No abstract

We consider a new and general online resource allocation problem, where the goal is to maximize a function of a positive semidefinite (PSD) matrix with a scalar budget constraint. The problem data arrives online, and the algorithm needs to make an irrevocable decision at each step. Of particular interest are classic experiment design problems in the online setting, with the algorithm deciding whether to allocate budget to each experiment as new experiments become available sequentially.We analyze two greedy primal-dual algorithms and provide bounds on their competitive ratios. Our analysis relies on a smooth surrogate of the objective function that needs to satisfy a new diminishing returns (PSD-DR) property (that its gradient is order-reversing with respect to the PSD cone). Using the representation for monotone maps on the PSD cone given by Löwner's theorem, we obtain a convex parametrization of the family of functions satisfying PSD-DR. We then formulate a convex optimization problem to directly optimize our competitive ratio bound over this set. This design problem can be solved offline before the data start arriving. The online algorithm that uses the designed smoothing is tailored to the given cost function, and enjoys a competitive ratio at least as good as our optimized bound. We provide examples of computing the smooth surrogate for D-optimal and A-optimal experiment design, and demonstrate the performance of the custom-designed algorithm.

Online optimization covers problems such as online resource allocation, online bipartite matching, adwords (a central problem in e-commerce and advertising), and adwords with separable concave returns. We analyze the worst case competitive ratio of two primal-dual algorithms for a class of online convex (conic) optimization problems that contains the previous examples as special cases defined on the positive orthant. We derive a sufficient condition on the objective function that guarantees a constant worst case competitive ratio (greater than or equal to 1 2 ) for monotone objective functions. We provide new examples of online problems on the positive orthant and the positive semidefinite cone that satisfy the sufficient condition. We show how smoothing can improve the competitive ratio of these algorithms, and in particular for separable functions, we show that the optimal smoothing can be derived by solving a convex optimization problem. This result allows us to directly optimize the competitive ratio bound over a class of smoothing functions, and hence design effective smoothing customized for a given cost function.

We study the convergence rate of the proximal-gradient homotopy algorithm applied to normregularized linear least squares problems, for a general class of norms. The homotopy algorithm reduces the regularization parameter in a series of steps, and uses a proximal-gradient algorithm to solve the problem at each step. Proximal-gradient algorithm has a linear rate of convergence given that the objective function is strongly convex, and the gradient of the smooth component of the objective function is Lipschitz continuous. In many applications, the objective function in this type of problem is not strongly convex, especially when the problem is high-dimensional and regularizers are chosen that induce sparsity or low-dimensionality. We show that if the linear sampling matrix satisfies certain assumptions and the regularizing norm is decomposable, proximal-gradient homotopy algorithm converges with a linear rate even though the objective function is not strongly convex. Our result generalizes results on the linear convergence of homotopy algorithm for l 1 -regularized least squares problems. Numerical experiments are presented that support the theoretical convergence rate analysis.