TY - JOUR AB - AbstractApproximation of subdifferentials is one of the main tasks when computing descent directions for nonsmooth optimization problems. In this article, we propose a bisection method for weakly lower semismooth functions which is able to compute new subgradients that improve a given approximation in case a direction with insufficient descent was computed. Combined with a recently proposed deterministic gradient sampling approach, this yields a deterministic and provably convergent way to approximate subdifferentials for computing descent directions. AU - Gebken, Bennet ID - 51208 JF - Computational Optimization and Applications KW - Applied Mathematics KW - Computational Mathematics KW - Control and Optimization SN - 0926-6003 TI - A note on the convergence of deterministic gradient sampling in nonsmooth optimization ER - TY - GEN AB - The efficient optimization method for locally Lipschitz continuous multiobjective optimization problems from [1] is extended from finite-dimensional problems to general Hilbert spaces. The method iteratively computes Pareto critical points, where in each iteration, an approximation of the subdifferential is computed in an efficient manner and then used to compute a common descent direction for all objective functions. To prove convergence, we present some new optimality results for nonsmooth multiobjective optimization problems in Hilbert spaces. Using these, we can show that every accumulation point of the sequence generated by our algorithm is Pareto critical under common assumptions. Computational efficiency for finding Pareto critical points is numerically demonstrated for multiobjective optimal control of an obstacle problem. AU - Sonntag, Konstantin AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Müller, Georg AU - Peitz, Sebastian AU - Volkwein, Stefan ID - 51334 T2 - arXiv:2402.06376 TI - A Descent Method for Nonsmooth Multiobjective Optimization in Hilbert Spaces ER - TY - JOUR AB - Regularization is used in many different areas of optimization when solutions are sought which not only minimize a given function, but also possess a certain degree of regularity. Popular applications are image denoising, sparse regression and machine learning. Since the choice of the regularization parameter is crucial but often difficult, path-following methods are used to approximate the entire regularization path, i.e., the set of all possible solutions for all regularization parameters. Due to their nature, the development of these methods requires structural results about the regularization path. The goal of this article is to derive these results for the case of a smooth objective function which is penalized by a piecewise differentiable regularization term. We do this by treating regularization as a multiobjective optimization problem. Our results suggest that even in this general case, the regularization path is piecewise smooth. Moreover, our theory allows for a classification of the nonsmooth features that occur in between smooth parts. This is demonstrated in two applications, namely support-vector machines and exact penalty methods. AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Bieker, Katharina AU - Peitz, Sebastian ID - 27426 IS - 3 JF - Journal of Global Optimization TI - On the structure of regularization paths for piecewise differentiable regularization terms VL - 85 ER - TY - GEN AB - Multiobjective optimization plays an increasingly important role in modern applications, where several criteria are often of equal importance. The task in multiobjective optimization and multiobjective optimal control is therefore to compute the set of optimal compromises (the Pareto set) between the conflicting objectives. The advances in algorithms and the increasing interest in Pareto-optimal solutions have led to a wide range of new applications related to optimal and feedback control - potentially with non-smoothness both on the level of the objectives or in the system dynamics. This results in new challenges such as dealing with expensive models (e.g., governed by partial differential equations (PDEs)) and developing dedicated algorithms handling the non-smoothness. Since in contrast to single-objective optimization, the Pareto set generally consists of an infinite number of solutions, the computational effort can quickly become challenging, which is particularly problematic when the objectives are costly to evaluate or when a solution has to be presented very quickly. This article gives an overview of recent developments in the field of multiobjective optimization of non-smooth PDE-constrained problems. In particular we report on the advances achieved within Project 2 "Multiobjective Optimization of Non-Smooth PDE-Constrained Problems - Switches, State Constraints and Model Order Reduction" of the DFG Priority Programm 1962 "Non-smooth and Complementarity-based Distributed Parameter Systems: Simulation and Hierarchical Optimization". AU - Bernreuther, Marco AU - Dellnitz, Michael AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Müller, Georg AU - Peitz, Sebastian AU - Sonntag, Konstantin AU - Volkwein, Stefan ID - 46578 T2 - arXiv:2308.01113 TI - Multiobjective Optimization of Non-Smooth PDE-Constrained Problems ER - TY - CHAP AB - Multiobjective optimization plays an increasingly important role in modern applications, where several objectives are often of equal importance. The task in multiobjective optimization and multiobjective optimal control is therefore to compute the set of optimal compromises (the Pareto set) between the conflicting objectives. Since the Pareto set generally consists of an infinite number of solutions, the computational effort can quickly become challenging which is particularly problematic when the objectives are costly to evaluate as is the case for models governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). To decrease the numerical effort to an affordable amount, surrogate models can be used to replace the expensive PDE evaluations. Existing multiobjective optimization methods using model reduction are limited either to low parameter dimensions or to few (ideally two) objectives. In this article, we present a combination of the reduced basis model reduction method with a continuation approach using inexact gradients. The resulting approach can handle an arbitrary number of objectives while yielding a significant reduction in computing time. AU - Banholzer, Stefan AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Dellnitz, Michael AU - Peitz, Sebastian AU - Volkwein, Stefan ED - Michael, Hintermüller ED - Roland, Herzog ED - Christian, Kanzow ED - Michael, Ulbrich ED - Stefan, Ulbrich ID - 16296 SN - 978-3-030-79392-0 T2 - Non-Smooth and Complementarity-Based Distributed Parameter Systems TI - ROM-Based Multiobjective Optimization of Elliptic PDEs via Numerical Continuation ER - TY - GEN AB - In this article, we show how second-order derivative information can be incorporated into gradient sampling methods for nonsmooth optimization. The second-order information we consider is essentially the set of coefficients of all second-order Taylor expansions of the objective in a closed ball around a given point. Based on this concept, we define a model of the objective as the maximum of these Taylor expansions. Iteratively minimizing this model (constrained to the closed ball) results in a simple descent method, for which we prove convergence to minimal points in case the objective is convex. To obtain an implementable method, we construct an approximation scheme for the second-order information based on sampling objective values, gradients and Hessian matrices at finitely many points. Using a set of test problems, we compare the resulting method to five other available solvers. Considering the number of function evaluations, the results suggest that the method we propose is superior to the standard gradient sampling method, and competitive compared to other methods. AU - Gebken, Bennet ID - 34618 T2 - arXiv:2210.04579 TI - Using second-order information in gradient sampling methods for nonsmooth optimization ER - TY - THES AB - Mehrzieloptimierung behandelt Probleme, bei denen mehrere skalare Zielfunktionen simultan optimiert werden sollen. Ein Punkt ist in diesem Fall optimal, wenn es keinen anderen Punkt gibt, der mindestens genauso gut ist in allen Zielfunktionen und besser in mindestens einer Zielfunktion. Ein notwendiges Optimalitätskriterium lässt sich über Ableitungsinformationen erster Ordnung der Zielfunktionen herleiten. Die Menge der Punkte, die dieses notwendige Kriterium erfüllen, wird als Pareto-kritische Menge bezeichnet. Diese Arbeit enthält neue Resultate über Pareto-kritische Mengen für glatte und nicht-glatte Mehrzieloptimierungsprobleme, sowohl was deren Berechnung betrifft als auch deren Struktur. Im glatten Fall erfolgt die Berechnung über ein Fortsetzungsverfahren, im nichtglatten Fall über ein Abstiegsverfahren. Anschließend wird die Struktur des Randes der Pareto-kritischen Menge analysiert, welcher aus Pareto-kritischen Mengen kleinerer Subprobleme besteht. Schlussendlich werden inverse Probleme betrachtet, bei denen zu einer gegebenen Datenmenge ein Zielfunktionsvektor gefunden werden soll, für den die Datenpunkte kritisch sind. AU - Gebken, Bennet ID - 31556 TI - Computation and analysis of Pareto critical sets in smooth and nonsmooth multiobjective optimization ER - TY - JOUR AB - We present a novel algorithm that allows us to gain detailed insight into the effects of sparsity in linear and nonlinear optimization, which is of great importance in many scientific areas such as image and signal processing, medical imaging, compressed sensing, and machine learning (e.g., for the training of neural networks). Sparsity is an important feature to ensure robustness against noisy data, but also to find models that are interpretable and easy to analyze due to the small number of relevant terms. It is common practice to enforce sparsity by adding the ℓ1-norm as a weighted penalty term. In order to gain a better understanding and to allow for an informed model selection, we directly solve the corresponding multiobjective optimization problem (MOP) that arises when we minimize the main objective and the ℓ1-norm simultaneously. As this MOP is in general non-convex for nonlinear objectives, the weighting method will fail to provide all optimal compromises. To avoid this issue, we present a continuation method which is specifically tailored to MOPs with two objective functions one of which is the ℓ1-norm. Our method can be seen as a generalization of well-known homotopy methods for linear regression problems to the nonlinear case. Several numerical examples - including neural network training - demonstrate our theoretical findings and the additional insight that can be gained by this multiobjective approach. AU - Bieker, Katharina AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Peitz, Sebastian ID - 20731 IS - 11 JF - IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence TI - On the Treatment of Optimization Problems with L1 Penalty Terms via Multiobjective Continuation VL - 44 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In this article, we present an efficient descent method for locally Lipschitz continuous multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs). The method is realized by combining a theoretical result regarding the computation of descent directions for nonsmooth MOPs with a practical method to approximate the subdifferentials of the objective functions. We show convergence to points which satisfy a necessary condition for Pareto optimality. Using a set of test problems, we compare our method to the multiobjective proximal bundle method by M\"akel\"a. The results indicate that our method is competitive while being easier to implement. While the number of objective function evaluations is larger, the overall number of subgradient evaluations is lower. Finally, we show that our method can be combined with a subdivision algorithm to compute entire Pareto sets of nonsmooth MOPs. AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Peitz, Sebastian ID - 16867 JF - Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications TI - An efficient descent method for locally Lipschitz multiobjective optimization problems VL - 188 ER - TY - JOUR AB - It is a challenging task to identify the objectives on which a certain decision was based, in particular if several, potentially conflicting criteria are equally important and a continuous set of optimal compromise decisions exists. This task can be understood as the inverse problem of multiobjective optimization, where the goal is to find the objective function vector of a given Pareto set. To this end, we present a method to construct the objective function vector of an unconstrained multiobjective optimization problem (MOP) such that the Pareto critical set contains a given set of data points with prescribed KKT multipliers. If such an MOP can not be found, then the method instead produces an MOP whose Pareto critical set is at least close to the data points. The key idea is to consider the objective function vector in the multiobjective KKT conditions as variable and then search for the objectives that minimize the Euclidean norm of the resulting system of equations. By expressing the objectives in a finite-dimensional basis, we transform this problem into a homogeneous, linear system of equations that can be solved efficiently. Potential applications of this approach include the identification of objectives (both from clean and noisy data) and the construction of surrogate models for expensive MOPs. AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Peitz, Sebastian ID - 16295 JF - Journal of Global Optimization TI - Inverse multiobjective optimization: Inferring decision criteria from data VL - 80 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We investigate self-adjoint matrices A∈Rn,n with respect to their equivariance properties. We show in particular that a matrix is self-adjoint if and only if it is equivariant with respect to the action of a group Γ2(A)⊂O(n) which is isomorphic to ⊗nk=1Z2. If the self-adjoint matrix possesses multiple eigenvalues – this may, for instance, be induced by symmetry properties of an underlying dynamical system – then A is even equivariant with respect to the action of a group Γ(A)≃∏ki=1O(mi) where m1,…,mk are the multiplicities of the eigenvalues λ1,…,λk of A. We discuss implications of this result for equivariant bifurcation problems, and we briefly address further applications for the Procrustes problem, graph symmetries and Taylor expansions. AU - Dellnitz, Michael AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Gerlach, Raphael AU - Klus, Stefan ID - 16712 IS - 2 JF - Dynamical Systems SN - 1468-9367 TI - On the equivariance properties of self-adjoint matrices VL - 35 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In this article we show that the boundary of the Pareto critical set of an unconstrained multiobjective optimization problem (MOP) consists of Pareto critical points of subproblems where only a subset of the set of objective functions is taken into account. If the Pareto critical set is completely described by its boundary (e.g., if we have more objective functions than dimensions in decision space), then this can be used to efficiently solve the MOP by solving a number of MOPs with fewer objective functions. If this is not the case, the results can still give insight into the structure of the Pareto critical set. AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Peitz, Sebastian AU - Dellnitz, Michael ID - 10595 IS - 4 JF - Journal of Global Optimization SN - 0925-5001 TI - On the hierarchical structure of Pareto critical sets VL - 73 ER - TY - CONF AB - In this article we propose a descent method for equality and inequality constrained multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs) which generalizes the steepest descent method for unconstrained MOPs by Fliege and Svaiter to constrained problems by using two active set strategies. Under some regularity assumptions on the problem, we show that accumulation points of our descent method satisfy a necessary condition for local Pareto optimality. Finally, we show the typical behavior of our method in a numerical example. AU - Gebken, Bennet AU - Peitz, Sebastian AU - Dellnitz, Michael ID - 8750 SN - 1860-949X T2 - Numerical and Evolutionary Optimization – NEO 2017 TI - A Descent Method for Equality and Inequality Constrained Multiobjective Optimization Problems ER -