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1 vote
1 answer
309 views

Numerical estimation of partial derivatives of convolved functions when closed forms do not exist

Summary: Some peak functions are convolutions which may not have a closed form solution. A classical example can that of a Voigt which is a convolution of a Lorentzian and a Gaussian, followed by ...
2 votes
2 answers
323 views

Reference request on computational schemes for $\inf_{x\in\Omega^n}\sup_{y\in\mathbb R^n}F(x,y)$

Let $\Omega\subset \mathbb R^d$ be compact, $\rho$ be a density function on $\Omega$ and $p_1,\ldots, p_n\in (0,1)$ be weights satisfying $\int_{\Omega}\rho(z)dz=1=\sum_{k=1}^n p_k$. We consider the ...
1 vote
0 answers
73 views

Convexity and subdifferential monotonicity

Do you know any reference where I can find some results in this sense: Consider $W:K\to [0,\infty)$ is a functional defined on a convex cone $K\subset X$, where $X$ is a Banach space. Then the ...
0 votes
0 answers
45 views

Generalized envelope theorems

I'm looking for references for two generalizations of Danskin/envelope-type theorems for convex optimization. The first is for when the parameters are functions on a space rather than numbers. A ...
2 votes
0 answers
95 views

Self adjoint operators from energy functionals

It is known that the equation $$ \Delta f = 0 $$ on some bounded domain $\Omega$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$ subjected to certain boundary conditions can be derived through the minimization of the Dirichlet ...
3 votes
1 answer
189 views

Sensitivity of the solution of QP with respect to parameters

Given a quadratic program, $$\begin{array}{ll} \text{minimize} & \displaystyle \frac12 x^TAx + b^Tx \\ \text{subject to} & Cx \le d \end{array}$$ Suppose $A \succ 0$, so the program strongly ...
3 votes
2 answers
207 views

Generalizing Pythagorean Theorem: equations defining edges of a (convex) $n$-gon with $n-2$ prescribed angles?

Let $n\geq 3$ be an integer and $0<\alpha_1, \dots ,\alpha_{n-2}<1$. Let's say a tuple of positive numbers $(e_1,\dots, e_n)$ is nice if there is a convex $n$-gon $A_1\dots A_n$ such that $\hat ...
0 votes
0 answers
166 views

Literature request: proving or disproving convexity of the optimal value function of semidefinite program (SDP) or convex optimization in general

Suppose I have a function $f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ defined as the following parametric optimization problem: $$f(p) = \inf_xf_0(x) \quad \text{subject to } \quad G(x,p)\leq 0,$$ where ...
2 votes
1 answer
509 views

Under what condition does Courant–Fischer–Weyl min-max principle hold in general?

From Wikipedia: Let $A$ be an $n \times n$ Hermitian matrix. As with many other variational results on eigenvalues, one considers the Rayleigh–Ritz quotient $R_A : \mathbf C^n \setminus \{0\} \to \...
1 vote
0 answers
73 views

Principal component analysis with boundedness constraints

Let $A$ be an $m\times n$ matrix with entries in $F$ ($F=\mathbb{R}$ or $F=\mathbb{C}$). It is well-known that $A$ has decompositions of the form $$\displaystyle A = \sum_{k=1}^r\lambda_k\hspace{2mm} ...
2 votes
1 answer
399 views

Smoothness of Minkowski functional is equivalent to smoothness of boundary

Let $C\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$ be a convex body containing $0$ in its interior. I recently read that Minkowski functional of $C$, $$ f_C(x):=\inf\Big\{t>0:\frac1{t}\cdot x\in C\Big\}, $$ is $C^1$ ...
4 votes
5 answers
2k views

Reference request: importance of Lipschitz continuity

I see that Lipschitz continuity is a common assumption used in optimisation, statistics, machine learning, etc. Could you point me in the direction of some literature that discusses why Lipschitz ...
2 votes
0 answers
37 views

Stochastic gradient descent in 'stronger' settings

I am minimzing a function $F(x) = \mathbb E(f(x,\Xi))$ where $\Xi$ is some random value, by a stochastic gradient descent that generates a random number $\xi$ from the distribution of $\Xi$ at each ...
1 vote
0 answers
38 views

Solution to dynamic program-type recursion

I have the following dynamic programming principle-type problem. Suppose that we are given a sequence $\beta_1,\dots,\beta_n\in (0,\infty)$, some target $y\in (0,\infty)$ with $y>\sum_{t=1}^N \...
0 votes
1 answer
261 views

Non-asymptotic convergence rates for gradient descent

I'd like to know how the number of steps needed for gradient descent depend on properties of the Hessian in non-asymptotic regime. More specifically, number of gradient descent steps needed to obtain ...
2 votes
1 answer
345 views

Can the subdifferential become unbounded at interior points?

Consider $f: \mathbb{R}^n \to \overline{\mathbb{R}}$ a lower-semicontinuous, proper, closed and convex. My question is, can the subdifferential of $\partial f$ be unbounded in the interior of $\text{...
4 votes
0 answers
260 views

$L^2$-projection onto monotone functions

Let $f:{\mathbb R}\rightarrow{\mathbb R}$ be measurable and such that $$\int_{-\infty}^0(f(x)-a)^2dx+\int_0^{+\infty}(f(x)-b)^2dx<+\infty.$$ This, denoted as $E(a,b)$, is an affine space: $E(a,b):=...
0 votes
1 answer
329 views

Gradient-descent "type" Methods for non-convex and non-smooth functions

Most (stochastic) "gradient descent" type algorithms (such as Nesterov-accelerated gradient-descent or ADAM) seem to be well-defined only for functions which are either: lower semi-...
4 votes
0 answers
236 views

Fréchet subdifferentiation on riemannian manifolds

Context. I'm looking for a "natural" definition of subdifferentials on riemannian manifolds. Given a function $F:\mathbb R^m \to \mathbb R$, its Fréchet-subdifferential at a point $w \in \...
0 votes
1 answer
125 views

Are there search algorithms that are competitive against (gradient based) optimization routines for continuous problems?

Suppose that $f: \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}$ is a continuous function for which we want to minimize. We may arbitrarily impose good conditions for $f$, such as Lipschitzness, smoothness, convexity, ...
5 votes
1 answer
329 views

Reference for the rectifiablity of the boundary hypersurface of convex open set

The boundary of any convex open set $X$ is $\mathbb R^n$ is a rectifiable hypersurface. To see this, intuitively, simply take a sphere $S_d$ with diameter $d\in(0,+\infty]$ that contains $X$. The ...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Wasserstein distance and the Kantorovich-Rubinstein duality

The only few references I could find on this topic are either amateur blog posts (http://n.ethz.ch/~gbasso/download/A%20Hitchhikers%20guide%20to%20Wasserstein/A%20Hitchhikers%20guide%20to%...
1 vote
0 answers
152 views

Well-posedness of gradient flows

For a convex lower-semicontinuous functional on a Hilbert space $I\colon H\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$, it is shown in Evans' PDE that the Hilbert-space-valued ODE $$\begin{cases}\mathbf{u}'(t)\in-\partial ...
4 votes
0 answers
509 views

analytic approximations of the min and max operators

Question: What is the state of the art on analytic approximations of $\min$ and $\max$? My hunch is that numerical analysts probably have a better solution than the one I propose here. For any $\...
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Strict complementary slackness for semidefinite programs with strong duality

By a theorem of Goldman and Tucker it is known that if a linear program (LP) has a finite valued optimal solution, then there is an optimal primal/dual pair $(x,z)$ satisfying not only complementary ...
4 votes
1 answer
1k views

Does the Legendre-Fenchel transform/convex conjugate of strongly convex functions have any desirable properties?

It is well known in convex analysis that when a closed, proper, function $f$ is Legendre-type, that is, essentially strictly convex and essentially smooth, the Legendre transform yields a dual ...
2 votes
0 answers
98 views

State-of-the-Art algorithms for bilevel optimization

I want to numerically solve a bilevel optimization problem of the form $$ \min_y f(y, \hat x(y)), \qquad \hat x(y) = \arg\min_x g(x, y) $$ (for simplicity assume that $\min_x g(x, y)$ exists and is ...
3 votes
1 answer
170 views

Reformulation as optimization on probability distributions

This is a "soft" question, in the sense that I'm looking for historical remarks and general commentary rather than a definite answer. For compact $X \in R^n$ and $f : R^n \to R$ consider the problem ...
1 vote
0 answers
70 views

Solve simple stochastic variational inequality

Let $Z$ be a random variable with finite mean $\mathbb E[Z]$ and let $\phi:(-\infty,\infty) \rightarrow (-\infty,\infty]$ be a convex l.s.c function which is differentiable at $z=1$ with gradient $\...
0 votes
1 answer
291 views

Quasiconvexity property of quasinorms

Schatten $p$ norm is convex when $p\geq1$ holds and if $p\in(0,1)$ it is quasinorm. If $p\in(0,1)$ then is Schatten $p$ norm quasi convex? I am interested in definition of quasi convexity here https:...
1 vote
0 answers
267 views

Minimum Preserving Transformations [closed]

If $f:X\rightarrow Y$, $g:Y\rightarrow Y$ are functions and $g$ is monotone increasing function then $$ \operatorname{argmin}_{x \in X} f(x) = \operatorname{argmin}_{x \in X} g\circ f(x) . $$ X and Y ...
3 votes
1 answer
266 views

Strong polynomial algorithm for linear programming

What is the current state of finding a strong polynomial algorithm for linear programming? Is there any reference?
2 votes
1 answer
255 views

Efficient algorithm for solving a convex quadratic program [duplicate]

Let $A \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times m}$ and $b \in \mathbb{R}^n$. Suppose $m \ll n$. How to solve this quadratic program efficiently? $$\min_{x \in \mathbb{R}^n} \frac{1}{2} x^\top AA^\top x + b^\top x$$
9 votes
1 answer
749 views

property of convex functions

I am able to give a proof to the following inequality for convex functions. Most likely this is well known, but I am unable to find a reference. I would appreciate if someone more knowledgeable in the ...
0 votes
1 answer
172 views

constrained optimization problem/proof

Im trying to maximize the probability of a particular outcome occurring subject to a constraint. In particular $$\max \prod_{i \leq n} 1 - (1 - x_i)^{y_i} \;\;\; \text{ s.t. } \;\;\; i \in \mathbb{N}...
9 votes
4 answers
524 views

Abstract treatment of multivariate calculus relevant for optimization

After studying the basics of (convex) optimization, I've become convinced there's sometimes a conceptual benefit in thinking of quantities like gradients etc. in a coordinate-free way, and keeping ...
1 vote
0 answers
135 views

Intuition for analysis of basic gradient descent variants

I'm currently learning the basic variants of gradient descent for minimizing convex functions under various assumptions, such as Lipschitz, smooth, strongly-convex, ... . I've found various sources ...
2 votes
0 answers
282 views

Reference request: functional analysis results used in Taubes paper (1980)

I am studying Taubes paper 'Arbitrary N-vortex solutions to the first order Ginzburg-Landau equations'. I am looking for a reference of three following theorems: Let $f(x)$ be a convex funtional ...
7 votes
1 answer
216 views

How to prove the existence of the polytope in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with a given number of faces, minimizing the isoperimetric ratio?

This is the isoperimetric type question. We know that in $\mathbb{R}^d$, balls are the sets that minimize the isoperimetric ratio $\frac{S^{d}}{V^{d-1}}$, where $S$ is the surface area and $V$ is the ...
7 votes
2 answers
251 views

What methods do we have to understand the spectrum of matrices with restricted entries?

Consider questions of the form (or the "most probable value of" version of these questions rather than the "largest possible"), What is the largest possible spectral radius of a $...
1 vote
1 answer
447 views

Nested convex optimization

Suppose I have a convex optimization problem of the form $$\min_x f(x) ~~s.t.\\x\in X$$. Say that $f(x)$ and its (sub)gradient are not given in a closed form, but are determined by solving a convex ...
2 votes
0 answers
83 views

Reference request: Edmond's Algorithm for integer hull

I'm looking for a good reference for the algorithm (supposedly by Edmonds) to compute the integer hull of a polytope, not by cutting plane methods but by starting with a set of integer points and then ...
2 votes
0 answers
614 views

Lipschitz continuity of solution set mapping of a parametric convex optimization problem

I have a parametric convex optimization problem: \begin{array}{cl} \underset{x}{\text{minimize}} & f\left(x,z\right)\\ \text{subject to} & g\left(x\right)\leq0 \end{array} where $x$ is the ...
2 votes
1 answer
250 views

Circumscribed ellipsoid of minimum Hilbert-Schmidt norm

Let $K\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$ be a full-dumensional convex body. The Löwner ellipsoid of $K$ is the unique ellipsoid of smallest volume containing $K$. My question is about a related object: the ...
1 vote
1 answer
113 views

Expected rank - computable approximations

I'm interested in finding the expected rank of some random matrix $A$ (I don't want to specify its distribution right now, since my question makes sense in general). Computing $\mathbb{E} \ \mathrm{...