Jein Shan Chen

An unconstrained smooth minimization reformulation of the second-order cone complementarity problem

A popular approach to solving the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) is to reformulate it as the global minimization of a certain merit function over ℝn. A popular choice of the merit function is the squared norm of the Fischer-Burmeister function, shown to be smooth over ℝn and, for monotone NCP, each stationary point is a solution of the NCP. This merit function and its analysis were subsequently extended to the semidefinite complementarity problem (SDCP), although only differentiability, not continuous differentiability, was established. In this paper, we extend this merit function and its analysis, including continuous differentiability, to the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP). Although SOCCP is reducible to a SDCP, the reduction does not allow for easy translation of the analysis from SDCP to SOCCP. Instead, our analysis exploits properties of the Jordan product and spectral factorization associated with the second-order cone. We also report preliminary numerical experience with solving DIMACS second-order cone programs using a limited-memory BFGS method to minimize the merit function.

Analysis of nonsmooth vector-valued functions associated with second-order cones

Abstract.Let be the Lorentz/second-order cone in . For any function f from to , one can define a corresponding function fsoc(x) on by applying f to the spectral values of the spectral decomposition of x∈ with respect to . We show that this vector-valued function inherits from f the properties of continuity, (local) Lipschitz continuity, directional differentiability, Fréchet differentiability, continuous differentiability, as well as (ρ-order) semismoothness. These results are useful for designing and analyzing smoothing methods and nonsmooth methods for solving second-order cone programs and complementarity problems.

A family of NCP functions and a descent method for the nonlinear complementarity problem

Abstract In last decades, there has been much effort on the solution and the analysis of the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) by reformulating NCP as an unconstrained minimization involving an NCP function. In this paper, we propose a family of new NCP functions, which include the Fischer-Burmeister function as a special case, based on a p-norm with p being any fixed real number in the interval (1,+∞), and show several favorable properties of the proposed functions. In addition, we also propose a descent algorithm that is indeed derivative-free for solving the unconstrained minimization based on the merit functions from the proposed NCP functions. Numerical results for the test problems from MCPLIB indicate that the descent algorithm has better performance when the parameter p decreases in (1,+∞). This implies that the merit functions associated with p∈(1,2), for example p=1.5, are more effective in numerical computations than the Fischer-Burmeister merit function, which exactly corresponds to p=2.

Two classes of merit functions for the second-order cone complementarity problem

Recently Tseng (Math Program 83:159–185, 1998) extended a class of merit functions, proposed by Luo and Tseng (A new class of merit functions for the nonlinear complementarity problem, in Complementarity and Variational Problems: State of the Art, pp. 204–225, 1997), for the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) to the semidefinite complementarity problem (SDCP) and showed several related properties. In this paper, we extend this class of merit functions to the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) and show analogous properties as in NCP and SDCP cases. In addition, we study another class of merit functions which are based on a slight modification of the aforementioned class of merit functions. Both classes of merit functions provide an error bound for the SOCCP and have bounded level sets.

The Semismooth-Related Properties of a Merit Function and a Descent Method for the Nonlinear Complementarity Problem

This paper is a follow-up of the work [Chen, J.-S.: J. Optimiz. Theory Appl., Submitted for publication (2004)] where an NCP-function and a descent method were proposed for the nonlinear complementarity problem. An unconstrained reformulation was formulated due to a merit function based on the proposed NCP-function. We continue to explore properties of the merit function in this paper. In particular, we show that the gradient of the merit function is globally Lipschitz continuous which is important from computational aspect. Moreover, we show that the merit function is SC1 function which means it is continuously differentiable and its gradient is semismooth. On the other hand, we provide an alternative proof, which uses the new properties of the merit function, for the convergence result of the descent method considered in [Chen, J.-S.: J. Optimiz. Theory Appl., Submitted for publication (2004)].

A semismooth Newton method for SOCCPs based on a one-parametric class of SOC complementarity functions

In this paper, we present a detailed investigation for the properties of a one-parametric class of SOC complementarity functions, which include the globally Lipschitz continuity, strong semismoothness, and the characterization of their B-subdifferential. Moreover, for the merit functions induced by them for the second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP), we provide a condition for each stationary point to be a solution of the SOCCP and establish the boundedness of their level sets, by exploiting Cartesian P-properties. We also propose a semismooth Newton type method based on the reformulation of the nonsmooth system of equations involving the class of SOC complementarity functions. The global and superlinear convergence results are obtained, and among others, the superlinear convergence is established under strict complementarity. Preliminary numerical results are reported for DIMACS second-order cone programs, which confirm the favorable theoretical properties of the method.

The convex and monotone functions associated with second-order cone

Like the matrix-valued functions used in solutions methods for semidefinite programs (SDPs) and semidefinite complementarity problems (SDCPs), the vector-valued functions associated with second-order cones are defined analogously and also used in solutions methods for second-order-cone programs (SOCPs) and second-order-cone complementarity problems (SOCCPs). In this article, we study further about these vector-valued functions associated with second-order cones (SOCs). In particular, we define the so-called SOC-convex and SOC-monotone functions for any given function . We discuss the SOC-convexity and SOC-monotonicity for some simple functions, e.g., f(t) = t 2 t 3 1/t t 1/2, |t|, and [t]+. Some characterizations of SOC-convex and SOC-monotone functions are studied, and some conjectures about the relationship between SOC-convex and SOC-monotone functions are proposed.

ON SOME NCP-FUNCTIONS BASED ON THE GENERALIZED FISCHER-BURMEISTER FUNCTION

In this paper, we study several NCP-functions for the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) which are indeed based on the generalized Fischer–Burmeister function, ϕp(a, b) = ||(a, b)||p - (a + b). It is well known that the NCP can be reformulated as an equivalent unconstrained minimization by means of merit functions involving NCP-functions. Thus, we aim to investigate some important properties of these NCP-functions that will be used in solving and analyzing the reformulation of the NCP.

Neural networks for solving second-order cone constrained variational inequality problem

In this paper, we consider using the neural networks to efficiently solve the second-order cone constrained variational inequality (SOCCVI) problem. More specifically, two kinds of neural networks are proposed to deal with the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions of the SOCCVI problem. The first neural network uses the Fischer-Burmeister (FB) function to achieve an unconstrained minimization which is a merit function of the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker equation. We show that the merit function is a Lyapunov function and this neural network is asymptotically stable. The second neural network is introduced for solving a projection formulation whose solutions coincide with the KKT triples of SOCCVI problem. Its Lyapunov stability and global convergence are proved under some conditions. Simulations are provided to show effectiveness of the proposed neural networks.

Recurrent neural networks for solving second-order cone programs

This paper proposes using the neural networks to efficiently solve the second-order cone programs (SOCP). To establish the neural networks, the SOCP is first reformulated as a second-order cone complementarity problem (SOCCP) with the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions of the SOCP. The SOCCP functions, which transform the SOCCP into a set of nonlinear equations, are then utilized to design the neural networks. We propose two kinds of neural networks with the different SOCCP functions. The first neural network uses the Fischer-Burmeister function to achieve an unconstrained minimization with a merit function. We show that the merit function is a Lyapunov function and this neural network is asymptotically stable. The second neural network utilizes the natural residual function with the cone projection function to achieve low computation complexity. It is shown to be Lyapunov stable and converges globally to an optimal solution under some condition. The SOCP simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed neural networks.