Related papers: Duality between quasi-concave functions and monoto…

We provide theory for computing the lower semi-continuous convex envelope of functionals of the type f(x) plus an l2 misfit, and discuss applications to various non-convex optimization problems. The latter term is a data fit term whereas f…

This paper is aimed to show the essential role played by the theory of quasi-analytic functions in the study of the determinacy of the moment problem on finite and infinite-dimensional spaces. In particular, the quasi-analytic criterion of…

We study convex and quasiconvex functions on a metric graph. Given a set of points in the metric graph, we consider the largest convex function below the prescribed datum. We characterize this largest convex function as the unique largest…

For a class C of operations on a nonempty base set A, an operation f is called a C-subfunction of an operation g, if f = g(h_1, ..., h_n), where all the inner functions h_i are members of C. Two operations are C-equivalent if they are…

Upper semicontinuous (usc) functions arise in the analysis of maximization problems, distributionally robust optimization, and function identification, which includes many problems of nonparametric statistics. We establish that every usc…

We recall the definition of quasinearly subharmonic functions, point out that this function class includes, among others, subharmonic functions, quasisubharmonic functions, nearly subharmonic functions and essentially almost subharmonic…

We define a new class of set functions that in addition to being monotone and subadditive, also admit a very limited form of submodularity defined over a permutation of the ground set. We refer to this permutation as a submodular order.…

We define the supermodular rank of a function on a lattice. This is the smallest number of terms needed to decompose it into a sum of supermodular functions. The supermodular summands are defined with respect to different partial orders. We…

A monotone function interval is the set of monotone functions that lie pointwise between two fixed monotone functions. We characterize the set of extreme points of monotone function intervals and apply this to a number of economic settings.…

This article serves as an introduction to several recent developments in the study of quasisymmetric functions. The focus of this survey is on connections between quasisymmetric functions and the combinatorial Hopf algebra of noncommutative…

A fundamental open question asking whether all real-valued strongly quasiconvex functions defined on $\mathbb R^n$ are necessarily continuous, akin to their convex counterparts, is answered in detail in this paper. Among other things, we…

The problem of minimizing an entropy functional subject to linear constraints is a useful example of partially finite convex programming. In the 1990s, Borwein and Lewis provided broad and easy-to-verify conditions that guarantee strong…

Suppose that $f$ belongs to a suitably defined complete metric space $ {{\cal C}}^{{\alpha}}$ of H\"older $ {\alpha}$-functions defined on $[0,1]$. We are interested in whether one can find large (in the sense of Hausdorff, or lower/upper…

Functions with uniform level sets can represent orders, preference relations or other binary relations and thus turn out to be a tool for scalarization that can be used, e.g., in multicriteria optimization, decision theory, mathematical…

This paper introduces the proper notion of variational quasiconvexity associated to a group of diffeomorphisms. We prove a lower semicontinuity theorem connected to this notion. In the second part of the paper we apply this result to a…

We develop two generalizations of contraction theory, namely, semi-contraction and weak-contraction theory. First, using the notion of semi-norm, we propose a geometric framework for semi-contraction theory. We introduce matrix…

Point matching refers to the process of finding spatial transformation and correspondences between two sets of points. In this paper, we focus on the case that there is only partial overlap between two point sets. Following the approach of…

In this paper we study the fundamental problems of maximizing a continuous non-monotone submodular function over the hypercube, both with and without coordinate-wise concavity. This family of optimization problems has several applications…

In this paper, we develop a theory of new classes of discrete convex functions, called L-extendable functions and alternating L-convex functions, defined on the product of trees. We establish basic properties for optimization: a…

A Fenchel-Moreau type duality for proper convex and lower semi-continuous functions $f\colon X\to \overline{L^0}$ is established where $(X,Y,\langle \cdot,\cdot \rangle)$ is a dual pair of Banach spaces and $\overline{L^0}$ is the set of…