#!/usr/bin/env python # coding: utf-8 # # Quadratic program # A quadratic program is an optimization problem with a quadratic objective and affine equality and inequality constraints. A common standard form is the following: # $$ # \begin{array}{ll} # \mbox{minimize} & (1/2)x^TPx + q^Tx\\ # \mbox{subject to} & Gx \leq h \\ # & Ax = b. # \end{array} # $$ # Here $P \in \mathcal{S}^{n}_+$, $q \in \mathcal{R}^n$, $G \in \mathcal{R}^{m \times n}$, $h \in \mathcal{R}^m$, $A \in \mathcal{R}^{p \times n}$, and $b \in \mathcal{R}^p$ are problem data and $x \in \mathcal{R}^{n}$ is the optimization variable. The inequality constraint $Gx \leq h$ is elementwise. # # A simple example of a quadratic program arises in finance. Suppose we have $n$ different stocks, an estimate $r \in \mathcal{R}^n$ of the expected return on each stock, and an estimate $\Sigma \in \mathcal{S}^{n}_+$ of the covariance of the returns. Then we solve the optimization problem # $$ # \begin{array}{ll} # \mbox{minimize} & (1/2)x^T\Sigma x - r^Tx\\ # \mbox{subject to} & x \geq 0 \\ # & \mathbf{1}^Tx = 1, # \end{array} # $$ # to find a nonnegative portfolio allocation $x \in \mathcal{R}^n_+$ that optimally balances expected return and variance of return. # # When we solve a quadratic program, in addition to a solution $x^\star$, we obtain a dual solution $\lambda^\star$ corresponding to the inequality constraints. A positive entry $\lambda^\star_i$ indicates that the constraint $g_i^Tx \leq h_i$ holds with equality for $x^\star$ and suggests that changing $h_i$ would change the optimal value. # ## Example # In the following code, we solve a quadratic program with CVXPY. # In[5]: # Import packages. import cvxpy as cp import numpy as np # Generate a random non-trivial quadratic program. m = 15 n = 10 p = 5 np.random.seed(1) P = np.random.randn(n, n) P = P.T@P q = np.random.randn(n) G = np.random.randn(m, n) h = G@np.random.randn(n) A = np.random.randn(p, n) b = np.random.randn(p) # Define and solve the CVXPY problem. x = cp.Variable(n) prob = cp.Problem(cp.Minimize((1/2)*cp.quad_form(x, P) + q.T@x), [G@x <= h, A@x == b]) prob.solve() # Print result. print("\nThe optimal value is", prob.value) print("A solution x is") print(x.value) print("A dual solution corresponding to the inequality constraints is") print(prob.constraints[0].dual_value)