Related papers: On Zeroth-Order Stochastic Convex Optimization via…
In this paper, we consider constrained optimization problems with convex, smooth objective and constraints. We propose a new stochastic gradient algorithm, called the Stochastic Moving Ball Approximation (SMBA) method, to solve this class…
We analyze stochastic algorithms for optimizing nonconvex, nonsmooth finite-sum problems, where the nonconvex part is smooth and the nonsmooth part is convex. Surprisingly, unlike the smooth case, our knowledge of this fundamental problem…
We consider unconstrained randomized optimization of convex objective functions. We analyze the Random Pursuit algorithm, which iteratively computes an approximate solution to the optimization problem by repeated optimization over a…
In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…
This work provides the first convergence analysis for the Randomized Block Coordinate Descent method for minimizing a function that is both H\"older smooth and block H\"older smooth. Our analysis applies to objective functions that are…
In this paper, we study a class of stochastic bilevel optimization problems, also known as stochastic simple bilevel optimization, where we minimize a smooth stochastic objective function over the optimal solution set of another stochastic…
In this paper we study stochastic quasi-Newton methods for nonconvex stochastic optimization, where we assume that noisy information about the gradients of the objective function is available via a stochastic first-order oracle (SFO). We…
We propose stochastic optimization algorithms that can find local minima faster than existing algorithms for nonconvex optimization problems, by exploiting the third-order smoothness to escape non-degenerate saddle points more efficiently.…
Zeroth-order optimization, which does not use derivative information, is one of the significant research areas in the field of mathematical optimization and machine learning. Although various studies have explored zeroth-order algorithms,…
We present two easy-to-implement gradient-free/zeroth-order methods to optimize a stochastic non-smooth function accessible only via a black-box. The methods are built upon efficient first-order methods in the heavy-tailed case, i.e., when…
We analyze convergence rates of stochastic optimization procedures for non-smooth convex optimization problems. By combining randomized smoothing techniques with accelerated gradient methods, we obtain convergence rates of stochastic…
An algorithm for unconstrained non-convex optimization is described, which does not evaluate the objective function and in which minimization is carried out, at each iteration, within a randomly selected subspace. It is shown that this…
We study a standard distributed optimization framework where $N$ networked nodes collaboratively minimize the sum of their local convex costs. The main body of existing work considers the described problem when the underling network is…
In this paper, we design and analyze a new family of adaptive subgradient methods for solving an important class of weakly convex (possibly nonsmooth) stochastic optimization problems. Adaptive methods that use exponential moving averages…
The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…
In this paper, we propose a multilevel stochastic framework for the solution of nonconvex unconstrained optimization problems. The proposed approach uses random regularized first-order models that exploit an available hierarchical…
This paper investigates the stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem of minimizing a global cost function formed by the summation of $n$ local cost functions. We solve such a problem by involving zeroth-order (ZO) information…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization with ordinal feedback has emerged as a fundamental problem in modern machine learning systems, particularly in human-in-the-loop settings such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference…
In this paper, we study zeroth-order algorithms for minimax optimization problems that are nonconvex in one variable and strongly-concave in the other variable. Such minimax optimization problems have attracted significant attention lately…
We consider the problem of asynchronous stochastic optimization, where an optimization algorithm makes updates based on stale stochastic gradients of the objective that are subject to an arbitrary (possibly adversarial) sequence of delays.…