Abstract. Augmented Lagrangian methods with general lower-level constraints are considered in the present research. These methods are useful when efficient algorithms exist for solving subproblems in which the constraints are only of the lower-level type. Inexact resolution of the lower-level constrained subproblems is considered. Global convergence is proved using the Constant Positive Linear Dependence constraint qualification. Conditions for boundedness of the penalty parameters are discussed. The reliability of the approach is tested by means of a comparison against Ipopt and Lancelot B. The resolution of location problems in which many constraints of the lower-level set are nonlinear is addressed, employing the Spectral Projected Gradient method for solving the subproblems. Problems of this type with more than 3 × 10 6 variables and 14 × 10 6 constraints are solved in this way, using moderate computer time. The codes are free for download in www.ime.usp.br/∼egbirgin/tango/

We examine the influence of optimality measures on the benchmarking process, and show that scaling requirements lead to a convergence test for nonlinearly constrained solvers that uses a mixture of absolute and relative error measures. We show that this convergence test is well behaved at any point where the constraints satisfy the Mangasarian-Fromovitz constraint qualification and also avoids the explicit use of a complementarity measure. Our computational experiments explore the impact of this convergence test on the benchmarking process with performance profiles. 1

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Augmented Lagrangian methods are effective tools for solving large-scale nonlinear programming problems. At each outer iteration a minimization subproblem with simple constraints, whose objective function depends on updated Lagrange multipliers and penalty parameters, is approximately solved. When the penalty parameter becomes very large the subproblem is difficult, therefore the effectiveness of this approach is associated with boundedness of penalty parameters. In this paper it is proved that, under more natural assumptions than the ones up to now employed, penalty parameters are bounded. For proving the new boundedness result, the original algorithm has been slightly modified. Numerical consequences of the modifications are discussed and computational experiments are presented.

A method for linearly constrained optimization which modifies and generalizes recent box-constraint optimization algorithms is introduced. The new algorithm is based on a relaxed form of Spectral Projected Gradient iterations. Intercalated with these projected steps, internal iterations restricted to faces of the polytope are performed, which enhance the efficiency of the algorithms. Convergence proofs are given and numerical experiments are included and commented. Software supporting this paper is available through the Tango

Abstract. We consider nonlinear optimization programs with matrix inequality constraints, also known as nonlinear semidefinite programs. We prove local convergence for an augmented Lagrangian method which uses smooth spectral penalty functions. The sufficient second-order no-gap optimality condition and a suitable implicit function theorem are used to prove local linear convergence without the need to drive the penalty parameter to 0. Key words: Matrix inequality, nonlinear semidefinite programming, augmented Lagrangian, spectral penalty, implicit function theorem. 1. Introduction. We

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Local convergence of exact and inexact

qualification ⋆

In a recent paper, Birgin, Floudas and Martínez introduced an augmented Lagrangian method for global optimization. In their approach, augmented Lagrangian subproblems are solved using the αBB method and convergence to global minimizers was obtained assuming feasibility of the original problem. In the present research, the algorithm mentioned above will be improved in several crucial aspects. On the one hand, feasibility of the problem will not be required. Possible infeasibility will be detected in finite time by the new algorithms and optimal infeasibility results will be proved. On the other hand, finite termination results that guarantee optimality and/or feasibility up to any required precision will be provided. An adaptive modification in which subproblem tolerances depend on current feasibility and complementarity will also be given. The adaptive algorithm allows the augmented Lagrangian subproblems to be solved without requiring unnecessary potentially high precisions in the intermediate steps of the method, which improves the overall efficiency. Experiments showing how the new algorithms and results are related to practical computations will be given. Key words: deterministic global optimization, augmented Lagrangians, nonlinear programming, algorithms, numerical experiments. 1