Related papers: New Computational Guarantees for Solving Convex Op…
Stochastic first-order methods are standard for training large-scale machine learning models. Random behavior may cause a particular run of an algorithm to result in a highly suboptimal objective value, whereas theoretical guarantees are…
Many recent studies on first-order methods (FOMs) focus on \emph{composite non-convex non-smooth} optimization with linear and/or nonlinear function constraints. Upper (or worst-case) complexity bounds have been established for these…
This paper studies the complexity of finding an $\epsilon$-stationary point for stochastic bilevel optimization when the upper-level problem is nonconvex and the lower-level problem is strongly convex. Recent work proposed the first-order…
In recent years, the success of deep learning has inspired many researchers to study the optimization of general smooth non-convex functions. However, recent works have established pessimistic worst-case complexities for this class…
This paper introduces a first-order method for solving optimal powered descent guidance (PDG) problems, that directly handles the nonconvex constraints associated with the maximum and minimum thrust bounds with varying mass and the pointing…
We consider the minimization of submodular functions subject to ordering constraints. We show that this optimization problem can be cast as a convex optimization problem on a space of uni-dimensional measures, with ordering constraints…
The convergence rate of various first-order optimization algorithms is a pivotal concern within the numerical optimization community, as it directly reflects the efficiency of these algorithms across different optimization problems. Our…
This paper provides a theoretical and numerical comparison of classical first-order splitting methods for solving smooth convex optimization problems and cocoercive equations. From a theoretical point of view, we compare convergence rates…
Majorization-minimization algorithms consist of successively minimizing a sequence of upper bounds of the objective function so that along the iterations the objective function decreases. Such a simple principle allows to solve a large…
Invex programs are a special kind of non-convex problems which attain global minima at every stationary point. While classical first-order gradient descent methods can solve them, they converge very slowly. In this paper, we propose new…
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,…
This paper considers stochastic first-order algorithms for convex-concave minimax problems of the form $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y}f(\bf x, \bf y)$, where $f$ can be presented by the average of $n$ individual components which are $L$-average…
Smooth convex minimization over the unit trace-norm ball is an important optimization problem in machine learning, signal processing, statistics and other fields, that underlies many tasks in which one wishes to recover a low-rank matrix…
In this paper, we provide near-optimal accelerated first-order methods for minimizing a broad class of smooth nonconvex functions that are strictly unimodal on all lines through a minimizer. This function class, which we call the class of…
This paper presents a framework to solve constrained optimization problems in an accelerated manner based on High-Order Tuners (HT). Our approach is based on reformulating the original constrained problem as the unconstrained optimization…
Algorithmic reproducibility measures the deviation in outputs of machine learning algorithms upon minor changes in the training process. Previous work suggests that first-order methods would need to trade-off convergence rate (gradient…
In this paper, we study the problem of \textit{constrained} and \textit{stochastic} continuous submodular maximization. Even though the objective function is not concave (nor convex) and is defined in terms of an expectation, we develop a…
Many fundamental problems in machine learning can be formulated by the convex program \[ \min_{\theta\in R^d}\ \sum_{i=1}^{n}f_{i}(\theta), \] where each $f_i$ is a convex, Lipschitz function supported on a subset of $d_i$ coordinates of…
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…
This article presents a new method for computing guaranteed convex and concave relaxations of nonlinear stochastic optimal control problems with final-time expected-value cost functions. This method is motivated by similar methods for…