Convex Analysis and Optimization, Spring 2010

Abstract:: This course will focus on fundamental subjects in (deterministic) optimization, connected through the themes of convexity, geometric multipliers, and duality. The aim is to develop the core analytical and computational issues of continuous optimization, duality, and saddle point theory using a handful of unifying principles that can be easily visualized and readily understood. The mathematical theory of convex sets and functions will be central, and will allow an intuitive, highly visual, geometrical approach to the subject. This theory will be developed in detail and in parallel with the optimization topics. The first part of the course develops the analytical issues of convexity and duality. The second part is devoted to convex optimization algorithms, and their applications to a variety of large-scale optimization problems from resource allocation, machine learning, engineering design, and other areas.

Introduction to Convex Optimization, Fall 2009

Abstract:: This course aims to give students the tools and training to recognize convex optimization problems that arise in scientific and engineering applications, presenting the basic theory, and concentrating on modeling aspects and results that are useful in applications. Topics include convex sets, convex functions, optimization problems, least-squares, linear and quadratic programs, semidefinite programming, optimality conditions, and duality theory. Applications to signal processing, control, machine learning, finance, digital and analog circuit design, computational geometry, statistics, and mechanical engineering are presented. Students complete hands-on exercises using high-level numerical software. Acknowledgements The course materials were developed jointly by Prof. Stephen Boyd (Stanford), who was a visiting professor at MIT when this course was taught, and Prof. Lieven Vanderberghe (UCLA).

Abstract:: Doctoral student seminar covering current topics related to operations research not otherwise included in the curriculum. In keeping with the tradition of the last twenty-some years, the Readings in Optimization seminar will focus on an advanced topic of interest to a portion of the MIT optimization community: randomized methods for deterministic optimization. In contrast to conventional optimization algorithms whose iterates are computed and analyzed deterministically, randomized methods rely on stochastic processes and random number/vector generation as part of the algorithm and/or its analysis. In the seminar, we will study some very recent papers on this topic, many by MIT faculty, as well as some older papers from the existing literature that are only now receiving attention.