Related papers: Open problem: Tightness of maximum likelihood semi…
The maximum density still life problem (MDSLP) is a hard constraint optimization problem based on Conway's game of life. It is a prime example of weighted constrained optimization problem that has been recently tackled in the…
A hierarchy of semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations approximates the global optimum of polynomial optimization problems of noncommuting variables. Generating the relaxation, however, is a computationally demanding task, and only…
We study the convex relaxation of a polynomial optimization problem, maximizing a product of linear forms over the complex sphere. We show that this convex program is also a relaxation of the permanent of Hermitian positive semidefinite…
We investigate the question of tightness of linear programming (LP) relaxation for finding a maximum weight independent set (MWIS) in sparse random weighted graphs. We show that an edge-based LP relaxation is asymptotically tight for…
The problem of population recovery refers to estimating a distribution based on incomplete or corrupted samples. Consider a random poll of sample size $n$ conducted on a population of individuals, where each pollee is asked to answer $d$…
Hawkes Processes have undergone increasing popularity as default tools for modeling self- and mutually exciting interactions of discrete events in continuous-time event streams. A Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) unconstrained…
The robustness of a neural network to adversarial examples can be provably certified by solving a convex relaxation. If the relaxation is loose, however, then the resulting certificate can be too conservative to be practically useful.…
This short communication addresses the problem of elliptic localization with outlier measurements. Outliers are prevalent in various location-enabled applications, and can significantly compromise the positioning performance if not…
We consider the problem of identifying underlying community-like structures in graphs. Towards this end we study the Stochastic Block Model (SBM) on $k$-clusters: a random model on $n=km$ vertices, partitioned in $k$ equal sized clusters,…
Quadratically constrained quadratic programs (QCQPs) are a fundamental class of optimization problems well-known to be NP-hard in general. In this paper we study sufficient conditions for a convex hull result that immediately implies that…
A Maximum Likelihood recursive state estimator is derived for non-linear and non-Gaussian state-space models. The estimator combines a particle filter to generate the conditional density and the Expectation Maximization algorithm to compute…
We consider semidefinite programming (SDP) for the binary stochastic block model with equal-sized communities. Prior work of Hajek, Wu, and Xu proposed an SDP (sym-SDP) for the symmetric case where the intra-community edge probabilities are…
In this paper, we focus on the problem of robustifying reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms with respect to model uncertainties. Indeed, in the framework of model-based RL, we propose to merge the theory of constrained Markov decision…
We study the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) in the multivariate deviated model where the data are generated from the density function $(1-\lambda^{\ast})h_{0}(x)+\lambda^{\ast}f(x|\mu^{\ast}, \Sigma^{\ast})$ in which $h_{0}$ is a known…
The multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detection problem is a fundamental problem in modern digital communications. Semidefinite relaxation (SDR) based algorithms are a popular class of approaches to solving the problem because the…
Semidefinite relaxations are widely used to compute upper bounds on the objective of optimization problems involving noncommutative polynomials. Such optimization problems are prevalent in quantum information. We present an algorithm able…
Semidefinite programs (SDPs) often arise in relaxations of some NP-hard problems, and if the solution of the SDP obeys certain rank constraints, the relaxation will be tight. Decomposition methods based on chordal sparsity have already been…
Recent results in compressed sensing show that, under certain conditions, the sparsest solution to an underdetermined set of linear equations can be recovered by solving a linear program. These results either rely on computing sparse…
A semilinear relation S is max-closed if it is preserved by taking the componentwise maximum. The constraint satisfaction problem for max-closed semilinear constraints is at least as hard as determining the winner in Mean Payoff Games, a…
This paper studies the computation of robust deterministic policies for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) in the Lightning Does Not Strike Twice (LDST) model of Mannor, Mebel and Xu (ICML '12). In this model, designed to provide robustness…