On the Finite Number of Directional Stationary Values of Piecewise Programs

Abstract

Extending a fundamental result for (indefinite) quadratic programs, this paper shows that certain non-convex piecewise programs have only a finite number of directional stationary values, and thus, possess only finitely many locally minimum values. We present various special cases of our main results, in particular, an application to a least-squares piecewise affine regression problem for which every directional stationary point is locally minimizing.