This is a joint course (senior undergraduate program - ECE MSc program - MLDS MSc Program - ECE Doctoral Program).
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Lectures:
Wednesday, 17:00-19:00, Room 145Π58
Friday, 16:00-18:00, Room 145Π58
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About this course:
This is a introductory but fundamental course concerning theory and algorithms for smooth (convex) optimization.
We wil present basic topics in convex sets and convex functions, (convex) optimization problems, optimality conditions (Fritz-John, KKT), algorithms (gradient, Newton, interior point) and convergence analysis results. We shall also introduce some Machine Learing models (Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Neural Networks) and will present the Back-Propagation algorithm.
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Detailed course description:
- Brief summary of Linear Algebra concepts (vectors, planes, vector and matrix norms).
- Brief summary of functions of several variables (gradient, Hessian, level sets).
- Convex sets (definition and examples), operations on convex sets that preserve convexity.
- Convex functions (definition, examples), operations on convex functions that preserve convexity.
- Convex optimization problems (definition, examples), optimal points.
- Unconstrained optimization (characterization of optimal solution, gradient method, convergence analysis, Newton method, local convergence analysis).
- Convex optimization with constraints (Farkas Lemma, Fritz John conditions, conditions Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) - examples).
- Duality, Lagrangian, dual function, weak and strong duality – examples of dual problems.
- Convex optimization with affine equality constraints (Newton method, primal-dual).
- General convex optimization problems (barrier function, interior point method, primal-dual).
- Presentation of simple ML models (Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Neural Networks
- Derivation and presentation of the Back-Propagation algorithm.
The Lab part of the course consists of four (4) projects which contain theoretical questions as well as matlab (or octave) code implementing selected optimization algorithms.
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Grading;
- Midterm exam (2/10)
- Course participation (1/10 + Bonus 1/10)
- Final Exam (5/10, success threshold 2.5),
- Projects, with both theretical questions and experiments (2/10, the students must explicitly state which parts of the projects were produced by AI).
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Our main source will be the textbook
S. Boyd and L. Vandenberghe. "Convex Optimization," Cambridge University Press, 2004 (I uploaded the textbook in the "Εγγραφα" section).
See also the video series of recent Boy's lectures
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoROMvodv4rMJqxxviPa4AmDClvcbHi6h
Another excellent source is the book
A. Beck, Introduction to nonlinear optimization (2nd edition), SIAM.