You are here: MIMS > EPrints
MIMS EPrints

## 2006.167: Optimization by direct search in matrix computations

2006.167: Nicholas J. Higham (1993) Optimization by direct search in matrix computations. SIAM Journal On Matrix Analysis And Applications, 14 (2). pp. 317-333. ISSN 1095-7162

Full text available as:

 PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader2172 Kb

## Abstract

A direct search method attempts to maximize a function $f :{\bf R}^n \to {\bf R}$ using function values only. Many questions about the stability and accuracy of algorithms in matrix computations can be expressed in terms of the maximum value of some easily computable function $f$. For a variety of algorithms it is shown that direct search is capable of revealing instability or poor performance, even when such failure is difficult to discover using theoretical analysis or numerical tests with random or nonrandom data. Informative numerical examples generated by direct search provide the impetus for further analysis and improvement of an algorithm. The direct search methods used are the method of alternating directions and the multi-directional search method of Dennis and Torczon. The problems examined include the reliability of matrix condition number estimators and the stability of Strassen’s fast matrix inversion method.

Item Type: Article optimization, matrix computations, direct search method, numerical stability, Gaussian elimination, matrix condition number estimation, fast matrix multiplication, Vandermonde system, matrix inverse MSC 2000 > 15 Linear and multilinear algebra; matrix theoryMSC 2000 > 65 Numerical analysis 2006.167 Miss Louise Stait 03 July 2006