Iterative Optimizers


Book Description

Almost every month, a new optimization algorithm is proposed, often accompanied by the claim that it is superior to all those that came before it. However, this claim is generally based on the algorithm's performance on a specific set of test cases, which are not necessarily representative of the types of problems the algorithm will face in real life. This book presents the theoretical analysis and practical methods (along with source codes) necessary to estimate the difficulty of problems in a test set, as well as to build bespoke test sets consisting of problems with varied difficulties. The book formally establishes a typology of optimization problems, from which a reliable test set can be deduced. At the same time, it highlights how classic test sets are skewed in favor of different classes of problems, and how, as a result, optimizers that have performed well on test problems may perform poorly in real life scenarios.




Iterative Methods for Optimization


Book Description

This book presents a carefully selected group of methods for unconstrained and bound constrained optimization problems and analyzes them in depth both theoretically and algorithmically. It focuses on clarity in algorithmic description and analysis rather than generality, and while it provides pointers to the literature for the most general theoretical results and robust software, the author thinks it is more important that readers have a complete understanding of special cases that convey essential ideas. A companion to Kelley's book, Iterative Methods for Linear and Nonlinear Equations (SIAM, 1995), this book contains many exercises and examples and can be used as a text, a tutorial for self-study, or a reference. Iterative Methods for Optimization does more than cover traditional gradient-based optimization: it is the first book to treat sampling methods, including the Hooke-Jeeves, implicit filtering, MDS, and Nelder-Mead schemes in a unified way, and also the first book to make connections between sampling methods and the traditional gradient-methods. Each of the main algorithms in the text is described in pseudocode, and a collection of MATLAB codes is available. Thus, readers can experiment with the algorithms in an easy way as well as implement them in other languages.




Iterative Methods in Combinatorial Optimization


Book Description

With the advent of approximation algorithms for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems, several techniques from exact optimization such as the primal-dual method have proven their staying power and versatility. This book describes a simple and powerful method that is iterative in essence and similarly useful in a variety of settings for exact and approximate optimization. The authors highlight the commonality and uses of this method to prove a variety of classical polyhedral results on matchings, trees, matroids and flows. The presentation style is elementary enough to be accessible to anyone with exposure to basic linear algebra and graph theory, making the book suitable for introductory courses in combinatorial optimization at the upper undergraduate and beginning graduate levels. Discussions of advanced applications illustrate their potential for future application in research in approximation algorithms.




Iterative Learning Control


Book Description

This book develops a coherent and quite general theoretical approach to algorithm design for iterative learning control based on the use of operator representations and quadratic optimization concepts including the related ideas of inverse model control and gradient-based design. Using detailed examples taken from linear, discrete and continuous-time systems, the author gives the reader access to theories based on either signal or parameter optimization. Although the two approaches are shown to be related in a formal mathematical sense, the text presents them separately as their relevant algorithm design issues are distinct and give rise to different performance capabilities. Together with algorithm design, the text demonstrates the underlying robustness of the paradigm and also includes new control laws that are capable of incorporating input and output constraints, enable the algorithm to reconfigure systematically in order to meet the requirements of different reference and auxiliary signals and also to support new properties such as spectral annihilation. Iterative Learning Control will interest academics and graduate students working in control who will find it a useful reference to the current status of a powerful and increasingly popular method of control. The depth of background theory and links to practical systems will be of use to engineers responsible for precision repetitive processes.




Iterative Methods for Optimization


Book Description

a carefully selected group of methods for unconstrained and bound constrained optimization problems is analyzed in depth both theoretically and algorithmically. The book focuses on clarity in algorithmic description and analysis rather than generality, and also provides pointers to the literature for the most general theoretical results and robust software,




Iterative Optimization in Inverse Problems


Book Description

Iterative Optimization in Inverse Problems brings together a number of important iterative algorithms for medical imaging, optimization, and statistical estimation. It incorporates recent work that has not appeared in other books and draws on the author’s considerable research in the field, including his recently developed class of SUMMA algorithms. Related to sequential unconstrained minimization methods, the SUMMA class includes a wide range of iterative algorithms well known to researchers in various areas, such as statistics and image processing. Organizing the topics from general to more specific, the book first gives an overview of sequential optimization, the subclasses of auxiliary-function methods, and the SUMMA algorithms. The next three chapters present particular examples in more detail, including barrier- and penalty-function methods, proximal minimization, and forward-backward splitting. The author also focuses on fixed-point algorithms for operators on Euclidean space and then extends the discussion to include distance measures other than the usual Euclidean distance. In the final chapters, specific problems illustrate the use of iterative methods previously discussed. Most chapters contain exercises that introduce new ideas and make the book suitable for self-study. Unifying a variety of seemingly disparate algorithms, the book shows how to derive new properties of algorithms by comparing known properties of other algorithms. This unifying approach also helps researchers—from statisticians working on parameter estimation to image scientists processing scanning data to mathematicians involved in theoretical and applied optimization—discover useful related algorithms in areas outside of their expertise.







Intellectual Property Protection in VLSI Designs


Book Description

This overview of the security problems in modern VLSI design provides a detailed treatment of a newly developed constraint-based protection paradigm for the protection of VLSI design IPs – from FPGA design to standard-cell placement, and from advanced CAD tools to physical design algorithms.




Numerical Optimization


Book Description

Optimization is an important tool used in decision science and for the analysis of physical systems used in engineering. One can trace its roots to the Calculus of Variations and the work of Euler and Lagrange. This natural and reasonable approach to mathematical programming covers numerical methods for finite-dimensional optimization problems. It begins with very simple ideas progressing through more complicated concepts, concentrating on methods for both unconstrained and constrained optimization.




Multidisciplinary Design Optimization


Book Description

Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) has recently emerged as a field of research and practice that brings together many previously disjointed disciplines and tools of engineering and mathematics. MDO can be described as a technology, environment, or methodology for the design of complex, coupled engineering systems, such as aircraft, automobiles, and other mechanisms, the behavior of which is determined by interacting subsystems.