How to initialize an algorithm to solve an optimization problem is of great theoretical and practical importance. In the simplex method for linear programming this issue is resolved by either the two-phase approach or using the so-called big M technique. In the interior point method, there is a...

This paper considers the problem of minimizing a linear function over the intersection of an affine space with a closed convex cone. In the first half of the paper, we give a detailed study of duality properties of this problem and present examples to illustrate these properties. In particular,...