Related papers: Open problem: Tightness of maximum likelihood semi…
Constraint programming uses enumeration and search tree pruning to solve combinatorial optimization problems. In order to speed up this solution process, we investigate the use of semidefinite relaxations within constraint programming. In…
In this study, we investigate the application of Semidefinite Programming (SDP) to phylogenetics. SDP is a powerful optimization framework that seeks to optimize a linear objective function over the cone of positive semidefinite matrices.…
This paper studies the problem of stability of a parameterized delay differential equations (DDE see equation (0.1)). After discretizing the DDE (0.1), we show that the problem can be equivalently casted into a semi-definite programming…
In scheduling and timetabling applications, the mutual-exclusion constraint stipulates that certain pairs of tasks that cannot be executed at the same time. This corresponds to the vertex colouring problem in graph theory, for which there…
In this paper, by improving the variable-splitting approach, we propose a new semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation for the nonconvex quadratic optimization problem over the $\ell_1$ unit ball (QPL1). It dominates the state-of-the-art…
Nonconvexities in markets with discrete decisions and nonlinear constraints make efficient pricing challenging, often necessitating subsidies. A prime example is the unit commitment (UC) problem in electricity markets, where costly…
This paper reformulates and streamlines the core tools of robust stability and performance for LTI systems using now-standard methods in convex optimization. In particular, robustness analysis can be formulated directly as a primal convex…
Determinantal point processes (DPPs) have wide-ranging applications in machine learning, where they are used to enforce the notion of diversity in subset selection problems. Many estimators have been proposed, but surprisingly the basic…
In this paper, we propose some new semidefinite relaxations for a class of nonconvex complex quadratic programming problems, which widely appear in the areas of signal processing and power system. By deriving new valid constraints to the…
Semidefinite programs (SDP) are one of the most versatile frameworks in numerical optimization, serving as generalizations of many conic programs and as relaxations of NP-hard combinatorial problems. Their main drawback is their…
Multiple-environment MDPs (MEMDPs) capture finite sets of MDPs that share the states but differ in the transition dynamics. These models form a proper subclass of partially observable MDPs (POMDPs). We consider the synthesis of policies…
Optimal policies in Markov decision processes (MDPs) are very sensitive to model misspecification. This raises serious concerns about deploying them in high-stake domains. Robust MDPs (RMDP) provide a promising framework to mitigate…
Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the policy employed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. The analytical formulation usually takes the form of a Constrained Markov Decision Process…
Semidefinite relaxation techniques have shown great promise for nonconvex optimal power flow problems. However, a number of independent numerical experiments have led to concerns about scalability and robustness of existing SDP solvers. To…
We initiate a study of when the value of mathematical relaxations such as linear and semidefinite programs for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is approximately preserved when restricting the instance to a sub-instance induced by a…
Why is it that semidefinite relaxations have been so successful in numerous applications in computer vision and robotics for solving non-convex optimization problems involving rotations? In studying the empirical performance we note that…
In this paper we study the relationship between the optimal value of a homogeneous quadratic optimization problem and that of its Semidefinite Programming (SDP) relaxation. We consider two quadratic optimization models: (1) $\min \{x^* C x…
Random constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) such as random $3$-SAT are conjectured to be computationally intractable. The average case hardness of random $3$-SAT and other CSPs has broad and far-reaching implications on problems in…
Robustness is important for sequential decision making in a stochastic dynamic environment with uncertain probabilistic parameters. We address the problem of using robust MDPs (RMDPs) to compute policies with provable worst-case guarantees…
Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a fundamental computational problem in statistics. In this paper, MLE for statistical models with discrete data is studied from an algebraic statistics viewpoint. A reformulation of the MLE problem in…