Abstract
We consider an inverse quadratic programming (QP) problem in which the parameters in the objective function of a given QP problem are adjusted as little as possible so that a known feasible solution becomes the optimal one. We formulate this problem as a minimization problem with a positive semidefinite cone constraint and its dual is a linearly constrained semismoothly differentiable (SC1) convex programming problem with fewer variables than the original one. We demonstrate the global convergence of the augmented Lagrangian method for the dual problem and prove that the convergence rate of primal iterates, generated by the augmented Lagrange method, is proportional to 1/r, and the rate of multiplier iterates is proportional to \(1/\sqrt{r}\) , where r is the penalty parameter in the augmented Lagrangian. As the objective function of the dual problem is a SC1 function involving the projection operator onto the cone of symmetrically semi-definite matrices, the analysis requires extensive tools such as the singular value decomposition of matrices, an implicit function theorem for semismooth functions, and properties of the projection operator in the symmetric-matrix space. Furthermore, the semismooth Newton method with Armijo line search is applied to solve the subproblems in the augmented Lagrange approach, which is proven to have global convergence and local quadratic rate. Finally numerical results, implemented by the augmented Lagrangian method, are reported.
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The research of Jianzhong Zhang is supported by University Grant Council of Hong Kong under the grant CERG CityU 9041091 and CUHK 103105. The research of Liwei Zhang is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under project No. 10771026 and by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry of China.
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Zhang, J., Zhang, L. An Augmented Lagrangian Method for a Class of Inverse Quadratic Programming Problems. Appl Math Optim 61, 57 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00245-009-9075-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00245-009-9075-z