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Conventional design and optimization of passive compensation network (PCN) for inductive power transfer (IPT) system are based on specific topologies. The demerits of this design method are: i) The topology is mostly chosen by experience; ii) The design parameters are not multi-objective optimal. Aiming at these issues, this paper proposes an optimal PCN design scheme based on evolutionary algorithm (EA) to synchronously optimize the topology and parameters of PCN for IPT system. Firstly, a unified mathematical model of the PCN is presented and derived by transmission matrix. Then, according to the mathematical model, the multi-objective functions (such as output fluctuation and efficiency) as well as the constraints (such as load and coupling coefficient) for the optimal PCN design are established. The EA based multi-objective optimal PCN design algorithm is further constructed. Six optimal results are obtained using the algorithm, and one optimized PCN having minimum output current fluctuation and high-efficiency is chosen to validate the effectiveness of the proposed design scheme in experiment. For the given IPT system with the optimized PCN, the maximum fluctuation of output current is no more than 11%, within 200% of load variation and about 77% of coupling variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural network (DNN) has been widely studied due to its high performance and usability for various applications such as image classification, detection, segmentation, translation, and action recognition. Thanks to the universal applications and high performance of DNN algorithm, DNN is adopted for various AI platforms, including edge/mobile devices as well as cloud servers. However, high-performance DNN requires a large amount of computation and memory access, making it challenging to implement DNN operation on edge/mobile. There have been several ways to solve these problems, including algorithms as well as hardware for DNN. Algorithms that help accelerate DNN in hardware enable much more efficient operation of high-performance AI. This article aims to provide an overview of the recent hardware and algorithm co-design schemes enabling efficient processing of DNNs. Specifically, it will provide algorithm optimization methods for DNN structure, neurons, synapses, and data types. This paper also introduces optimization methods for hardware architectures, PE array, data-path control, and microarchitecture of PE. And we will also show examples of DNN algorithm and hardware co-designed ASICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a general method for parameter identification in distributed parameter systems (DPSs) based on a reference model and measurement information. Moreover, the developed identification method is used to deal with secure communication problems. Firstly, in combination with the historical information measured by sensors, an iterative approach based on an approximator is put forward. Meanwhile, an execution scheme for the iterative approach is provided by an optimization policy. Subsequently, by bringing new mechanisms into quantum particle swarm optimization (QPSO) algorithm to enhance its search capability, we propose quantum-leading-following-based optimization (QLFBO) algorithm, which serves the optimization policy. Further, the global convergence for QLFBO algorithm is proved combined with the parameter identification problem of DPSs, and the computational complexity on this algorithm is discussed in detail. Finally, simulation experiments on the diffusion-reaction model are carried out by the iterative approach based on QLFBO algorithm under different measurement ways. Simultaneously, secure communication depending on this model is performed in the double-scroll Chua’s circuit and a lotus image via the investigated iterative strategy and encryption-decryption scheme. Simulation results verify the validity and practicability of the developed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes scalable, distributed algorithms for solving linear equations by integrating two mechanisms, termed consensus and conservation, in double-layered multiagent networks. The multiagent network considered in this paper is composed of clusters and each cluster consists of an aggregator and a subnetwork of agents. By achieving consensus and conservation through agent–agent communications in the same cluster and aggregator–aggregator communications among different clusters, respectively, distributed algorithms are devised for agents to cooperatively achieve a solution to the overall linear equation. These algorithms outperform existing algorithms, including but not limited to the following aspects—first, each agent does not have to know as much as a complete row or column of the overall equation; second, each agent only needs to control as few as two scalar states when the number of clusters and the number of agents are sufficiently large; third, the dimensions of agents’ states in the proposed algorithms do not have to be the same (while in contrast, algorithms based on the idea of standard consensus inherently require all agents’ states to be of the same dimension). Both analytical proof and simulation results are provided to validate exponential convergence of the proposed distributed algorithms in solving linear equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In model predictive control (MPC), the control input is computed by solving a constrained finite-time optimal control (CFTOC) problem at each sample in the control loop. The main computational effort when solving the CFTOC problem using an active-set (AS) method is often spent on computing the search directions, which in MPC corresponds to solving unconstrained finite-time optimal control (UFTOC) problems. This is commonly performed using Riccati recursions or generic sparsity exploiting algorithms. In this paper, the focus is efficient search direction computations for AS type methods. The system of equations to be solved at each AS iteration is changed only by a low-rank modification of the previous one, and exploiting this structured change is important for the performance of AS-type solvers. In this paper, theory for how to exploit these low-rank changes by modifying the Riccati factorization between AS iterations in a structured way is presented. A numerical evaluation of the proposed algorithm shows that the computation time can be significantly reduced by modifying, instead of re-computing, the Riccati factorization. This speedup can be important for AS-type solvers used for linear, nonlinear, and hybrid MPC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a family of robust set-membership normalized subband adaptive filtering (RSM-NSAF) algorithms for acoustic echo cancellation (AEC). By using a new robust set-membership error bound, the RSM-NSAF algorithm obtains improved robustness against impulsive noises and decreased steady-state misalignment relative to the conventional set-membership NSAF (SM-NSAF) algorithm. To exploit the sparsity of the impulse response, the L0 norm constraint robust set-membership NSAF ( L0 -RSM-NSAF), robust set-membership improved proportionate NSAF (RSM-IPNSAF), and L0 norm constraint robust set-membership improved proportionate NSAF ( L0 -RSM-IPNSAF) algorithms are derived by minimizing a differentiable cost function that utilizes the Riemannian distance between the updated and previous weight vectors as well as the L0 norm of the weighted updated weight vector. Simulations in AEC application confirm the improvements of the proposed algorithms in performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel method to compute the distance to instability for linear time-invariant delay systems with multiple delays, subjected to combined uncertainties on the system matrices and the delay parameters. The method is able to fully exploit structure and possible interdependencies between the uncertainties affecting the coefficient matrices, the property that realistic perturbations are real valued, and the structure of the delay equation. The resulting algorithm relies on a characterization in terms of the pseudospectral abscissa and on techniques from optimization over manifolds of matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many problems of interest for cyber-physical network systems can be formulated as mixed-integer linear programs in which the constraints are distributed among the agents. In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithmic framework to solve this class of optimization problems in a peer-to-peer network with no coordinator and with limited computation and communication capabilities. At each communication round, agents locally solve a small linear program, generate suitable cutting planes, and communicate a fixed number of active constraints. Within the distributed framework, we first propose an algorithm that, under the assumption of integer-valued optimal cost, guarantees finite-time convergence to an optimal solution. Second, we propose an algorithm for general problems that provides a suboptimal solution up to a given tolerance in a finite number of communication rounds. Both algorithms work under asynchronous, directed, unreliable networks. Finally, through numerical computations, we analyze the algorithm scalability in terms of the network size. Moreover, for a multi-agent multi-task assignment problem, we show, consistently with the theory, its robustness to packet loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers an unconstrained collaborative optimization of a sum of convex functions, where agents make decisions using local information in the presence of random interconnection topologies. We recast the problem as minimization of the sum of convex functions over a constraint set defined as the set of fixed-value points of a random operator derived from weighted matrices of random graphs. We show that the derived random operator has nonexpansivity property; therefore, this formulation does not need the distribution of random communication topologies. Hence, it includes random networks with/without asynchronous protocols. As an extension of the problem, we define a novel optimization problem, namely minimization of a convex function over the fixed-value point set of a nonexpansive random operator. We propose a discrete-time algorithm using diminishing step size for converging almost surely and in mean square to the global solution of the optimization problem under suitable assumptions. Consequently, as a special case, it reduces to a totally asynchronous algorithm for the distributed optimization problem. We show that fixed-value point is a bridge from deterministic analysis to random analysis of the algorithm. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the convergence of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the problem of achieving average consensus over a random time-varying sequence of directed graphs by extending the class of so-called push-sum algorithms to such random scenarios. Provided that an ergodicity notion, which we term the directed infinite flow property, holds and the auxiliary states of agents are uniformly bounded away from zero infinitely often, we prove the almost sure convergence of the evolutions of this class of algorithms to the average of initial states. Moreover, for a random sequence of graphs generated using a so-called time-varying $B$ -irreducible probability matrix, we establish convergence rates for the proposed push-sum algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the problem of minimizing the global energy cost for multiagent systems to achieve consensus over undirected network topologies. Conventional optimization problems so defined require all-to-all network topologies for interagent communications, which precludes the use of distributed control or otherwise demands that the network be complete. To circumvent this difficulty, we introduce a network approximation (NA) scheme in the optimization criterion, which tends to render the optimization problem to one seemingly over a complete graph network, thus removing the all-to-all communication requirement. With the NA cost, we show that a distributed optimal consensus algorithm always exists for any given connected network topology, which can be determined by solving a single-agent-level parametric algebraic Ricatti equation (PARE). We also investigate the performance of the optimal consensus algorithm, focusing on the minimal energy cost required to achieve consensus optimally, and the speed at which consensus is achieved. Furthermore, for certain more special yet worthy cases, such as single-integrator, double-integrator, and first-order unstable agents, we derive explicit expressions for the energy cost and the consensus speed. It can be seen from these results that the energy cost can be made arbitrarily small for single-integrator and double-integrator systems under the optimal distributed control. On the other hand, for the first-order unstable agents, the energy cost increases and consensus speed decreases monotonically with the value of the agent's real unstable pole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns a spectral estimation problem in which we want to find a spectral density function that is consistent with estimated second-order statistics. It is an inverse problem admitting multiple solutions, and selection of a solution can be based on prior functions. We show that the problem is well-posed when formulated in a parametric fashion, and that the solution parameter depends continuously on the prior function. In this way, we are able to obtain a smooth parametrization of admissible spectral densities. Based on this result, the problem is reparametrized via a bijective change of variables out of a numerical consideration, and then a continuation method is used to compute the unique solution parameter. Numerical aspects, such as convergence of the proposed algorithm and certain computational procedures are addressed. A simple example is provided to show the effectiveness of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The limited memory version of the Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (L-BFGS) algorithm is the most popular quasi-Newton algorithm in machine learning and optimization. Recently, it was shown that the stochastic L-BFGS (sL-BFGS) algorithm with the variance-reduced stochastic gradient converges linearly. In this paper, we propose a new sL-BFGS algorithm by importing a proper momentum. We prove an accelerated linear convergence rate under mild conditions. The experimental results on different data sets also verify this acceleration advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a distributed Newton method for decenteralized optimization of large sums of convex functions. Our proposed method is based on creating a set of separable finite sum minimization problems by utilizing a decomposition technique known as Global Consensus that distributes the computation across nodes of a graph and enforces a consensus constraint among the separated variables. The key idea is to exploit the sparsity of the dual Hessian and recast the computation of the Newton step as one of the efficiently solving symmetric diagonally dominant linear equations. We show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms, including ADMM. We validate our algorithm both theoretically and empirically. On the theory side, we demonstrate that our algorithm exhibits superlinear convergence within a neighborhood of optimality. Empirically, we show the superiority of this new method on a variety of large-scale optimization problems. The proposed approach is scalable to large problems and has a low communication overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When sum-of-squares (SOS) programs are recast as semidefinite programs (SDPs) using the standard monomial basis, the constraint matrices in the SDP possess a structural property that we call partial orthogonality. In this paper, we leverage partial orthogonality to develop a fast first-order method, based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), for the solution of the homogeneous self-dual embedding of SDPs describing SOS programs. Precisely, we show how a “diagonal plus low rank” structure implied by partial orthogonality can be exploited to project efficiently the iterates of a recent ADMM algorithm for generic conic programs onto the set defined by the affine constraints of the SDP. The resulting algorithm, implemented as a new package in the solver CDCS, is tested on a range of large-scale SOS programs arising from constrained polynomial optimization problems and from Lyapunov stability analysis of polynomial dynamical systems. These numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach compared to common state-of-the-art solvers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a robust method for the synthesis and design of optimal linear group delay filters with prescribed bandwidth and dispersion properties. The proposed filters are based on a cascade of second-order all-pass filter cells, for which all the parameters are optimized in order to reach the desired wideband linear group delay characteristic with positive slope. Compared to the previously published synthesis method, the proposed approach offers appropriate initialization enabling convergence and aiming for the optimal solution. The method’s convergence and robustness are proved through a 21-cells synthesis, which is the highest number of cascaded cells reported to date, due to the usual convergence problem. Then the electronic feasibility is illustrated through the measurement results of a lumped-elements linear group-delay filter prototype dimensioned with this method. The measured group delay presents a positive slope of 8 ns GHz−1 in the frequency range [100–725] MHz. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest positive slope reported to date with an electronic implementation (i.e except SAW and waveguide devices). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note presents further results based on the recent paper [J. Liang, H. Chen, and J. Lam, “An improved criterion for controllability of Boolean control networks,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, vol. 62, no. 11, pp. 6012–6018, Nov. 2017]. After some optimizations, the conventional method can be more efficient than the method used in the above paper. We also propose an improved method via combining the well known Tarjan's algorithm and depth-first search technique for the controllability analysis of Boolean control networks (BCNs). As a result, the computational complexity will not exceed $O(N^2)$ with $N=2^n$ , where $n$ is the number of state-variables in a BCN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models of bipedal walking are hybrid, with continuous-time dynamics representing the swing phases and discrete-time dynamics representing the impact events. The feedback controllers for these systems can be two-level, including both continuous- and discrete-time (event-based) actions. This paper presents a systematic framework to design decentralized event-based controllers for robust stabilization of hybrid periodic orbits against possible disturbances in discrete-time phases. The properties of the Poincaré return map are investigated to study the orbital input-to-state stability for the closed-loop system with respect to disturbance inputs. An optimization problem involving bilinear matrix inequalities is then presented to design $\mathcal {H}_{2}$ - and $\mathcal {H}_{\infty }$ -optimal decentralized event-based controllers. The power of the proposed framework is finally demonstrated through designing a set of decentralized two-level controllers for underactuated walking of a three-dimensional autonomous bipedal robot with nine degrees of freedom and a decentralization scheme motivated by amputee locomotion with a transpelvic prosthetic leg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conjugate gradient (CG) methods are a class of important methods for solving linear equations and nonlinear optimization problems. In this paper, we propose a new stochastic CG algorithm with variance reduction and we prove its linear convergence with the Fletcher and Reeves method for strongly convex and smooth functions. We experimentally demonstrate that the CG with variance reduction algorithm converges faster than its counterparts for four learning models, which may be convex, nonconvex or nonsmooth. In addition, its area under the curve performance on six large-scale data sets is comparable to that of the LIBLINEAR solver for the $L2$ -regularized $L2$ -loss but with a significant improvement in computational efficiency. 1 CGVR algorithm is available on github: https://github.com/xbjin/cgvr [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distributed convex optimization problem is studied in this paper for any fixed and connected network with general constraints. To solve such an optimization problem, a new type of continuous-time distributed subgradient optimization algorithm is proposed based on the Karuch–Kuhn–Tucker condition. By using tools from nonsmooth analysis and set-valued function theory, it is proved that the distributed convex optimization problem is solved on a network of agents equipped with the designed algorithm. For the case that the objective function is convex but not strictly convex, it is proved that the states of the agents associated with optimal variables could converge to an optimal solution of the optimization problem. For the case that the objective function is strictly convex, it is further shown that the states of agents associated with optimal variables could converge to the unique optimal solution. Finally, some simulations are performed to illustrate the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a class of stochastic source-seeking problems to drive a mobile robot to the minimizer of a source signal. Our approach is first analyzed in an obstacle-free scenario, where measurements of the signal at the robot location and information of a contact sensor are required. We extend our results to environments with obstacles under mild assumptions on the step size. Our approach builds on the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation idea to obtain information of the signal field. We prove the practical convergence of the algorithms to a ball whose size depends on the step size that contains the location of the source. The novelty relies in that we consider nondifferentiable convex functions, a fixed step size, and the environment may contain obstacles. Our proof methods employ nonsmooth Lyapunov function theory, tools from convex analysis, and stochastic difference inclusions. Finally, we illustrate the applicability of the proposed algorithms in a two-dimensional scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of a leader that seeks to optimally influence the opinions of agents in a directed network through connecting with a limited number of the agents (“direct followers”), possibly in the presence of a fixed competing leader. The settings involving a single leader and two competing leaders are unified into a general combinatoric optimization problem, for which two heuristic approaches are developed. The first approach is based on a convex relaxation scheme, possibly in combination with the $\ell _1$ -norm regularization technique, and the second is based on a greedy selection strategy. The main technical novelties of this work are in the establishment of supermodularity of the objective function and convexity of its continuous relaxation. The greedy approach is guaranteed to have a lower bound on the approximation ratio sharper than $(1-1/e)$ , while the convex approach can benefit from efficient (customized) numerical solvers to have practically comparable solutions possibly with faster computation times. The two approaches can be combined to provide improved results. In numerical examples, the approximation ratio can be made to reach ${\text{90}\%}$ or higher depending on the number of direct followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a general class of distributed constrained optimization problems over a multiagent network, where the global objective function is represented by the sum of all local objective functions. Each agent in the network only knows its own local objective function, and is restricted to a global nonempty closed convex set. We discuss the scenario where the communication of the whole multiagent network is expressed as a sequence of time-varying general unbalanced directed graphs. The directed graphs are required to be uniformly jointly strongly connected and the weight matrices are only row-stochastic. To collaboratively deal with the optimization problems, existing distributed methods mostly require the communication graph to be fixed or balanced, which is impractical and hardly inevitable. In contrast, we propose a new distributed projection subgradient algorithm which is applicable to the time-varying general unbalanced directed graphs and does not need each agent to know its in-neighbors’ out-degree. When the objective functions are convex and Lipschitz continuous, it is proved that the proposed algorithm exactly converges to the optimal solution. Simulation results on a numerical experiment are shown to substantiate feasibility of the proposed algorithm and correctness of the theoretical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes distributed algorithms to solve robust convex optimization (RCO) when the constraints are affected by nonlinear uncertainty. We adopt a scenario approach by randomly sampling the uncertainty set. To facilitate the computational task, instead of using a single centralized processor to obtain a “global solution” of the scenario problem (SP), we resort to multiple interconnected processors that are distributed among different nodes of a network to simultaneously solve the SP. Then, we propose a primal-dual subgradient algorithm and a random projection algorithm to distributedly solve the SP over undirected and directed graphs, respectively. Both algorithms are given in an explicit recursive form with simple iterations, which are especially suited for processors with limited computational capability. We show that, if the underlying graph is strongly connected, each node asymptotically computes a common optimal solution to the SP with a convergence rate $O(1/(\sum _{t=1}^k\zeta ^t))$ , where $\lbrace \zeta ^t\rbrace$ is a sequence of appropriately decreasing stepsizes. That is, the RCO is effectively solved in a distributed way. The relations with the existing literature on robust convex programs are thoroughly discussed and an example of robust system identification is included to validate the effectiveness of our distributed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensors are activated/deactivated according to a sensor activation policy (SAP), which is a decision function whose domain is the language of the system. An SAP is minimal for diagnosability if it is at the point where the system is diagnosable, but any additional deactivation prevents correct system diagnosis. Given that the system is diagnosable when all sensors are always activated, we find in this paper that minimal SAP for diagnosability does not always exist. We therefore develop algorithms to compute a minimal SAP under which the system is pseudodiagnosable. Adhering to such a policy extends the window of opportunity for proper system diagnosis indefinitely, but with the compromise that later policy amendments are allowed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a distributed model predictive control (MPC) approach for a family of discrete-time linear systems with local (uncoupled) and global (coupled) constraints. The proposed approach is based on the dual problem of an overall MPC optimization problem involving all systems, which is then solved distributively using a modified distributed Nesterov-accelerated-gradient algorithm. To further reduce the computational requirement, this approach allows for early termination of the distributed gradient algorithm. This is made possible via a consensus algorithm that determines the satisfaction of the termination condition and by appropriate tightening of the coupled constraints. Under reasonable assumptions, the approach is able to produce a suboptimal solution as long as the network of the systems is connected while ensuring recursive feasibility and exponential stability of the closed-loop system. The performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated by a numerical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider a connected network of agents endowed with local cost functions representing private objectives. Agents seek to find an agreement on some minimizer of the aggregate cost, by means of repeated communications between neighbors. Consensus on the average over the network, usually addressed by gossip algorithms, is a special instance of this problem, corresponding to quadratic private objectives. Consensus on the median, or more generally, consensus on a given quantile, is also a special instance of this problem. In this paper we show that optimizing the aggregate cost function regularized by a total variation (TV) term has appealing properties. First, it can be done very naturally in a distributed way, yielding algorithms that are efficient on numerical simulations. Secondly, the optimum for the regularized cost is shown to be also the optimum for the initial aggregate cost function under assumptions that are simple to state. Finally, these algorithms are robust to unreliable agents that keep injecting some false value in the network. This is remarkable enough, and is not the case, for instance, of gossip algorithms that are entirely ruled by unreliable agents as detailed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is an emerging learning algorithm for the generalized single hidden layer feedforward neural networks, of which the hidden node parameters are randomly generated and the output weights are analytically computed. However, due to its shallow architecture, feature learning using ELM may not be effective for natural signals (e.g., images/videos), even with a large number of hidden nodes. To address this issue, in this paper, a new ELM-based hierarchical learning framework is proposed for multilayer perceptron. The proposed architecture is divided into two main components: 1) self-taught feature extraction followed by supervised feature classification and 2) they are bridged by random initialized hidden weights. The novelties of this paper are as follows: 1) unsupervised multilayer encoding is conducted for feature extraction, and an ELM-based sparse autoencoder is developed via \ell 1 constraint. By doing so, it achieves more compact and meaningful feature representations than the original ELM; 2) by exploiting the advantages of ELM random feature mapping, the hierarchically encoded outputs are randomly projected before final decision making, which leads to a better generalization with faster learning speed; and 3) unlike the greedy layerwise training of deep learning (DL), the hidden layers of the proposed framework are trained in a forward manner. Once the previous layer is established, the weights of the current layer are fixed without fine-tuning. Therefore, it has much better learning efficiency than the DL. Extensive experiments on various widely used classification data sets show that the proposed algorithm achieves better and faster convergence than the existing state-of-the-art hierarchical learning methods. Furthermore, multiple applications in computer vision further confirm the generality and capability of the proposed learning scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding the optimal solution to the constrained l0 -norm minimization problems in the recovery of compressive sensed signals is an NP-hard problem and it usually requires intractable combinatorial searching operations for getting the global optimal solution, unless using other objective functions (e.g., the l1 norm or lp norm) for approximate solutions or using greedy search methods for locally optimal solutions (e.g., the orthogonal matching pursuit type algorithms). In this paper, a neurodynamic optimization method is proposed to solve the l0 -norm minimization problems for obtaining the global optimum using a recurrent neural network (RNN) model. For the RNN model, a group of modified Gaussian functions are constructed and their sum is taken as the objective function for approximating the l0 norm and for optimization. The constructed objective function sets up a convexity condition under which the neurodynamic system is guaranteed to obtain the globally convergent optimal solution. An adaptive adjustment scheme is developed for improving the performance of the optimization algorithm further. Extensive experiments are conducted to test the proposed approach in this paper and the output results validate the effectiveness of the new method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

GoDec is an efficient low-rank matrix decomposition algorithm. However, optimal performance depends on sparse errors and Gaussian noise. This paper aims to address the problem that a matrix is composed of a low-rank component and unknown corruptions. We introduce a robust local similarity measure called correntropy to describe the corruptions and, in doing so, obtain a more robust and faster low-rank decomposition algorithm: GoDec+. Based on half-quadratic optimization and greedy bilateral paradigm, we deliver a solution to the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC)-based low-rank decomposition problem. Experimental results show that GoDec+ is efficient and robust to different corruptions including Gaussian noise, Laplacian noise, salt & pepper noise, and occlusion on both synthetic and real vision data. We further apply GoDec+ to more general applications including classification and subspace clustering. For classification, we construct an ensemble subspace from the low-rank GoDec+ matrix and introduce an MCC-based classifier. For subspace clustering, we utilize GoDec+ values low-rank matrix for MCC-based self-expression and combine it with spectral clustering. Face recognition, motion segmentation, and face clustering experiments show that the proposed methods are effective and robust. In particular, we achieve the state-of-the-art performance on the Hopkins 155 data set and the first 10 subjects of extended Yale B for subspace clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The semisupervised least squares support vector machine (LS-S3VM) is an important enhancement of least squares support vector machines in semisupervised learning. Given that most data collected from the real world are without labels, semisupervised approaches are more applicable than standard supervised approaches. Although a few training methods for LS-S3VM exist, the problem of deriving the optimal decision hyperplane efficiently and effectually has not been solved. In this paper, a fully weighted model of LS-S3VM is proposed, and a simple integer programming (IP) model is introduced through an equivalent transformation to solve the model. Based on the distances between the unlabeled data and the decision hyperplane, a new indicator is designed to represent the possibility that the label of an unlabeled datum should be reversed in each iteration during training. Using the indicator, we construct an extended candidate set consisting of the indices of unlabeled data with high possibilities, which integrates more information from unlabeled data. Our algorithm is degenerated into a special scenario of the previous algorithm when the extended candidate set is reduced into a set with only one element. Two strategies are utilized to determine the descent directions based on the extended candidate set. Furthermore, we developed a novel method for locating a good starting point based on the properties of the equivalent IP model. Combined with the extended candidate set and the carefully computed starting point, a fast algorithm to solve LS-S3VM quasi-optimally is proposed. The choice of quasi-optimal solutions results in low computational cost and avoidance of overfitting. Experiments show that our algorithm equipped with the two designed strategies is more effective than other algorithms in at least one of the following three aspects: 1) computational complexity; 2) generalization ability; and 3) flexibility. However, our algorithm and other algorithms have similar levels of performance in the remaining aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the problem of distributed control for network systems aiming to achieve optimal steady-state performance. Motivated by recent research on reengineering cyber-physical systems, such as power systems and the Internet, we propose a two-step control retrofit procedure. First, we reformulate the dynamical system as an optimization algorithm to solve a certain optimization problem. Second, we combine a predefined steady-state optimization problem and the reformulated problem to systematically (re)design the control. As a result, the system automatically tracks the optimal solution of the predefined steady-state optimization problem and the control scheme can be implemented in a distributed and closed-loop manner. In order to investigate how general this framework is, we establish necessary and sufficient conditions under which a linear dynamical system can be viewed as an optimization algorithm. These conditions are characterized using properties of system matrices and related linear matrix inequalities. A practical example of frequency control in power systems shows the effectiveness of the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose a novel graph-based semisupervised learning framework, called joint sparse representation and embedding propagation learning (JSREPL). The idea of JSREPL is to join EPL with sparse representation to perform label propagation. Like most of graph-based semisupervised propagation learning algorithms, JSREPL also constructs weights graph matrix from given data. Different from classical approaches which build weights graph matrix and estimate the labels of unlabeled data in sequence, JSREPL simultaneously builds weights graph matrix and estimates the labels of unlabeled data. We also propose an efficient algorithm to solve the proposed problem. The proposed method is applied to the problem of semisupervised image clustering using the ORL, Yale, PIE, and YaleB data sets. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several sparsity-constrained algorithms, such as orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) or the Frank–Wolfe (FW) algorithm, with sparsity constraints work by iteratively selecting a novel atom to add to the current nonzero set of variables. This selection step is usually performed by computing the gradient and then by looking for the gradient component with maximal absolute entry. This step can be computationally expensive especially for large-scale and high-dimensional data. In this paper, we aim at accelerating these sparsity-constrained optimization algorithms by exploiting the key observation that, for these algorithms to work, one only needs the coordinate of the gradient’s top entry. Hence, we introduce algorithms based on greedy methods and randomization approaches that aim at cheaply estimating the gradient and its top entry. Another of our contribution is to cast the problem of finding the best gradient entry as a best-arm identification in a multiarmed bandit problem. Owing to this novel insight, we are able to provide a bandit-based algorithm that directly estimates the top entry in a very efficient way. Theoretical observations stating that the resulting inexact FW or OMP algorithms act, with high probability, similar to their exact versions are also given. We have carried out several experiments showing that the greedy deterministic and the bandit approaches we propose can achieve an acceleration of an order of magnitude while being as efficient as the exact gradient when used in algorithms, such as OMP, FW, or CoSaMP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Distributed learning refers to the problem of inferring a function when the training data are distributed among different nodes. While significant work has been done in the contexts of supervised and unsupervised learning, the intermediate case of Semi-supervised learning in the distributed setting has received less attention. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for this class of problems, by extending the framework of manifold regularization. The main component of the proposed algorithm consists of a fully distributed computation of the adjacency matrix of the training patterns. To this end, we propose a novel algorithm for low-rank distributed matrix completion, based on the framework of diffusion adaptation. Overall, the distributed Semi-supervised algorithm is efficient and scalable, and it can preserve privacy by the inclusion of flexible privacy-preserving mechanisms for similarity computation. The experimental results and comparison on a wide range of standard Semi-supervised benchmarks validate our proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we address robust static anti-windup compensator design and performance analysis for saturated linear closed loops in the presence of nonlinear probabilistic parameter uncertainties via randomized techniques. The proposed static anti-windup analysis and robust performance synthesis correspond to several optimization goals, ranging from minimization of the nonlinear input/output gain to maximization of the stability region or maximization of the domain of attraction. We also introduce a novel paradigm accounting for uncertainties in the energy of the disturbance inputs. Due to the special structure of linear static anti-windup design, wherein the design variables are decoupled from the Lyapunov certificates, we introduce a significant extension, called scenario with certificates (SwC), of the so-called scenario approach for uncertain optimization problems. This extension is of independent interest for similar robust synthesis problems involving parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions. We demonstrate that the scenario with certificates robust design formulation is appealing because it provides a way to implicitly design the parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions and to remove restrictive assumptions about convexity with respect to the uncertain parameters. Subsequently, to reduce the computational cost, we present a sequential randomized algorithm for iteratively solving this problem. The obtained results are illustrated by numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider the learning problem of multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) formulated as the problem of minimizing a smooth error function. As well known, the learning problem of MLPs can be a difficult nonlinear nonconvex optimization problem. Typical difficulties can be the presence of extensive flat regions and steep sided valleys in the error surface, and the possible large number of training data and of free network parameters. We define a wide class of batch learning algorithms for MLP, based on the use of block decomposition techniques in the minimization of the error function. The learning problem is decomposed into a sequence of smaller and structured minimization problems in order to advantageously exploit the structure of the objective function. Theoretical convergence results are established, and a specific algorithm is constructed and evaluated through an extensive numerical experimentation. The comparisons with the state-of-the-art learning algorithms show the effectiveness of the proposed techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many real-world applications, data are represented by matrices or high-order tensors. Despite the promising performance, the existing 2-D discriminant analysis algorithms employ a single projection model to exploit the discriminant information for projection, making the model less flexible. In this paper, we propose a novel compound rank- $k$ projection (CRP) algorithm for bilinear analysis. The CRP deals with matrices directly without transforming them into vectors, and it, therefore, preserves the correlations within the matrix and decreases the computation complexity. Different from the existing 2-D discriminant analysis algorithms, objective function values of CRP increase monotonically. In addition, the CRP utilizes multiple rank- $k$ projection models to enable a larger search space in which the optimal solution can be found. In this way, the discriminant ability is enhanced. We have tested our approach on five data sets, including UUIm, CVL, Pointing’04, USPS, and Coil20. Experimental results show that the performance of our proposed CRP performs better than other algorithms in terms of classification accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) as a well-known supervised dimensionality reduction method has been widely applied in many fields. However, the lack of sparsity in the LDA solution makes interpretation of the results challenging. In this paper, we propose a new model for sparse uncorrelated LDA (ULDA). Our model is based on the characterization of all solutions of the generalized ULDA. We incorporate sparsity into the ULDA transformation by seeking the solution with minimum \ell 1 -norm from all minimum dimension solutions of the generalized ULDA. The problem is then formulated as an \ell 1 -minimization problem with orthogonality constraint. To solve this problem, we devise two algorithms: 1) by applying the linearized alternating direction method of multipliers and 2) by applying the accelerated linearized Bregman method. Simulation studies and high-dimensional real data examples demonstrate that our algorithms not only compute extremely sparse solutions but also perform well in classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection and feature transformation, the two main ways to reduce dimensionality, are often presented separately. In this paper, a feature selection method is proposed by combining the popular transformation-based dimensionality reduction method linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and sparsity regularization. We impose row sparsity on the transformation matrix of LDA through \ell 2,1 -norm regularization to achieve feature selection, and the resultant formulation optimizes for selecting the most discriminative features and removing the redundant ones simultaneously. The formulation is extended to the \ell 2,p -norm regularized case, which is more likely to offer better sparsity when $0

Distance metric learning (DML) is successful in discovering intrinsic relations in data. However, most algorithms are computationally demanding when the problem size becomes large. In this paper, we propose a discriminative metric learning algorithm, develop a distributed scheme learning metrics on moderate-sized subsets of data, and aggregate the results into a global solution. The technique leverages the power of parallel computation. The algorithm of the aggregated DML (ADML) scales well with the data size and can be controlled by the partition. We theoretically analyze and provide bounds for the error induced by the distributed treatment. We have conducted experimental evaluation of the ADML, both on specially designed tests and on practical image annotation tasks. Those tests have shown that the ADML achieves the state-of-the-art performance at only a fraction of the cost incurred by most existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the great success of graph-based transductive learning methods, most of them have serious problems in scalability and robustness. In this paper, we propose an efficient and robust graph-based transductive classification method, called minimum tree cut (MTC), which is suitable for large-scale data. Motivated from the sparse representation of graph, we approximate a graph by a spanning tree. Exploiting the simple structure, we develop a linear-time algorithm to label the tree such that the cut size of the tree is minimized. This significantly improves graph-based methods, which typically have a polynomial time complexity. Moreover, we theoretically and empirically show that the performance of MTC is robust to the graph construction, overcoming another big problem of traditional graph-based methods. Extensive experiments on public data sets and applications on web-spam detection and interactive image segmentation demonstrate our method’s advantages in aspect of accuracy, speed, and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-layer feedforward networks (SLFNs) have been proven to be a universal approximator when all the parameters are allowed to be adjustable. It is widely used in classification and regression problems. The SLFN learning involves two tasks: determining network size and training the parameters. Most current algorithms could not be satisfactory to both sides. Some algorithms focused on construction and only tuned part of the parameters, which may not be able to achieve a compact network. Other gradient-based optimization algorithms focused on parameters tuning while the network size has to be preset by the user. Therefore, trial-and-error approach has to be used to search the optimal network size. Because results of each trial cannot be reused in another trial, it costs much computation. In this paper, a hybrid constructive (HC)algorithm is proposed for SLFN learning, which can train all the parameters and determine the network size simultaneously. At first, by combining Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm and least-square method, a hybrid algorithm is presented for training SLFN with fixed network size. Then,with the hybrid algorithm, an incremental constructive scheme is proposed. A new randomly initialized neuron is added each time when the training entrapped into local minima. Because the training continued on previous results after adding new neurons, the proposed HC algorithm works efficiently. Several practical problems were given for comparison with other popular algorithms. The experimental results demonstrated that the HC algorithm worked more efficiently than those optimization methods with trial and error, and could achieve much more compact SLFN than those construction algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with the update step of Gaussian MAP filtering. In this framework, we seek a Gaussian approximation to the posterior probability density function (PDF) whose mean is given by the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimator. We propose two novel optimization algorithms which are quite suitable for finding the MAP estimate although they can also be used to solve general optimization problems. These are based on the design of a sequence of PDFs that become increasingly concentrated around the MAP estimate. The resulting algorithms are referred to as Kalman optimization (KO) methods. We also provide the important relations between these KO methods and their conventional optimization algorithms (COAs) counterparts, i.e., Newton's and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithms. Our simulations indicate that KO methods are more robust than their COA equivalents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) has recently become a very popular unsupervised learning method because of its representational properties of factors and simple multiplicative update algorithms for solving the NMF. However, for the common NMF approach of minimizing the Euclidean distance between approximate and true values, the convergence of multiplicative update algorithms has not been well resolved. This paper first discusses the convergence of existing multiplicative update algorithms. We then propose a new multiplicative update algorithm for minimizing the Euclidean distance between approximate and true values. Based on the optimization principle and the auxiliary function method, we prove that our new algorithm not only converges to a stationary point, but also does faster than existing ones. To verify our theoretical results, the experiments on three data sets have been conducted by comparing our proposed algorithm with other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, multiple kernel learning (MKL) has received significant attention among data-driven feature selection techniques in the context of kernel-based learning. MKL formulations have been devised and solved for a broad spectrum of machine learning problems, including multitask learning (MTL). Solving different MKL formulations usually involves designing algorithms that are tailored to the problem at hand, which is, typically, a nontrivial accomplishment. In this paper we present a general multitask multiple kernel learning (MT-MKL) framework that subsumes well-known MT-MKL formulations, as well as several important MKL approaches on single-task problems. We then derive a simple algorithm that can solve the unifying framework. To demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed framework, we formulate a new learning problem, namely partially-shared common space MT-MKL, and demonstrate its merits through experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]