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This paper develops the novel convergence analysis of a generic class of descent methods in nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization under several versions of the Kurdyka-\L ojasiewicz (KL) property. Along other results, we prove the finite termination of generic algorithms under the KL property with lower exponents. Specifications are given to convergence rates of some particular algorithms including inexact reduced gradient methods and the boosted algorithm in DC programming. It revealed, e.g., that the lower exponent KL property in the DC framework is incompatible with the gradient Lipschitz continuity for the plus function around a local minimizer. On the other hand, we show that the above inconsistency observation may fail if the Lipschitz continuity is replaced by merely the gradient continuity., Comment: 12 pages

The paper concerns optimal control of discontinuous differential inclusions of the normal cone type governed by a generalized version of the Moreau sweeping process with control functions acting in both nonconvex moving sets and additive perturbations. This is a new class of optimal control problems in comparison with previously considered counterparts where the controlled sweeping sets are described by convex polyhedra. Besides a theoretical interest, a major motivation for our study of such challenging optimal control problems with intrinsic state constraints comes from the application to the crowd motion model in a practically adequate planar setting with nonconvex but prox-regular sweeping sets. Based on a constructive discrete approximation approach and advanced tools of first-order and second-order variational analysis and generalized differentiation, we establish the strong convergence of discrete optimal solutions and derive a complete set of necessary optimality conditions for discrete-time and continuous-time sweeping control systems that are expressed entirely via the problem data., Comment: 37 pages, 2 figures

This paper aims to provide various applications for second-order variational analysis of extended-real-valued piecewise liner functions recently obtained in [1]. We mainly focus here on establishing relationships between full stability of local minimizers in composite optimization and Robinson's strong regularity of associated (linearized and nonlinearized) KKT systems. Finally, we address Lipschitzian stability of parametric variational systems with convex piecewise linear potentials., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1507.05350

The paper addresses parametric inequality systems described by polynomial functions in finite dimensions, where state-dependent infinite parameter sets are given by finitely many polynomial inequalities and equalities. Such systems can be viewed, in particular, as solution sets to problems of generalized semi-infinite programming with polynomial data. Exploiting the imposed polynomial structure together with powerful tools of variational analysis and semialgebraic geometry, we establish a far-going extension of the \L ojasiewicz gradient inequality to the general nonsmooth class of supremum marginal functions as well as higher-order (H\"older type) local error bounds results with explicitly calculated exponents. The obtained results are applied to higher-order quantitative stability analysis for various classes of optimization problems including generalized semi-infinite programming with polynomial data, optimization of real polynomials under polynomial matrix inequality constraints, and polynomial second-order cone programming. Other applications provide explicit convergence rate estimates for the cyclic projection algorithm to find common points of convex sets described by matrix polynomial inequalities and for the asymptotic convergence of trajectories of subgradient dynamical systems in semialgebraic settings.

This paper concerns generalized differential characterizations of maximal monotone set-valued mappings. Using advanced tools of variational analysis, we establish coderivative criteria for maximal monotonicity of set-valued mappings, which seem to be the first infinitesimal characterizations of maximal monotonicity outside the single-valued case. We also present second-order necessary and sufficient conditions for lower-${\mathcal C}^2$ functions to be convex and strongly convex. Examples are provided to illustrate the obtained results and the imposed assumptions.

This paper concerns the study of the generalized Bolza problem governed by differential inclusions satisfying the so-called "relaxed one-sided Lipschitzian" (ROSL) condition with respect to the state variables subject to various types of nonsmooth endpoint constraints. We construct discrete approximations of differential inclusions with ROSL right-hand sides by using the implicit Euler scheme for approximating time derivatives, and then we justify an appropriate well-posedness of such approximations. Our principal result establishes the strong approximation (in the sense of the $W^{1,2}$ norm convergence) of an "intermediate" (between strong and weak minimizers) local optimal solution of the continuous-time Bolza problem under the ROSL assumption by optimal solutions of the implicitly discretized finite-difference systems. Finally, we derive necessary optimality conditions for the discretized Bolza problems via suitable generalized differential constructions of variational analysis. The obtained results on the well-posedness of discrete approximations and necessary optimality conditions allow us to justify a numerical approach to solve the generalized Bolza problem for one-sided Lipschitzian differential inclusions by using discrete approximations constructed via the implicit Euler scheme.

The paper introduces and characterizes new notions of Lipschitzian and H\"olderian full stability of solutions to general parametric variational systems described via partial subdifferential and normal cone mappings acting in Hilbert spaces. These notions, postulated certain quantitative properties of single-valued localizations of solution maps, are closely related to local strong maximal monotonicity of associated set-valued mappings. Based on advanced tools of variational analysis and generalized differentiation, we derive verifiable characterizations of the local strong maximal monotonicity and full stability notions under consideration via some positive-definiteness conditions involving second-order constructions of variational analysis. The general results obtained are specified for important classes of variational inequalities and variational conditions in both finite and infinite dimensions.

This paper develops some mathematical models arising in behavioral sciences, particularly in psychology, which are formalized via general preferences with variable ordering structures. Our considerations are based on the recent variational rationality approach that unifies numerous theories in different branches of behavioral sciences by using, in particular, worthwhile change and stay dynamics and variational traps. In the mathematical framework of this approach, we derive a new variational principle, which can be viewed as an extension of the Ekeland variational principle to the case of set-valued mappings on quasi metric spaces with cone-valued ordering variable structures. Such a general setting is proved to be appropriate for broad applications to the functioning of goal systems in psychology, which are developed in the paper. In this way we give a certain answer to the following striking question in the world, where all things change (preferences, motivations, resistances, etc.), where goal systems drive a lot of entwined course pursuits between means and ends what can stay fixed for a while The obtained mathematical results and new insights open the door to developing powerful models of adaptive behavior, which strongly depart from pure static general equilibrium models of the Walrasian type that are typical in economics.

This paper sheds new light on several interrelated topics of second-order variational analysis, both in finite and infinite-dimensional settings. We establish new relationships between second-order growth conditions on functions, the basic properties of metric regularity and subregularity of the limiting subdifferential, tilt-stability of local minimizers, and positive-definiteness/semidefiniteness properties of the second-order subdifferential (or generalized Hessian)., Comment: 23 pages

The paper concerns the second-order generalized differentiation theory of variational analysis and new applications of this theory to some problems of constrained optimization in finitedimensional spaces. The main attention is paid to the so-called (full and partial) second-order subdifferentials of extended-real-valued functions, which are dual-type constructions generated by coderivatives of frst-order subdifferential mappings. We develop an extended second-order subdifferential calculus and analyze the basic second-order qualification condition ensuring the fulfillment of the principal secondorder chain rule for strongly and fully amenable compositions. The calculus results obtained in this way and computing the second-order subdifferentials for piecewise linear-quadratic functions and their major specifications are applied then to the study of tilt stability of local minimizers for important classes of problems in constrained optimization that include, in particular, problems of nonlinear programming and certain classes of extended nonlinear programs described in composite terms.

The paper concerns the study of new classes of nonlinear and nonconvex optimization problems of the so-called infinite programming that are generally defined on infinite-dimensional spaces of decision variables and contain infinitely many of equality and inequality constraints with arbitrary (may not be compact) index sets. These problems reduce to semi-infinite programs in the case of finite-dimensional spaces of decision variables. We extend the classical Mangasarian-Fromovitz and Farkas-Minkowski constraint qualifications to such infinite and semi-infinite programs. The new qualification conditions are used for efficient computing the appropriate normal cones to sets of feasible solutions for these programs by employing advanced tools of variational analysis and generalized differentiation. In the further development we derive first-order necessary optimality conditions for infinite and semi-infinite programs, which are new in both finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional settings., Comment: 28 pages

The original motivation for this paper was to provide an efficient quantitative analysis of convex infinite (or semi-infinite) inequality systems whose decision variables run over general infinite-dimensional (resp. finite-dimensional) Banach spaces and that are indexed by an arbitrary fixed set $J$. Parameter perturbations on the right-hand side of the inequalities are required to be merely bounded, and thus the natural parameter space is $l_{\infty}(J)$. Our basic strategy consists of linearizing the parameterized convex system via splitting convex inequalities into linear ones by using the Fenchel-Legendre conjugate. This approach yields that arbitrary bounded right-hand side perturbations of the convex system turn on constant-by-blocks perturbations in the linearized system. Based on advanced variational analysis, we derive a precise formula for computing the exact Lipschitzian bound of the feasible solution map of block-perturbed linear systems, which involves only the system's data, and then show that this exact bound agrees with the coderivative norm of the aforementioned mapping. In this way we extend to the convex setting the results of [3] developed for arbitrary perturbations with no block structure in the linear framework under the boundedness assumption on the system's coefficients. The latter boundedness assumption is removed in this paper when the decision space is reflexive. The last section provides the aimed application to the convex case.

This paper concerns parameterized convex infinite (or semi-infinite) inequality systems whose decision variables run over general infinite-dimensional Banach (resp. finite-dimensional) spaces and that are indexed by an arbitrary fixed set T . Parameter perturbations on the right-hand side of the inequalities are measurable and bounded, and thus the natural parameter space is $l_{\infty}(T)$. Based on advanced variational analysis, we derive a precise formula for computing the exact Lipschitzian bound of the feasible solution map, which involves only the system data, and then show that this exact bound agrees with the coderivative norm of the aforementioned mapping. On one hand, in this way we extend to the convex setting the results of [4] developed in the linear framework under the boundedness assumption on the system coefficients. On the other hand, in the case when the decision space is reflexive, we succeed to remove this boundedness assumption in the general convex case, establishing therefore results new even for linear infinite and semi-infinite systems. The last part of the paper provides verifiable necessary optimality conditions for infinite and semi-infinite programs with convex inequality constraints and general nonsmooth and nonconvex objectives. In this way we extend the corresponding results of [5] obtained for programs with linear infinite inequality constraints.

This paper concerns developing a numerical method of the Newton type to solve systems of nonlinear equations described by nonsmooth continuous functions. We propose and justify a new generalized Newton algorithm based on graphical derivatives, which have never been used to derive a Newton-type method for solving nonsmooth equations. Based on advanced techniques of variational analysis and generalized differentiation, we establish the well-posedness of the algorithm, its local superlinear convergence, and its global convergence of the Kantorovich type. Our convergence results hold with no semismoothness assumption, which is illustrated by examples. The algorithm and main results obtained in the paper are compared with well-recognized semismooth and $B$-differentiable versions of Newton's method for nonsmooth Lipschitzian equations.