerical results indicate that this new QP free feasible method is quite promising.     

Conic approximation to quadratic optimization with linear complementarity constraints

This paper proposes a conic approximation algorithm for solving quadratic optimization problems with linear complementarity constraints.We provide a conic reformulation and its dual for the original problem such that these three problems share the same optimal objective value. Moreover, we show that the conic reformulation problem is attainable when the original problem has a nonempty and bounded feasible domain. Since the conic reformulation is in general a hard problem, some conic relaxations are further considered. We offer a condition under which both the semidefinite relaxation and its dual problem become strictly feasible for finding a lower bound in polynomial time. For more general cases, by adaptively refining the outer approximation of the feasible set, we propose a conic approximation algorithm to identify an optimal solution or an \(\epsilon \)-optimal solution of the original problem. A convergence proof is given under simple assumptions. Some computational results are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Handling equality constraints with agent-based memetic algorithms

In addition to inequality constraints, many mathematical models require equality constraints to represent the practical problems appropriately. The existence of equality constraints reduces the size of the feasible space significantly, which makes it difficult to locate feasible and optimal solutions. This paper presents a new equality constraint handling technique which enhances the performance of an agent-based evolutionary algorithm in solving constrained optimization problems with equality constraints. The technique is basically used as an agent learning process in the agent-based evolutionary algorithm. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested on a set of well-known benchmark problems including seven new problems. The experimental results confirm the improved performance of the proposed technique.     

Improving the performance of standard solvers for quadratic 0-1 programs by a tight convex reformulation: The QCR method

Let be a 0-1 quadratic program which consists in minimizing a quadratic function subject to linear equality constraints. In this paper, we present QCR, a general method to reformulate into an equivalent 0-1 program with a convex quadratic objective function. The reformulated problem can then be efficiently solved by a classical branch-and-bound algorithm, based on continuous relaxation. This idea is already present in the literature and used in standard solvers such as CPLEX. Our objective in this work was to find a convex reformulation whose continuous relaxation bound is, moreover, as tight as possible. From this point of view, we show that QCR is optimal in a certain sense. State-of-the-art reformulation methods mainly operate a perturbation of the diagonal terms and are valid for any {0,1} vector. The innovation of QCR comes from the fact that the reformulation also uses the equality constraints and is valid on the feasible solution domain only. Hence, the superiority of QCR holds by construction. However, reformulation by QCR requires the solution of a semidefinite program which can be costly from the running time point of view. We carry out a computational experience on three different combinatorial optimization problems showing that the costly computational time of reformulation by QCR can however result in a drastically more efficient branch-and-bound phase. Moreover, our new approach is competitive with very specific methods applied to particular optimization problems.     

Gap Function Approach to the Generalized Nash Equilibrium Problem

We consider an optimization reformulation approach for the generalized Nash equilibrium problem (GNEP) that uses the regularized gap function of a quasi-variational inequality (QVI). The regularized gap function for QVI is in general not differentiable, but only directionally differentiable. Moreover, a simple condition has yet to be established, under which any stationary point of the regularized gap function solves the QVI. We tackle these issues for the GNEP in which the shared constraints are given by linear equalities, while the individual constraints are given by convex inequalities. First, we formulate the minimization problem involving the regularized gap function and show the equivalence to GNEP. Next, we establish the differentiability of the regularized gap function and show that any stationary point of the minimization problem solves the original GNEP under some suitable assumptions. Then, by using a barrier technique, we propose an algorithm that sequentially solves minimization problems obtained from GNEPs with the shared equality constraints only. Further, we discuss the case of shared inequality constraints and present an algorithm that utilizes the transformation of the inequality constraints to equality constraints by means of slack variables. We present some results of numerical experiments to illustrate the proposed approach.     

An interior affine scaling projective algorithm for nonlinear equality and linear inequality constrained optimization

In this paper, we propose a new nonmonotonic interior point backtracking strategy to modify the reduced projective affine scaling trust region algorithm for solving optimization subject to nonlinear equality and linear inequality constraints. The general full trust region subproblem for solving the nonlinear equality and linear inequality constrained optimization is decomposed to a pair of trust region subproblems in horizontal and vertical subspaces of linearize equality constraints and extended affine scaling equality constraints. The horizontal subproblem in the proposed algorithm is defined by minimizing a quadratic projective reduced Hessian function subject only to an ellipsoidal trust region constraint in a null subspace of the tangential space, while the vertical subproblem is also defined by the least squares subproblem subject only to an ellipsoidal trust region constraint. By introducing the Fletcher's penalty function as the merit function, trust region strategy with interior point backtracking technique will switch to strictly feasible interior point step generated by a component direction of the two trust region subproblems. The global convergence of the proposed algorithm while maintaining fast local convergence rate of the proposed algorithm are established under some reasonable conditions. A nonmonotonic criterion should bring about speeding up the convergence progress in some high nonlinear function conditioned cases.     

具有分片线性NCP函数的QP-Free可行域方法

In this paper, a QP-free feasible method with piecewise NCP functions is proposed for nonlinear inequality constrained optimization problems. The new NCP functions are piecewise linear-rational, regular pseudo-smooth and have nice properties. This method is based on the solutions of linear systems of equation reformulation of KKT optimality conditions, by using the piecewise NCP functions. This method is implementable and globally convergent without assuming the strict complementarity condition, the isolatedness of accumulation points. Furthermore, the gradients of active constraints are not requested to be linearly independent. The submatrix which may be obtained by quasi-Newton methods, is not requested to be uniformly positive definite. Preliminary numerical results indicate that this new QP-free method is quite promising.     

PIECEWISE LINEAR NCP FUNCTION FOR QP FREE FEASIBLE METHOD

In this paper,a QP-free feasible method with piecewise NCP functions is proposed for nonlinear inequality constrained optimization problems.The new NCP functions are piece- wise linear-rational,regular pseudo-smooth and have nice properties.This method is based on the solutions of linear systems of equation reformulation of KKT optimality conditions,by using the piecewise NCP functions.This method is implementable and globally convergent without assuming the strict complementarity condition,the isolatedness of accumulation points.Fur- thermore,the gradients of active constraints are not requested to be linearly independent.The submatrix which may be obtained by quasi-Newton methods,is not requested to be uniformly positive definite.Preliminary numerical results indicate that this new QP-free method is quite promising.     

Linearly Constrained Global Optimization and Stochastic Differential Equations

A stochastic algorithm is proposed for the global optimization of nonconvex functions subject to linear constraints. Our method follows the trajectory of an appropriately defined Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE). The feasible set is assumed to be comprised of linear equality constraints, and possibly box constraints. Feasibility of the trajectory is achieved by projecting its dynamics onto the set defined by the linear equality constraints. A barrier term is used for the purpose of forcing the trajectory to stay within the box constraints. Using Laplace’s method we give a characterization of a probability measure (Π) that is defined on the set of global minima of the problem. We then study the transition density associated with the projected diffusion process and show that its weak limit is given by Π. Numerical experiments using standard test problems from the literature are reported. Our results suggest that the method is robust and applicable to large-scale problems.     

A column generation based heuristic for sensor placement,activity scheduling and data routing in wireless sensor networks

A wireless sensor network is a network consisting of distributed autonomous electronic devices called sensors. In this work, we develop a mixed-integer linear programming model to maximize the network lifetime by optimally determining locations of sensors and sinks, sensor-to-sink data flows, and activity schedules of the deployed sensors subject to coverage, flow conservation, energy consumption and budget constraints. Since solving this model is difficult except for very small instances, we propose a heuristic method which works on a reformulation of the problem. In the first phase of this heuristic, the linear programming relaxation of the reformulation is solved by column generation. The second phase consists of constructing a feasible solution for the original problem using the columns obtained in the first phase. Computational experiments conducted on a set of test instances indicate that both the accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed heuristic is quite promising.     

A feasible descent SQP algorithm for general constrained optimization without strict complementarity

In this paper, a class of optimization problems with equality and inequality constraints is discussed. Firstly, the original problem is transformed to an associated simpler problem with only inequality constraints and a parameter. The later problem is shown to be equivalent to the original problem if the parameter is large enough (but finite), then a feasible descent SQP algorithm for the simplified problem is presented. At each iteration of the proposed algorithm, a master direction is obtained by solving a quadratic program (which always has a feasible solution). With two corrections on the master direction by two simple explicit formulas, the algorithm generates a feasible descent direction for the simplified problem and a height-order correction direction which can avoid the Maratos effect without the strict complementarity, then performs a curve search to obtain the next iteration point. Thanks to the new height-order correction technique, under mild conditions without the strict complementarity, the globally and superlinearly convergent properties are obtained. Finally, an efficient implementation of the numerical experiments is reported.     

A Mixed Logarithmic Barrier-Augmented Lagrangian Method for Nonlinear Optimization

We present a primal–dual algorithm for solving a constrained optimization problem. This method is based on a Newtonian method applied to a sequence of perturbed KKT systems. These systems follow from a reformulation of the initial problem under the form of a sequence of penalized problems, by introducing an augmented Lagrangian for handling the equality constraints and a log-barrier penalty for the inequalities. We detail the updating rules for monitoring the different parameters (Lagrange multiplier estimate, quadratic penalty and log-barrier parameter), in order to get strong global convergence properties. We show that one advantage of this approach is that it introduces a natural regularization of the linear system to solve at each iteration, for the solution of a problem with a rank deficient Jacobian of constraints. The numerical experiments show the good practical performances of the proposed method especially for degenerate problems.     

Handling equality constraints in evolutionary optimization

Over the last few decades several methods have been proposed for handling functional constraints while solving optimization problems using evolutionary algorithms (EAs). However, the presence of equality constraints makes the feasible space very small compared to the entire search space. As a consequence, the handling of equality constraints has long been a difficult issue for evolutionary optimization methods. This paper presents a Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm (HEA) for solving optimization problems with both equality and inequality constraints. In HEA, we propose a new local search technique with special emphasis on equality constraints. The basic concept of the new technique is to reach a point on the equality constraint from the current position of an individual solution, and then explore on the constraint landscape. We believe this new concept will influence the future research direction for constrained optimization using population based algorithms. The proposed algorithm is tested on a set of standard benchmark problems. The results show that the proposed technique works very well on those benchmark problems.     

Burer’s key assumption for semidefinite and doubly nonnegative relaxations

Burer has shown that completely positive relaxations of nonconvex quadratic programs with nonnegative and binary variables are exact when the binary variables satisfy a so-called key assumption. Here we show that introducing binary slack variables to obtain an equivalent problem that satisfies the key assumption will not improve the semidefinite relaxation. In contrast, such slack variables will improve the doubly nonnegative relaxation, but the same improvement can be obtained in a simpler fashion by adding certain linear inequality constraints.