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Related papers: Virtuous smoothing for global optimization

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We study the problem of global maximization of a function f given a finite number of evaluations perturbed by noise. We consider a very weak assumption on the function, namely that it is locally smooth (in some precise sense) with respect…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Michal Valko , Alexandra Carpentier , Rémi Munos

This paper presents a novel algorithm integrating global and robust optimization methods to solve continuous non-convex quadratic problems under convex uncertainty sets. The proposed Robust spatial branch-and-bound (RsBB) algorithm combines…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Asimina Marousi , Vassilis M. Charitopoulos

We develop efficient algorithms for optimizing piecewise smooth (PWS) functions where the underlying partition of the domain into smooth pieces is \emph{unknown}. For PWS functions satisfying a quadratic growth (QG) condition, we propose a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-28 Zhe Zhang , Suvrit Sra

We study the set of continuous functions that admit no spurious local optima (i.e. local minima that are not global minima) which we term \textit{global functions}. They satisfy various powerful properties for analyzing nonconvex and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-17 Cedric Josz , Yi Ouyang , Richard Y. Zhang , Javad Lavaei , Somayeh Sojoudi

This note studies numerical methods for solving compositional optimization problems, where the inner function is smooth, and the outer function is Lipschitz continuous, non-smooth, and non-convex but exhibits one of two special structures…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-22 Yao Yao , Qihang Lin , Tianbao Yang

This paper proposes and justifies two globally convergent Newton-type methods to solve unconstrained and constrained problems of nonsmooth optimization by using tools of variational analysis and generalized differentiation. Both methods are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-27 Pham Duy Khanh , Boris Mordukhovich , Vo Thanh Phat , Dat Ba Tran

We develop new adaptive algorithms for variational inequalities with monotone operators, which capture many problems of interest, notably convex optimization and convex-concave saddle point problems. Our algorithms automatically adapt to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-30 Alina Ene , Huy L. Nguyen

Quadratic constrained quadratic programming problems often occur in various fields such as engineering practice, management science, and network communication. This article mainly studies a non convex quadratic programming problem with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-12-29 Bo Zhang , YueLin Gao , Xia Liu , XiaoLi Huang

In this work, we present new simple and optimal algorithms for solving the variational inequality (VI) problem for $p^{th}$-order smooth, monotone operators -- a problem that generalizes convex optimization and saddle-point problems. Recent…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-01 Deeksha Adil , Brian Bullins , Arun Jambulapati , Sushant Sachdeva

We prove lower bounds for the error of optimal cubature formulae for $d$-variate functions from Besov spaces of mixed smoothness $B^{\alpha}_{p,\theta}({\mathbb G}^d)$ in the case $0 < p, \theta \le \infty$ and $\alpha > 1/p$, where…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2014-01-30 Dinh Dũng , Tino Ullrich

Smoothing methods have become part of the standard tool set for the study and solution of nondifferentiable and constrained optimization problems as well as a range of other variational and equilibrium problems. In this note we synthesize…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-09-03 James V. Burke , Tim Hoheisel

Bilevel programming has recently received a great deal of attention due to its abundant applications in many areas. The optimal value function approach provides a useful reformulation of the bilevel problem, but its utility is often limited…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-10 Jan Harold Alcantara , Akiko Takeda

We extend the standard notion of self-concordance to non-convex optimization and develop a family of second-order algorithms with global convergence guarantees. In particular, two function classes -- \textit{weakly self-concordant}…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-07 Donald Goldfarb , Lexiao Lai , Tianyi Lin , Jiayu Zhang

We develop algorithms for the optimization of convex objectives that have H\"older continuous $q$-th derivatives by using a $q$-th order oracle, for any $q \geq 1$. Our algorithms work for general norms under mild conditions, including the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-07 Juan Pablo Contreras , Cristóbal Guzmán , David Martínez-Rubio

Randomized smoothing is a widely adopted technique for optimizing nonsmooth objective functions. However, its efficiency analysis typically relies on global Lipschitz continuity, a condition rarely met in practical applications. To address…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-10 Jingfan Xia , Zhenwei Lin , Qi Deng

Standard complexity analyses for weakly convex optimization rely on the Moreau envelope technique proposed by Davis and Drusvyatskiy (2019). The main insight is that nonsmooth algorithms, such as proximal subgradient, proximal point, and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-27 Qi Deng , Wenzhi Gao

Randomized smoothing is currently the state-of-the-art method that provides certified robustness for deep neural networks. However, due to its excessively conservative nature, this method of incomplete verification often cannot achieve an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-29 Bo-Han Kung , Shang-Tse Chen

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

We aim to solve a structured convex optimization problem, where a nonsmooth function is composed with a linear operator. When opting for full splitting schemes, usually, primal-dual type methods are employed as they are effective and also…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-17 Radu Ioan Bot , Axel Böhm

Various optimal gradient-based algorithms have been developed for smooth nonconvex optimization. However, many nonconvex machine learning problems do not belong to the class of smooth functions and therefore the existing algorithms are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-27 Ziyi Chen , Yi Zhou , Yingbin Liang , Zhaosong Lu