Related papers: SOS lower bounds with hard constraints: think glob…
Given a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) on $n$ variables, $x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n \in \{\pm 1\}$, and $m$ constraints, a global cardinality constraint has the form of $\sum_{i = 1}^{n} x_i = (1-2p)n$, where $p \in (\Omega(1), 1 -…
It is well-known that any sum of squares (SOS) program can be cast as a semidefinite program (SDP) of a particular structure and that therein lies the computational bottleneck for SOS programs, as the SDPs generated by this procedure are…
This paper is devoted to the problem of minimizing a sum of rational functions over a basic semialgebraic set. We provide a hierarchy of sum of squares (SOS) relaxations that is dual to the generalized moment problem approach due to…
This paper proposes low-complexity algorithms for finding approximate second-order stationary points (SOSPs) of problems with smooth non-convex objective and linear constraints. While finding (approximate) SOSPs is computationally…
We introduce a problem class we call Polynomial Constraint Satisfaction Problems, or PCSP. Where the usual CSPs from computer science and optimization have real-valued score functions, and partition functions from physics have monomials,…
This paper considers the problem of minimizing an expectation function over a closed convex set, coupled with a {\color{black} functional or expectation} constraint on either decision variables or problem parameters. We first present a new…
The minimum sum-of-squares clustering problem (MSSC) consists of partitioning $n$ observations into $k$ clusters in order to minimize the sum of squared distances from the points to the centroid of their cluster. In this paper, we propose…
In this paper, we address the effective degree bound problem for Lasserre's hierarchy of moment-sum-of-squares (SOS) relaxations in polynomial optimization involving $n$ variables. We assume that the first $n$ equality constraint…
Global optimization has gained attraction over the past decades, thanks to the development of both theoretical foundations and efficient numerical routines. Among recent advances, Kernel Sum of Squares (KernelSOS) provides a powerful…
We introduce a method for proving Sum-of-Squares (SoS)/ Lasserre hierarchy lower bounds when the initial problem formulation exhibits a high degree of symmetry. Our main technical theorem allows us to reduce the study of the positive…
We study the Sum of Squares (SoS) Hierarchy with a view towards combinatorial optimization. We survey the use of the SoS hierarchy to obtain approximation algorithms on graphs using their spectral properties. We present a simplified proof…
High-order tensor methods that employ Taylor-based local models (of degree $p\ge 3$) within adaptive regularization frameworks have been recently proposed for both convex and nonconvex optimization problems. They have been shown to have…
This paper describes a new approach on optimization of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) by means of substituting sub-CSPs with locally consistent regular membership constraints. The purpose of this approach is to reduce the number of…
In this paper we study constrained subspace approximation problem. Given a set of $n$ points $\{a_1,\ldots,a_n\}$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$, the goal of the {\em subspace approximation} problem is to find a $k$ dimensional subspace that best…
The minimum sum-of-squares clustering (MSSC), or k-means type clustering, is traditionally considered an unsupervised learning task. In recent years, the use of background knowledge to improve the cluster quality and promote…
We study the complexity of approximate counting Constraint Satisfaction Problems (#CSPs) in a bounded degree setting. Specifically, given a Boolean constraint language $\Gamma$ and a degree bound $\Delta$, we study the complexity of…
In this survey we consider polynomial optimization problems, asking to minimize a polynomial function over a compact semialgebraic set, defined by polynomial inequalities. This models a great variety of (in general, nonlinear nonconvex)…
Given a graph and an integer $k$, Densest $k$-Subgraph is the algorithmic task of finding the subgraph on $k$ vertices with the maximum number of edges. This is a fundamental problem that has been subject to intense study for decades, with…
This paper discusses how to find the global minimum of functions that are summations of small polynomials (``small'' means involving a small number of variables). Some sparse sum of squares (SOS) techniques are proposed. We compare their…
We consider a large family of problems in which an ordering (or, more precisely, a chain of subsets) of a finite set must be chosen to minimize some weighted sum of costs. This family includes variations of Min Sum Set Cover (MSSC), several…