Related papers: Smooth Optimization Approach for Sparse Covariance…

Sparse inverse covariance selection is a fundamental problem for analyzing dependencies in high dimensional data. However, such a problem is difficult to solve since it is NP-hard. Existing solutions are primarily based on convex…

We present a simple transformation of any linear program or semidefinite program into an equivalent convex optimization problem whose only constraints are linear equations. The objective function is defined on the whole space, making…

In this paper, we consider a broad class of nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems, where one objective component is a nonsmooth weakly convex function composed with a linear operator. By integrating variable smoothing techniques…

We consider the problem of minimizing a sum of several convex non-smooth functions. We introduce a new algorithm called the selective linearization method, which iteratively linearizes all but one of the functions and employs simple…

Accurate signal recovery or image reconstruction from indirect and possibly undersampled data is a topic of considerable interest; for example, the literature in the recent field of compressed sensing is already quite immense. Inspired by…

In this paper we analyze a zeroth-order proximal stochastic gradient method suitable for the minimization of weakly convex stochastic optimization problems. We consider nonsmooth and nonlinear stochastic composite problems, for which…

This paper studies first order methods for solving smooth minimax optimization problems $\min_x \max_y g(x,y)$ where $g(\cdot,\cdot)$ is smooth and $g(x,\cdot)$ is concave for each $x$. In terms of $g(\cdot,y)$, we consider two settings --…

This paper considers a class of constrained convex stochastic composite optimization problems whose objective function is given by the summation of a differentiable convex component, together with a nonsmooth but convex component. The…

Composite convex optimization problems which include both a nonsmooth term and a low-rank promoting term have important applications in machine learning and signal processing, such as when one wishes to recover an unknown matrix that is…

We consider unconstrained minimization of smooth convex functions. We propose a novel variational perspective using forced Euler-Lagrange equation that allows for studying high-resolution ODEs. Through this, we obtain a faster convergence…

We propose smoothed primal-dual algorithms for solving stochastic and smooth nonconvex optimization problems with linear inequality constraints. Our algorithms are single-loop and only require a single stochastic gradient based on one…

In this paper, we investigate the problem of stochastic multi-level compositional optimization, where the objective function is a composition of multiple smooth but possibly non-convex functions. Existing methods for solving this problem…

Given a sample covariance matrix, we solve a maximum likelihood problem penalized by the number of nonzero coefficients in the inverse covariance matrix. Our objective is to find a sparse representation of the sample data and to highlight…

We study the problem of sampling from a target distribution in $\mathbb{R}^d$ whose potential is not smooth. Compared with the sampling problem with smooth potentials, this problem is much less well-understood due to the lack of smoothness.…

This paper is devoted to some approaches for convex min-min problems with smoothness and strong convexity in only one of the two variable groups. It is shown that the proposed approaches, based on Vaidya's cutting plane method and…

We consider the fundamental problem in non-convex optimization of efficiently reaching a stationary point. In contrast to the convex case, in the long history of this basic problem, the only known theoretical results on first-order…

We present a practical implementation of an optimal first-order method, due to Nesterov, for large-scale total variation regularization in tomographic reconstruction, image deblurring, etc. The algorithm applies to $\mu$-strongly convex…

We consider the sparse optimization problem with nonlinear constraints and an objective function, which is given by the sum of a general smooth mapping and an additional term defined by the $ \ell_0 $-quasi-norm. This term is used to obtain…

We develop a novel framework to study smooth and strongly convex optimization algorithms, both deterministic and stochastic. Focusing on quadratic functions we are able to examine optimization algorithms as a recursive application of linear…

We formulate an affine invariant implementation of the accelerated first-order algorithm in Nesterov (1983). Its complexity bound is proportional to an affine invariant regularity constant defined with respect to the Minkowski gauge of the…