Related papers: Provable Submodular Minimization using Wolfe's Alg…
We introduce the \emph{submodular objectives chasing problem}, which generalizes many natural and previously-studied problems: a sequence of constrained submodular maximization problems is revealed over time, with both the objective and…
We propose a novel Stochastic Frank-Wolfe (a.k.a. conditional gradient) algorithm for constrained smooth finite-sum minimization with a generalized linear prediction/structure. This class of problems includes empirical risk minimization…
We consider the classic scheduling problem of minimizing the total weighted flow-time on a single machine (min-WPFT), when preemption is allowed. In this problem, we are given a set of $n$ jobs, each job having a release time $r_j$, a…
We consider the problem of minimizing a smooth and convex function over the $n$-dimensional spectrahedron -- the set of real symmetric $n\times n$ positive semidefinite matrices with unit trace, which underlies numerous applications in…
The Frank-Wolfe algorithm, a very first optimization method and also known as the conditional gradient method, was introduced by Frank and Wolfe in 1956. Due to its simple linear subproblems, the Frank-Wolfe algorithm has recently been…
As a projection-free algorithm, Frank-Wolfe (FW) method, also known as conditional gradient, has recently received considerable attention in the machine learning community. In this dissertation, we study several topics on the FW variants…
The problem of maximizing a non-negative submodular function was introduced by Feige, Mirrokni, and Vondrak [FOCS'07] who provided a deterministic local-search based algorithm that guarantees an approximation ratio of $\frac 1 3$, as well…
We consider the global minimization of smooth functions based solely on function evaluations. Algorithms that achieve the optimal number of function evaluations for a given precision level typically rely on explicitly constructing an…
The Frank-Wolfe (FW) method is a popular approach for solving optimization problems with structured constraints that arise in machine learning applications. In recent years, stochastic versions of FW have gained popularity, motivated by…
We develop new accelerated first-order algorithms in the Frank-Wolfe (FW) family for minimizing smooth convex functions over compact convex sets, with a focus on two prominent constraint classes: (1) polytopes and (2) matrix domains given…
In Bayesian inference, the posterior distributions are difficult to obtain analytically for complex models such as neural networks. Variational inference usually uses a parametric distribution for approximation, from which we can easily…
The Frank-Wolfe (FW) method is a popular algorithm for solving large-scale convex optimization problems appearing in structured statistical learning. However, the traditional Frank-Wolfe method can only be applied when the feasible region…
We design a sublinear-time approximation algorithm for quadratic function minimization problems with a better error bound than the previous algorithm by Hayashi and Yoshida (NIPS'16). Our approximation algorithm can be modified to handle…
In this paper, we consider non-convex optimization problems under \textit{unknown} yet safety-critical constraints. Such problems naturally arise in a variety of domains including robotics, manufacturing, and medical procedures, where it is…
Submodular functions are discrete analogs of convex functions, which have applications in various fields, including machine learning and computer vision. However, in large-scale applications, solving Submodular Function Minimization (SFM)…
The Frank-Wolfe (FW) method, which implements efficient linear oracles that minimize linear approximations of the objective function over a fixed compact convex set, has recently received much attention in the optimization and machine…
Submodular optimization finds applications in machine learning and data mining. In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing functions of the form $h = f-c$, where $f$ is a monotone, non-negative, weakly submodular set function and $c$…
Stochastic compositional optimization minimizes objectives of the form $\min_{\bm{x} \in \mathcal{X}} F(\bm{f}(\bm{x}), \bm{x})$, where $\bm{f}$ is accessible only through noisy stochastic queries. Existing methods for this problem assume…
We introduce several generalizations of classical computer science problems obtained by replacing simpler objective functions with general submodular functions. The new problems include submodular load balancing, which generalizes load…
Submodular functions have found a wealth of new applications in data science and machine learning models in recent years. This has been coupled with many algorithmic advances in the area of submodular optimization: (SO) $\min/\max~f(S): S…