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Block coordinate update (BCU) methods enjoy low per-update computational complexity because every time only one or a few block variables would need to be updated among possibly a large number of blocks. They are also easily parallelized and thus have been particularly popular for solving problems involving large-scale dataset and/or variables. In this paper, we propose a primaldual BCU method for solving linearly constrained convex program with multi-block variables. The method is an accelerated version of a primaldual algorithm proposed by the authors, which applies randomization in selecting block variables to update and establishes an <i>O</i>(1/<i>t</i>) convergence rate under convexity assumption. We show that the rate can be accelerated to O ( 1 / t 2 ) if the objective is strongly convex. In addition, if one block variable is independent of the others in the objective, we then show that the algorithm can

We propose an algorithm for the state feedback pole assignment problem. The algorithm is the first of its kind, making use of the Schur form and minimizing the departure from normality of the closed-loop poles by Newtons method. Eleven illustrative examples, comparing our algorithm with three other existing ones, are given.

Recent several years have witnessed the surge of asynchronous (async-) parallel computing methods due to the extremely big data involved in many modern applications and also the advancement of multi-core machines and computer clusters. In optimization, most works about async-parallel methods are on unconstrained problems or those with block separable constraints. In this paper, we propose an async-parallel method based on block coordinate update (BCU) for solving convex problems with <i>nonseparable</i> linear constraint. Running on a single node, the method becomes a novel randomized primaldual BCU for multi-block affinely constrained problems. For these problems, GaussSeidel cyclic primaldual BCU is not guaranteed to converge to an optimal solution if no additional assumptions, such as strong convexity, are made. On the contrary, assuming convexity and existence of a primaldual

We discuss a variant of the multi-task <i>n</i>-vehicle exploration problem. Instead of requiring an optimal permutation of vehicles in every group, the new problem requires all vehicles in a group to arrive at the same destination. Given <i>n</i> tasks with assigned consume-time and profit, it may also be viewed as a maximization of every processors average profit. Further, we propose a new kind of partition problem in fractional form and analyze its computational complexity. By regarding fractional partition as a special case, we prove that the average profit maximization problem is NP-hard when the number of processors is fixed and it is strongly NPhard in general. At last, a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for the average profit maximization problem and the fractional partition problem is presented, using the idea of the pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for the classical partition problem.