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We consider the problem of global optimization of an unknown non-convex smooth function with zeroth-order feedback. In this setup, an algorithm is allowed to adaptively query the underlying function at different locations and receives noisy…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-03-26 Yining Wang , Sivaraman Balakrishnan , Aarti Singh

In this paper, we study the problem of noisy, convex, zeroth order optimisation of a function $f$ over a bounded convex set $\bar{\mathcal X}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$. Given a budget $n$ of noisy queries to the function $f$ that can be…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-28 Alexandra Carpentier

We study stochastic convex optimization under infinite noise variance. Specifically, when the stochastic gradient is unbiased and has uniformly bounded $(1+\kappa)$-th moment, for some $\kappa \in (0,1]$, we quantify the convergence rate of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-24 Nuri Mert Vural , Lu Yu , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Stanislav Volgushev , Murat A. Erdogdu

We present a novel way of generating Lyapunov functions for proving linear convergence rates of first-order optimization methods. Our approach provably obtains the fastest linear convergence rate that can be verified by a quadratic Lyapunov…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-06-13 Adrien Taylor , Bryan Van Scoy , Laurent Lessard

Machine learning algorithms in high-dimensional settings are highly susceptible to the influence of even a small fraction of structured outliers, making robust optimization techniques essential. In particular, within the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-25 Changyu Gao , Andrew Lowy , Xingyu Zhou , Stephen J. Wright

The paper introduces the first formulation of convex Q-learning for Markov decision processes with function approximation. The algorithms and theory rest on a relaxation of a dual of Manne's celebrated linear programming characterization of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-12 Fan Lu , Sean Meyn

We develop minimax optimal risk bounds for the general learning task consisting in predicting as well as the best function in a reference set $\mathcal{G}$ up to the smallest possible additive term, called the convergence rate. When the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2009-09-09 Jean-Yves Audibert

In this paper, we study the behavior of solutions of the ODE associated to Nesterov acceleration. It is well-known since the pioneering work of Nesterov that the rate of convergence $O(1/t^2)$ is optimal for the class of convex functions…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-09 Jean François Aujol , Charles Dossal , Aude Rondepierre

In this paper we consider stochastic composite convex optimization problems with the objective function satisfying a stochastic bounded gradient condition, with or without a quadratic functional growth property. These models include the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-03-10 Ion Necoara

Motivated by recent increased interest in optimization algorithms for non-convex optimization in application to training deep neural networks and other optimization problems in data analysis, we give an overview of recent theoretical…

Constrained optimization problems where both the objective and constraints may be nonsmooth and nonconvex arise across many learning and data science settings. In this paper, we show for any Lipschitz, weakly convex objectives and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-17 Zhichao Jia , Benjamin Grimmer

We study the smooth minimax optimization problem $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y} f({\bf x},{\bf y})$, where $f$ is $\ell$-smooth, strongly-concave in ${\bf y}$ but possibly nonconvex in ${\bf x}$. Most of existing works focus on finding the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-11-10 Luo Luo , Yujun Li , Cheng Chen

We present a minimax optimal solution to the problem of estimating a compact, convex set from finitely many noisy measurements of its support function. The solution is based on appropriate regularizations of the least squares estimator.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2012-05-31 Adityanand Guntuboyina

We propose dynamic sampled stochastic approximation (SA) methods for stochastic optimization with a heavy-tailed distribution (with finite 2nd moment). The objective is the sum of a smooth convex function with a convex regularizer.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-05-26 Alejandro Jofré , Philip Thompson

Although upper bound guarantees for bilevel optimization have been widely studied, progress on lower bounds has been limited due to the complexity of the bilevel structure. In this work, we focus on the smooth nonconvex-strongly-convex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Kaiyi Ji

The problem of stochastic convex optimization with bandit feedback (in the learning community) or without knowledge of gradients (in the optimization community) has received much attention in recent years, in the form of algorithms and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-04-30 Ohad Shamir

Lower-bound analyses for nonconvex strongly-concave minimax optimization problems have shown that stochastic first-order algorithms require at least $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-4})$ oracle complexity to find an $\varepsilon$-stationary…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-15 Haoyuan Cai , Sulaiman A. Alghunaim , Ali H. Sayed

Despite its important applications in Machine Learning, min-max optimization of nonconvex-nonconcave objectives remains elusive. Not only are there no known first-order methods converging even to approximate local min-max points, but the…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2020-09-22 Constantinos Daskalakis , Stratis Skoulakis , Manolis Zampetakis

First-order methods underpin most large-scale learning algorithms, yet their classical convergence guarantees hinge on carefully scheduled step-sizes that depend on the total horizon $T$, which is rarely known in advance. The Schedule-Free…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-12 Connor Brown

Optimization problems under affine constraints appear in various areas of machine learning. We consider the task of minimizing a smooth strongly convex function F(x) under the affine constraint Kx=b, with an oracle providing evaluations of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-12 Adil Salim , Laurent Condat , Dmitry Kovalev , Peter Richtárik