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Designing a zero on a linear manifold, a polyhedron, and a vertex of a polyhedron. Newton methods of minimization
Computer Research and Modeling, 2019, v. 11, no. 4, pp. 563-591Views (last year): 6.We consider the approaches to the construction of methods for solving four-dimensional programming problems for calculating directions for multiple minimizations of smooth functions on a set of a given set of linear equalities. The approach consists of two stages.
At the first stage, the problem of quadratic programming is transformed by a numerically stable direct multiplicative algorithm into an equivalent problem of designing the origin of coordinates on a linear manifold, which defines a new mathematical formulation of the dual quadratic problem. For this, a numerically stable direct multiplicative method for solving systems of linear equations is proposed, taking into account the sparsity of matrices presented in packaged form. The advantage of this approach is to calculate the modified Cholesky factors to construct a substantially positive definite matrix of the system of equations and its solution in the framework of one procedure. And also in the possibility of minimizing the filling of the main rows of multipliers without losing the accuracy of the results, and no changes are made in the position of the next processed row of the matrix, which allows the use of static data storage formats.
At the second stage, the necessary and sufficient optimality conditions in the form of Kuhn–Tucker determine the calculation of the direction of descent — the solution of the dual quadratic problem is reduced to solving a system of linear equations with symmetric positive definite matrix for calculating of Lagrange's coefficients multipliers and to substituting the solution into the formula for calculating the direction of descent.
It is proved that the proposed approach to the calculation of the direction of descent by numerically stable direct multiplicative methods at one iteration requires a cubic law less computation than one iteration compared to the well-known dual method of Gill and Murray. Besides, the proposed method allows the organization of the computational process from any starting point that the user chooses as the initial approximation of the solution.
Variants of the problem of designing the origin of coordinates on a linear manifold, a convex polyhedron and a vertex of a convex polyhedron are presented. Also the relationship and implementation of methods for solving these problems are described.
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On some stochastic mirror descent methods for constrained online optimization problems
Computer Research and Modeling, 2019, v. 11, no. 2, pp. 205-217Views (last year): 42.The problem of online convex optimization naturally occurs in cases when there is an update of statistical information. The mirror descent method is well known for non-smooth optimization problems. Mirror descent is an extension of the subgradient method for solving non-smooth convex optimization problems in the case of a non-Euclidean distance. This paper is devoted to a stochastic variant of recently proposed Mirror Descent methods for convex online optimization problems with convex Lipschitz (generally, non-smooth) functional constraints. This means that we can still use the value of the functional constraint, but instead of (sub)gradient of the objective functional and the functional constraint, we use their stochastic (sub)gradients. More precisely, assume that on a closed subset of $n$-dimensional vector space, $N$ convex Lipschitz non-smooth functionals are given. The problem is to minimize the arithmetic mean of these functionals with a convex Lipschitz constraint. Two methods are proposed, for solving this problem, using stochastic (sub)gradients: adaptive method (does not require knowledge of Lipschitz constant neither for the objective functional, nor for the functional of constraint) and non-adaptivemethod (requires knowledge of Lipschitz constant for the objective functional and the functional of constraint). Note that it is allowed to calculate the stochastic (sub)gradient of each functional only once. In the case of non-negative regret, we find that the number of non-productive steps is $O$($N$), which indicates the optimality of the proposed methods. We consider an arbitrary proximal structure, which is essential for decisionmaking problems. The results of numerical experiments are presented, allowing to compare the work of adaptive and non-adaptive methods for some examples. It is shown that the adaptive method can significantly improve the number of the found solutions.
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The error accumulation in the conjugate gradient method for degenerate problem
Computer Research and Modeling, 2021, v. 13, no. 3, pp. 459-472In this paper, we consider the conjugate gradient method for solving the problem of minimizing a quadratic function with additive noise in the gradient. Three concepts of noise were considered: antagonistic noise in the linear term, stochastic noise in the linear term and noise in the quadratic term, as well as combinations of the first and second with the last. It was experimentally obtained that error accumulation is absent for any of the considered concepts, which differs from the folklore opinion that, as in accelerated methods, error accumulation must take place. The paper gives motivation for why the error may not accumulate. The dependence of the solution error both on the magnitude (scale) of the noise and on the size of the solution using the conjugate gradient method was also experimentally investigated. Hypotheses about the dependence of the error in the solution on the noise scale and the size (2-norm) of the solution are proposed and tested for all the concepts considered. It turned out that the error in the solution (by function) linearly depends on the noise scale. The work contains graphs illustrating each individual study, as well as a detailed description of numerical experiments, which includes an account of the methods of noise of both the vector and the matrix.
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Lower bounds for conditional gradient type methods for minimizing smooth strongly convex functions
Computer Research and Modeling, 2022, v. 14, no. 2, pp. 213-223In this paper, we consider conditional gradient methods for optimizing strongly convex functions. These are methods that use a linear minimization oracle, which, for a given vector $p \in \mathbb{R}^n$, computes the solution of the subproblem
\[ \text{Argmin}_{x\in X}{\langle p,\,x \rangle}. \]There are a variety of conditional gradient methods that have a linear convergence rate in a strongly convex case. However, in all these methods, the dimension of the problem is included in the rate of convergence, which in modern applications can be very large. In this paper, we prove that in the strongly convex case, the convergence rate of the conditional gradient methods in the best case depends on the dimension of the problem $ n $ as $ \widetilde {\Omega} \left(\!\sqrt {n}\right) $. Thus, the conditional gradient methods may turn out to be ineffective for solving strongly convex optimization problems of large dimensions.
Also, the application of conditional gradient methods to minimization problems of a quadratic form is considered. The effectiveness of the Frank – Wolfe method for solving the quadratic optimization problem in the convex case on a simplex (PageRank) has already been proved. This work shows that the use of conditional gradient methods to solve the minimization problem of a quadratic form in a strongly convex case is ineffective due to the presence of dimension in the convergence rate of these methods. Therefore, the Shrinking Conditional Gradient method is considered. Its difference from the conditional gradient methods is that it uses a modified linear minimization oracle. It's an oracle, which, for a given vector $p \in \mathbb{R}^n$, computes the solution of the subproblem \[ \text{Argmin}\{\langle p, \,x \rangle\colon x\in X, \;\|x-x_0^{}\| \leqslant R \}. \] The convergence rate of such an algorithm does not depend on dimension. Using the Shrinking Conditional Gradient method the complexity (the total number of arithmetic operations) of solving the minimization problem of quadratic form on a $ \infty $-ball is obtained. The resulting evaluation of the method is comparable to the complexity of the gradient method.
Keywords: Frank –Wolfe method, Shrinking Conditional Gradient. -
The iterations’ number estimation for strongly polynomial linear programming algorithms
Computer Research and Modeling, 2024, v. 16, no. 2, pp. 249-285A direct algorithm for solving a linear programming problem (LP), given in canonical form, is considered. The algorithm consists of two successive stages, in which the following LP problems are solved by a direct method: a non-degenerate auxiliary problem at the first stage and some problem equivalent to the original one at the second. The construction of the auxiliary problem is based on a multiplicative version of the Gaussian exclusion method, in the very structure of which there are possibilities: identification of incompatibility and linear dependence of constraints; identification of variables whose optimal values are obviously zero; the actual exclusion of direct variables and the reduction of the dimension of the space in which the solution of the original problem is determined. In the process of actual exclusion of variables, the algorithm generates a sequence of multipliers, the main rows of which form a matrix of constraints of the auxiliary problem, and the possibility of minimizing the filling of the main rows of multipliers is inherent in the very structure of direct methods. At the same time, there is no need to transfer information (basis, plan and optimal value of the objective function) to the second stage of the algorithm and apply one of the ways to eliminate looping to guarantee final convergence.
Two variants of the algorithm for solving the auxiliary problem in conjugate canonical form are presented. The first one is based on its solution by a direct algorithm in terms of the simplex method, and the second one is based on solving a problem dual to it by the simplex method. It is shown that both variants of the algorithm for the same initial data (inputs) generate the same sequence of points: the basic solution and the current dual solution of the vector of row estimates. Hence, it is concluded that the direct algorithm is an algorithm of the simplex method type. It is also shown that the comparison of numerical schemes leads to the conclusion that the direct algorithm allows to reduce, according to the cubic law, the number of arithmetic operations necessary to solve the auxiliary problem, compared with the simplex method. An estimate of the number of iterations is given.
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Direct multiplicative methods for sparse matrices. Newton methods
Computer Research and Modeling, 2017, v. 9, no. 5, pp. 679-703Views (last year): 7. Citations: 1 (RSCI).We consider a numerically stable direct multiplicative algorithm of solving linear equations systems, which takes into account the sparseness of matrices presented in a packed form. The advantage of the algorithm is the ability to minimize the filling of the main rows of multipliers without losing the accuracy of the results. Moreover, changes in the position of the next processed row of the matrix are not made, what allows using static data storage formats. Linear system solving by a direct multiplicative algorithm is, like the solving with $LU$-decomposition, just another scheme of the Gaussian elimination method implementation.
In this paper, this algorithm is the basis for solving the following problems:
Problem 1. Setting the descent direction in Newtonian methods of unconditional optimization by integrating one of the known techniques of constructing an essentially positive definite matrix. This approach allows us to weaken or remove additional specific difficulties caused by the need to solve large equation systems with sparse matrices presented in a packed form.
Problem 2. Construction of a new mathematical formulation of the problem of quadratic programming and a new form of specifying necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. They are quite simple and can be used to construct mathematical programming methods, for example, to find the minimum of a quadratic function on a polyhedral set of constraints, based on solving linear equations systems, which dimension is not higher than the number of variables of the objective function.
Problem 3. Construction of a continuous analogue of the problem of minimizing a real quadratic polynomial in Boolean variables and a new form of defining necessary and sufficient conditions of optimality for the development of methods for solving them in polynomial time. As a result, the original problem is reduced to the problem of finding the minimum distance between the origin and the angular point of a convex polyhedron, which is a perturbation of the $n$-dimensional cube and is described by a system of double linear inequalities with an upper triangular matrix of coefficients with units on the main diagonal. Only two faces are subject to investigation, one of which or both contains the vertices closest to the origin. To calculate them, it is sufficient to solve $4n – 4$ linear equations systems and choose among them all the nearest equidistant vertices in polynomial time. The problem of minimizing a quadratic polynomial is $NP$-hard, since an $NP$-hard problem about a vertex covering for an arbitrary graph comes down to it. It follows therefrom that $P = NP$, which is based on the development beyond the limits of integer optimization methods.
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Direct multiplicative methods for sparse matrices. Quadratic programming
Computer Research and Modeling, 2018, v. 10, no. 4, pp. 407-420Views (last year): 32.A numerically stable direct multiplicative method for solving systems of linear equations that takes into account the sparseness of matrices presented in a packed form is considered. The advantage of the method is the calculation of the Cholesky factors for a positive definite matrix of the system of equations and its solution within the framework of one procedure. And also in the possibility of minimizing the filling of the main rows of multipliers without losing the accuracy of the results, and no changes are made to the position of the next processed row of the matrix, which allows using static data storage formats. The solution of the system of linear equations by a direct multiplicative algorithm is, like the solution with LU-decomposition, just another scheme for implementing the Gaussian elimination method.
The calculation of the Cholesky factors for a positive definite matrix of the system and its solution underlies the construction of a new mathematical formulation of the unconditional problem of quadratic programming and a new form of specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality that are quite simple and are used in this paper to construct a new mathematical formulation for the problem of quadratic programming on a polyhedral set of constraints, which is the problem of finding the minimum distance between the origin ordinate and polyhedral boundary by means of a set of constraints and linear algebra dimensional geometry.
To determine the distance, it is proposed to apply the known exact method based on solving systems of linear equations whose dimension is not higher than the number of variables of the objective function. The distances are determined by the construction of perpendiculars to the faces of a polyhedron of different dimensions. To reduce the number of faces examined, the proposed method involves a special order of sorting the faces. Only the faces containing the vertex closest to the point of the unconditional extremum and visible from this point are subject to investigation. In the case of the presence of several nearest equidistant vertices, we investigate a face containing all these vertices and faces of smaller dimension that have at least two common nearest vertices with the first face.
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One method for minimization a convex Lipschitz-continuous function of two variables on a fixed square
Computer Research and Modeling, 2019, v. 11, no. 3, pp. 379-395Views (last year): 34.In the article we have obtained some estimates of the rate of convergence for the recently proposed by Yu. E.Nesterov method of minimization of a convex Lipschitz-continuous function of two variables on a square with a fixed side. The idea of the method is to divide the square into smaller parts and gradually remove them so that in the remaining sufficiently small part. The method consists in solving auxiliary problems of one-dimensional minimization along the separating segments and does not imply the calculation of the exact value of the gradient of the objective functional. The main result of the paper is proved in the class of smooth convex functions having a Lipschitz-continuous gradient. Moreover, it is noted that the property of Lipschitzcontinuity for gradient is sufficient to require not on the whole square, but only on some segments. It is shown that the method can work in the presence of errors in solving auxiliary one-dimensional problems, as well as in calculating the direction of gradients. Also we describe the situation when it is possible to neglect or reduce the time spent on solving auxiliary one-dimensional problems. For some examples, experiments have demonstrated that the method can work effectively on some classes of non-smooth functions. In this case, an example of a simple non-smooth function is constructed, for which, if the subgradient is chosen incorrectly, even if the auxiliary one-dimensional problem is exactly solved, the convergence property of the method may not hold. Experiments have shown that the method under consideration can achieve the desired accuracy of solving the problem in less time than the other methods (gradient descent and ellipsoid method) considered. Partially, it is noted that with an increase in the accuracy of the desired solution, the operating time for the Yu. E. Nesterov’s method can grow slower than the time of the ellipsoid method.
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An approach for the nonconvex uniformly concave structured saddle point problem
Computer Research and Modeling, 2022, v. 14, no. 2, pp. 225-237Recently, saddle point problems have received much attention due to their powerful modeling capability for a lot of problems from diverse domains. Applications of these problems occur in many applied areas, such as robust optimization, distributed optimization, game theory, and many applications in machine learning such as empirical risk minimization and generative adversarial networks training. Therefore, many researchers have actively worked on developing numerical methods for solving saddle point problems in many different settings. This paper is devoted to developing a numerical method for solving saddle point problems in the nonconvex uniformly-concave setting. We study a general class of saddle point problems with composite structure and H\"older-continuous higher-order derivatives. To solve the problem under consideration, we propose an approach in which we reduce the problem to a combination of two auxiliary optimization problems separately for each group of variables, the outer minimization problem w.r.t. primal variables, and the inner maximization problem w.r.t the dual variables. For solving the outer minimization problem, we use the Adaptive Gradient Method, which is applicable for nonconvex problems and also works with an inexact oracle that is generated by approximately solving the inner problem. For solving the inner maximization problem, we use the Restarted Unified Acceleration Framework, which is a framework that unifies the high-order acceleration methods for minimizing a convex function that has H\"older-continuous higher-order derivatives. Separate complexity bounds are provided for the number of calls to the first-order oracles for the outer minimization problem and higher-order oracles for the inner maximization problem. Moreover, the complexity of the whole proposed approach is then estimated.
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Complimentary information using in the task of averaging operators inversion in function space
Computer Research and Modeling, 2011, v. 3, no. 3, pp. 241-254The dual task of integral geometry – to define for a given averaging operator the function class where inversion of that operator is possible – is solved. Those classes are defined ambiguously. Full description of those classes is given in the form of minimal complimentary information necessary to know about the function. The possible to give a constructive description of the class is researched and in the case of a finite averaging system the inversion formulas are given.
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