Related papers: Open problem: Tightness of maximum likelihood semi…
We study computational and statistical aspects of learning Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs). In this model, the learner interacts with an MDP drawn at the beginning of each epoch from an unknown mixture of MDPs. To sidestep known…
A $\mu$-constrained Boolean Max-CSP$(\psi)$ instance is a Boolean Max-CSP instance on predicate $\psi:\{0,1\}^r \to \{0,1\}$ where the objective is to find a labeling of relative weight exactly $\mu$ that maximizes the fraction of satisfied…
This paper deals with the algorithmic aspects of solving feasibility problems of semidefinite programming (SDP), aka linear matrix inequalities (LMI). Since in some SDP instances all feasible solutions have irrational entries, numerical…
Semidefinite programs (SDPs) and their solvers are powerful tools with many applications in machine learning and data science. Designing scalable SDP solvers is challenging because by standard the positive semidefinite decision variable is…
An estimation problem of fundamental interest is that of phase synchronization, in which the goal is to recover a collection of phases using noisy measurements of relative phases. It is known that in the Gaussian noise setting, the maximum…
Computing tight Lipschitz bounds for deep neural networks is crucial for analyzing their robustness and stability, but existing approaches either produce relatively conservative estimates or rely on semidefinite programming (SDP)…
Certifying the safety or robustness of neural networks against input uncertainties and adversarial attacks is an emerging challenge in the area of safe machine learning and control. To provide such a guarantee, one must be able to bound the…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are stochastic optimization problems that model situations where a decision maker controls a system based on its state. Partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are generalizations of MDPs where…
Given an affine space of matrices $\mathcal{L}$ and a matrix $\Theta\in \mathcal{L}$, consider the problem of computing the closest rank deficient matrix to $\Theta$ on $\mathcal{L}$ with respect to the Frobenius norm. This is a nonconvex…
The support recovery problem consists of determining a sparse subset of a set of variables that is relevant in generating a set of observations, and arises in a diverse range of settings such as compressive sensing, and subset selection in…
We introduce a method for proving lower bounds on the efficacy of semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations for combinatorial problems. In particular, we show that the cut, TSP, and stable set polytopes on $n$-vertex graphs are not the…
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 establish a connection between non-convex optimization methods for training deep neural networks and nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). Relaxation techniques arising in statistical physics which have already…
We approximate the backward reachable set of discrete-time autonomous polynomial systems using the recently developed occupation measure approach. We formulate the problem as an infinite-dimensional linear programming (LP) problem on…
Quadratic programs with box constraints involve minimizing a possibly nonconvex quadratic function subject to lower and upper bounds on each variable. This is a well-known NP-hard problem that frequently arises in various applications. We…
The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a fundamental problem in combinatorial optimization. Several semidefinite programming relaxations have been proposed recently that exploit a variety of mathematical structures including, e.g.,…
Binary Integer Programming (BIP) problems are of interest due in part to the difficulty they pose and because of their various applications, including those in graph theory, combinatorial optimization and network optimization. In this note,…
The ability to compute reward-optimal policies for given and known finite Markov decision processes (MDPs) underpins a variety of applications across planning, controller synthesis, and verification. However, we often want policies (1) to…
We consider a very wide class of models for sparse random Boolean 2CSPs; equivalently, degree-2 optimization problems over~$\{\pm 1\}^n$. For each model $\mathcal{M}$, we identify the "high-probability value"~$s^*_{\mathcal{M}}$ of the…
Many computer vision problems can be formulated as binary quadratic programs (BQPs). Two classic relaxation methods are widely used for solving BQPs, namely, spectral methods and semidefinite programming (SDP), each with their own…