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Optimization of frame structures is formulated as a~non-convex optimization problem, which is currently solved to local optimality. In this contribution, we investigate four optimization approaches: (i) general non-linear optimization, (ii)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-09-17 Marek Tyburec , Jan Zeman , Martin Kružík , Didier Henrion

For strongly convex objectives that are smooth, the classical theory of gradient descent ensures linear convergence relative to the number of gradient evaluations. An analogous nonsmooth theory is challenging. Even when the objective is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-19 X. Y. Han , Adrian S. Lewis

Nonconvex-nonconcave minimax problems have found numerous applications in various fields including machine learning. However, questions remain about what is a good surrogate for local minimax optimum and how to characterize the minimax…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-03 Xiaoxiao Ma , Wei Yao , Jane J. Ye , Jin Zhang

We study a class of zeroth-order distributed optimization problems, where each agent can control a partial vector and observe a local cost that depends on the joint vector of all agents, and the agents can communicate with each other with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-09 Xinran Zheng , Tara Javidi , Behrouz Touri

We develop a novel and single-loop variance-reduced algorithm to solve a class of stochastic nonconvex-convex minimax problems involving a nonconvex-linear objective function, which has various applications in different fields such as…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-10-27 Quoc Tran-Dinh , Deyi Liu , Lam M. Nguyen

In this work, we present a globalized stochastic semismooth Newton method for solving stochastic optimization problems involving smooth nonconvex and nonsmooth convex terms in the objective function. We assume that only noisy gradient and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-03-12 Andre Milzarek , Xiantao Xiao , Shicong Cen , Zaiwen Wen , Michael Ulbrich

Smooth minimax optimization problems play a central role in a wide range of applications, including machine learning, game theory, and operations research. However, existing algorithmic frameworks vary significantly depending on the problem…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-10 Taoli Zheng , Anthony Man-Cho So , Jiajin Li

We propose and analyze several inexact regularized Newton-type methods for finding a global saddle point of convex-concave unconstrained min-max optimization problems. Compared to first-order methods, our understanding of second-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-27 Tianyi Lin , Panayotis Mertikopoulos , Michael I. Jordan

We initiate the study of nonsmooth optimization problems under bounded local subgradient variation, which postulates bounded difference between (sub)gradients in small local regions around points, in either average or maximum sense. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-05 Jelena Diakonikolas , Cristóbal Guzmán

We consider several classes of highly important semidefinite optimization problems that involve both a convex objective function (smooth or nonsmooth) and additional linear or nonlinear smooth and convex constraints, which are ubiquitous in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-08 Dan Garber , Atara Kaplan

Optimization problems with composite functions consist of an objective function which is the sum of a smooth and a (convex) nonsmooth term. This particular structure is exploited by the class of proximal gradient methods and some of their…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-17 Christian Kanzow , Theresa Lechner

While the optimization problem behind deep neural networks is highly non-convex, it is frequently observed in practice that training deep networks seems possible without getting stuck in suboptimal points. It has been argued that this is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-14 Quynh Nguyen , Matthias Hein

Min-max optimization problems involving nonconvex-nonconcave objectives have found important applications in adversarial training and other multi-agent learning settings. Yet, no known gradient descent-based method is guaranteed to converge…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-19 Constantinos Daskalakis , Noah Golowich , Stratis Skoulakis , Manolis Zampetakis

We study the optimization of non-convex functions that are not necessarily smooth (gradient and/or Hessian are Lipschitz) using first order methods. Smoothness is a restrictive assumption in machine learning in both theory and practice,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-27 Daniel Yiming Cao , August Y. Chen , Karthik Sridharan , Benjamin Tang

Approximations of optimization problems arise in computational procedures and sensitivity analysis. The resulting effect on solutions can be significant, with even small approximations of components of a problem translating into large…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-10 Johannes O. Royset

A vast majority of machine learning algorithms train their models and perform inference by solving optimization problems. In order to capture the learning and prediction problems accurately, structural constraints such as sparsity or low…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-12-22 Prateek Jain , Purushottam Kar

We propose an adaptive accelerated smoothing technique for a nonsmooth convex optimization problem where the smoothing update rule is coupled with the momentum parameter. We also extend the setting to the case where the objective function…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Reza Rahimi Baghbadorani , Sergio Grammatico , Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani

This paper presents a novel convex optimization-based method for finding the globally optimal solutions of a class of mixed-integer non-convex optimal control problems. We consider problems with non-convex constraints that restrict the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-21 Danylo Malyuta , Behcet Acikmese

Multidimensional optimization problems where the objective function and the constraints are multiextremal non-differentiable Lipschitz functions (with unknown Lipschitz constants) and the feasible region is a finite collection of robust…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-03-19 Yaroslav D. Sergeyev , Paolo Pugliese , Domenico Famularo

The paper is devoted to deriving novel second-order necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for local minimizers in rather general classes of nonsmooth unconstrained and constrained optimization problems in finite-dimensional spaces.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-07 Pham Duy Khanh , Vu Vinh Huy Khoa , Boris S. Mordukhovich , Vo Thanh Phat