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In this paper, we propose an inexact multi-block ADMM-type first-order method for solving a class of high-dimensional convex composite conic optimization problems to moderate accuracy. The design of this method combines an inexact 2-block majorized semi-proximal ADMM and the recent advances in the inexact symmetric Gauss–Seidel (sGS) technique for solving a multi-block convex composite quadratic programming whose objective contains a nonsmooth term involving only the first block-variable. One distinctive feature of our proposed method (the sGS-imsPADMM) is that it only needs one cycle of an inexact sGS method, instead of an unknown number of cycles, to solve each of the subproblems involved. With some simple and implementable error tolerance criteria, the cost for solving the subproblems can be greatly reduced, and many steps in the forward sweep of each sGS cycle can often be skipped, which further contributes to the efficiency of the proposed method. Global convergence as well as the iteration complexity in the non-ergodic sense is established. Preliminary numerical experiments on some high-dimensional linear and convex quadratic SDP problems with a large number of linear equality and inequality constraints are also provided. The results show that for the vast majority of the tested problems, the sGS-imsPADMM is 2–3 times faster than the directly extended multi-block ADMM with the aggressive step-length of 1.618, which is currently the benchmark among first-order methods for solving multi-block linear and quadratic SDP problems though its convergence is not guaranteed.

The T-product for third-order tensors has been used extensively in the literature. In this paper, we first introduce first-order and second-order T-derivatives for the multi-variable real-valued function with the tensor T-product. Inspired by an equivalent characterization of a twice continuously T-differentiable multi-variable real-valued function being convex, we present a definition of the T-positive semidefiniteness of third-order symmetric tensors. After that, we extend many properties of positive semidefinite matrices to the case of third-order symmetric tensors. In particular, analogue to the widely used semidefinite programming (SDP for short), we introduce the semidefinite programming over the space of third-order symmetric tensors (T-semidefinite programming or TSDP for short), and provide a way to solve the TSDP problem by converting it into an SDP problem in the complex domain. Furthermore, we give several TSDP examples and especially some preliminary numerical results for two unconstrained polynomial optimization problems. Experiments show that finding the global minimums of polynomials via the TSDP relaxation outperforms the traditional SDP relaxation for the test examples.

The stabilized sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method can effectively deal with degenerate nonlinear optimization problems. In the case of nonunique Lagrange multipliers associated with a stationary point of an optimization problem, the stabilized SQP method still obtains superlinear and/or quadratic convergence to a primal-dual solution. In this paper, we propose a stabilized sequential quadratic semidefinite programming method for degenerate nonlinear semidefinite programming problems. Under the local error bound condition, the strict complementarity condition, and the second-order sufficient condition, we establish superlinear and/or quadratic convergence of the proposed method.

Sequential optimality conditions have played a major role in unifying and extending global convergence results for several classes of algorithms for general nonlinear optimization. In this paper, we extend theses concepts for nonlinear semidefinite programming. We define two sequential optimality conditions for nonlinear semidefinite programming. The first is a natural extension of the so-called Approximate-Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (AKKT), well known in nonlinear optimization. The second one, called Trace-AKKT, is more natural in the context of semidefinite programming as the computation of eigenvalues is avoided. We propose an augmented Lagrangian algorithm that generates these types of sequences and new constraint qualifications are proposed, weaker than previously considered ones, which are sufficient for the global convergence of the algorithm to a stationary point.

Designing lightweight yet stiff structures that can withstand vibrations is a crucial task in structural optimization. Here, we present a novel framework for truss topology optimization under undamped harmonic oscillations. Our approach minimizes the peak power of the structure under harmonic loads, overcoming the limitations of single-frequency and in-phase assumptions found in previous methods. For this, we leverage the concept of semidefinite representable (SDr) functions, demonstrating that while compliance readily conforms to an SDr representation, peak power requires a derivation based on the nonnegativity of trigonometric functions. Finally, we introduce convex relaxations for the minimization problem and provide promising computational results.

In this paper, we propose a new sequential quadratic semidefinite programming (SQSDP) method for solving degenerate nonlinear semidefinite programs (NSDPs), in which we produce iteration points by solving a sequence of stabilized quadratic semidefinite programming (QSDP) subproblems, which we derive from the minimax problem associated with the NSDP. Unlike the existing SQSDP methods, the proposed one allows us to solve those QSDP subproblems inexactly, and each QSDP is feasible. One more remarkable point of the proposed method is that constraint qualifications or boundedness of Lagrange multiplier sequences are not required in the global convergence analysis. Specifically, without assuming such conditions, we prove the global convergence to a point satisfying any of the following: the stationary conditions for the feasibility problem, the approximate-Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (AKKT) conditions, and the trace-AKKT conditions. Finally, we conduct some numerical experiments to examine the efficiency of the proposed method.

In this paper, we deal with exact semidefinite programming (SDP) reformulations for a class of adjustable robust quadratic optimization problems with affine decision rules. By virtue of a special semidefinite representation of the non-negativity of separable non-convex quadratic functions on box uncertain sets, we establish an exact SDP reformulation for this adjustable robust quadratic optimization problem on spectrahedral uncertain sets. Note that the spectrahedral uncertain set contains commonly used uncertain sets, such as ellipsoids, polytopes, and boxes. As special cases, we also establish exact SDP reformulations for this adjustable robust quadratic optimization problems when the uncertain sets are ellipsoids, polytopes, and boxes, respectively. As applications, we establish the corresponding results for fractionally adjustable robust quadratic optimization problems.

The paper is dedicated to the study of strong duality for a problem of linear copositive programming. Based on the recently introduced concept of the set of normalized immobile indices, an extended dual problem is deduced. The dual problem satisfies the strong duality relations and does not require any additional regularity assumptions such as constraint qualifications. The main difference with the previously obtained results consists in the fact that now the extended dual problem uses neither the immobile indices themselves nor the explicit information about the convex hull of these indices. The strong duality formulations presented in the paper for linear copositive problems have similar structure and properties as that proposed in the works by M. Ramana, L. Tuncel, and H. Wolkowicz, for semidefinite programming.

Geometry optimization was recently introduced to existing truss topology optimization with global stability constraints. The resulting problems are formulated as highly nonlinear semidefinite programming problems that demand extensive computational effort to solve and have been solved only for small problem instances. The main challenge for effective computation is the positive semidefinite constraints which involve large sparse matrices. In this paper, we apply several techniques to tackle the challenge. First, we use the well-known chordal decomposition approach to replace each positive semidefinite constraint on a large sparse matrix by several positive semidefinite constraints on smaller submatrices together with suitable linking constraints. Moreover, we further improve the efficiency of the decomposition by applying a graph-based clique merging strategy to combine submatrices with significant overlap. Next, we couple these techniques with an optimization algorithm that fully exploits the structure of the smaller submatrices. As a result, we can solve much larger problems, which allows us to extend the existing single-load case to the multiple-load case, and to provide a computationally tractable approach for the latter case. Finally, we employ adaptive strategies from previous studies to solve successive problem instances, enabling the joints to navigate larger regions, and ultimately obtain further improved designs. The efficiency of the overall approach is demonstrated via computational experiments on large problem instances.

In this paper, we deal with a new class of SOS-convex (sum of squares convex) polynomial optimization problems with spectrahedral uncertainty data in both the objective and constraints. By using robust optimization and a weighted-sum scalarization methodology, we first present the relationship between robust solutions of this uncertain SOS-convex polynomial optimization problem and that of its corresponding scalar optimization problem. Then, by using a normal cone constraint qualification condition, we establish necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for robust weakly efficient solutions of this uncertain SOS-convex polynomial optimization problem based on scaled diagonally dominant sums of squares conditions and linear matrix inequalities. Moreover, we introduce a semidefinite programming relaxation problem of its weighted-sum scalar optimization problem, and show that robust weakly efficient solutions of the uncertain SOS-convex polynomial optimization problem can be found by solving the corresponding semidefinite programming relaxation problem.