exchanging operators in max-max function

897 Views Asked by At

I am trying to determine if the following holds.

$\max_{i\in I}\max_{a_j \in P_j}\{\sum_j a_{ij}x_j - b_i\}=\max_{a_j \in P_j}\max_{i\in I}\{\sum_j a_{ij}x_j - b_i\}$

$P_j$ is a closed convex set, $I$ is an index set (finite), $b_i$ is a known parameter, and $x_j$ is a nonnegative variable. Also, I define $a_j=(a_{1j},a_{2j},...,a_{mj})$ i.e. the column vectors of $A$.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

This holds independently of the details of the function being maximized. Just like quantifiers of the same type commute, extremizations of the same type commute, and for the same reason: they can be combined into a single quantifier/extremization, which in this case would be

$$ \max_{i\in I,a_j\in P_j}\left\{\sum_ja_{ij}x_j-b_i\right\}\;. $$