Articulated-pose estimation using brightness- and depth-constancy constraints

For a class of nonsmooth composite optimization problems with linear equality constraints, we utilize a Lyapunov-based approach to establish the global exponential stability of the primal-dual gradient flow dynamics based on the proximal augmented Lagrangian. The result holds when the differentiable part of the objective function is strongly convex with a Lipschitz continuous gradient; the non-differentiable part is proper, lower semi-continuous, and convex; and the matrix in the linear constraint is full row rank. Our quadratic Lyapunov function generalizes recent result from strongly convex problems with either affine equality or inequality constraints to a broader class of composite optimization problems with nonsmooth regularizers and it provides a worst-case lower bound of the exponential decay rate. Finally, we use computational experiments to demonstrate that our convergence rate estimate is less conservative than the existing alternatives.

Linear constraint equations for continuous support conditions in finite element analysis

Currently used methods for the analysis of contingency tables with log-linear models and their extensions are essentially a way to subject the parameters of the saturated model to a set of linear constraints. However, in many contexts, expecially when a subset of the variables are ordinal, it would be very useful to be able to consider also linear inequality constraints. In this paper we show how to extend previous models for contingency tables by considering simultaneously both equality constraints. We also give a self contained discussion of the problem of testing equality and inequality constraints in the context of contingency tables analysis.

Systems of linear fuzzy constraints

We derive the asymptotic approximation for the posterior distribution when the data are multinomial and the prior is Dirichlet conditioned on satisfying a finite set of linear equality and inequality constraints so the posterior is also Dirichlet conditioned on satisfying these same constraints. When only equality constraints are imposed, the asymptotic approximation is normal. Otherwise it is normal conditioned on satisfying the inequality constraints. In both cases the posterior is a root-n-consistent estimator of the parameter vector of the multinomial distribution. As an application we consider the constrained Polya posterior which is a non-informative stepwise Bayes posterior for finite population sampling which incorporates prior information involving auxiliary variables. The constrained Polya posterior is a root-n-consistent estimator of the population distribution, hence yields a root-n-consistent estimator of the population mean or any other differentiable function of the vector of population probabilities.

Fully constrained linear spectral mixture analysis (FCLSMA) has been used for material quantification in remotely sensed imagery. In order to implement FCLSMA, two constraints are imposed on abundance fractions, referred to as Abundance Sum-to-one Constraint (ASC) and Abundance Nonnegativity Constraint (ANC). While the ASC is linear equality constraint, the ANC is a linear inequality constraint. A direct approach to imposing the ASC and ANC has been recently investigated and is called fully constrained least-squares (FCLS) method. Since there is no analytical solution resulting from the ANC, a modified fully constrained least-squares method (MFCLS) which replaces the ANC with an Absolute Abundance Sum-to-one Constraint (AASC) was proposed to convert a set of inequality constraints to a quality constraint. The results produced by these two approaches have been shown to be very close. In this paper, we take an oopposite approach to the MFCLS method, called least-squares with linear inequality constraints (LSLIC) method which also solves FCLSMA, but replaces the ASC with two linear inequalities. The proposed LSLIC transforms the FCLSMA to a linear distance programming problem which can be solved easily by a numerical algorithm. In order to demonstrate its utility in solving FCLSMA, the LSLIC method is compared to the FCLS and MFCLS methods. The experimental results show that these three methods perform very similarly with only subtle differences resulting from their problem formations.

An optimal force distribution scheme of multiple cooperating robots is proposed. General formulations of the optimal force distribution problem are built into quadratic programming with linear equality and quadratic inequality constraints. The quadratic constraints are due to the norm constraints of grasping forces and the approximation of maximum joint torque constraints which is used for simplification of the problem. This paper presents a technique for solving these general optimal force distribution problems. The original problem is transformed into a compact problem by eliminating the linear equality constraints. Then, the compact problem is transformed into a dual problem to be solved by using Lagrange multipliers and nonlinear programming dual method. This technique reduces the problem size considerably and makes the problem almost unconstrained so that no initial feasible points are needed. These features exhibit the efficiency of this technique. Simulation results for two cooperating PUMA robots indicating the ability of real time applications of the proposed technique are presented.

We propose two limited-memory BFGS (L-BFGS) trust-region methods for large-scale optimization with linear equality constraints. The methods are intended for problems where the number of equality constraints is small. By exploiting the structure of the quasi-Newton compact representation, both proposed methods solve the trust-region subproblems nearly exactly, even for large problems. We derive theoretical global convergence results of the proposed algorithms, and compare their numerical effectiveness and performance on a variety of large-scale problems.

This paper develops a novel algorithm that tackles a general distributed convex optimization problem with a nonsmooth objective function and a series of coupling nonlinear inequality and linear equality constraints. To address such a problem, we first design a distributed proximal algorithm for problems with coupling equality constraints only, and then extend this algorithm to problems with both inequality and equality constraints by incorporating a virtual-queue-based method. The resulting algorithm, referred to as Proximal Primal-Dual Algorithm (PPDA), is shown to achieve O(1/k) rates of convergence with respect to both optimality and feasibility. Compared to the alternative methods in the literature, PPDA eliminates their assumptions on the smoothness of the objective function and achieves a stronger convergence rate result. In addition, PPDA exhibits faster convergence in a couple of numerical examples.

On a basic multivariate EIV model with linear equality constraints

We propose an interior point method for finding a stationary point of a nonlinear program with linear equality and nonnegativity constraints. This method maintains a basis at each iteration and upd...

Numerical analysis of a class of nonlinear duality problems is presented. One side of the duality is to minimize a sum of Euclidean norms subject to linear equality constraints (the constrained MSN problem). The other side is to maximize a linear objective function subject to homogeneous linear equality constraints and quadratic inequalities. Large sparse problems of this form result from the discretization of infinite dimensional duality problems in plastic collapse analysis. The solution method is based on the l_1 penalty function approach to the constrained MSN problem. This can be formulated as an unconstrained MSN problem for which the first author has recently published an efficient Newton barrier method, and for which new methods are still being developed. Numerical results are presented for plastic collapse problems with up to 180000 variables, 90000 terms in the sum of norms and 90000 linear constraints. The obtained accuracy is of order 10^{-8} measured in feasibility and duality gap.

This paper considers a general nonlinear econometric model framework that contains a large class of estimators defined as solutions to optimization problems. For this framework we derive several asymptotically equivalent forms of a test statistic for the local (in a way made precise in the paper) multivariate nonlinear inequality constraints testH:h(β) ≥ 0 versusK: β ∈RK. We extend these results to consider local hypotheses tests of the formH:h1(β) ≥ 0 andh2(β) = 0 versusK: β ∈RK. For each test we derive the asymptotic distribution for any size test as a weighted sum of χ2-distributions. We contrast local as opposed to global inequality constraints testing and give conditions on the model and constraints when each is possible. This paper also extends the well-known duality results in testing multivariate equality constraints to the case of nonlinear multivariate inequality constraints and combinations of nonlinear inequality and equality constraints.

This paper studies the indefinite stochastic LQ control problem with quadratic and mixed terminal state equality constraints, which can be transformed into a mathematical programming problem. By means of the Lagrangian multiplier theorem and Riesz representation theorem, the main result given in this paper is the necessary condition for indefinite stochastic LQ control with quadratic and mixed terminal equality constraints. The result shows that the different terminal state constraints will cause the endpoint condition of the differential Riccati equation to be changed. It coincides with the indefinite stochastic LQ problem with linear terminal state constraint, so the result given in this paper can be viewed as the extension of the indefinite stochastic LQ problem with the linear terminal state equality constraint. In order to guarantee the existence and the uniqueness of the linear feedback control, a sufficient condition is also presented in the paper. A numerical example is presented at the end of the paper.

We consider the problem of minimizing a convex quadratic function over a region defined by a linear equality or inequality constraint and two-sided bounds on the variables (box constraints) in R n . Such problems are interesting from both theoretical and practical points of view because they arise as subproblems of some mathematical programming problems as well as in various practical problems. Polynomial algorithms are proposed for solving problems of this form and their convergence is proved. Some examples and results of numerical experiments are also presented.