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In this paper, we present a generic framework to extend existing uniformly optimal convex programming algorithms to solve more general nonlinear, possibly nonconvex, optimization problems. The basic idea is to incorporate a local search…
We study unconstrained optimization problems with nonsmooth and convex objective function in the form of a mathematical expectation. The proposed method approximates the expected objective function with a sample average function using…
We develop a trust-region method for minimizing the sum of a smooth term $f$ and a nonsmooth term $h$), both of which can be nonconvex. Each iteration of our method minimizes a possibly nonconvex model of $f + h$ in a trust region. The…
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…
An algorithm is proposed, analyzed, and tested for minimizing locally Lipschitz objective functions that may be nonconvex and/or nonsmooth. The algorithm, which is built upon the gradient-sampling methodology, is designed specifically for…
This paper deals with convex nonsmooth optimization problems. We introduce a general smooth approximation framework for the original function and apply random (accelerated) coordinate descent methods for minimizing the corresponding smooth…
Superlinear convergence has been an elusive goal for black-box nonsmooth optimization. Even in the convex case, the subgradient method is very slow, and while some cutting plane algorithms, including traditional bundle methods, are popular…
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…
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…
Gradient-based iterative optimization methods are the workhorse of modern machine learning. They crucially rely on careful tuning of parameters like learning rate and momentum. However, one typically sets them using heuristic approaches…
In this paper we first extend the diminishing stepsize method for nonconvex constrained problems presented in [4] to deal with equality constraints and a nonsmooth objective function of composite type. We then consider the particular case…
The choice of the stepsize in first-order convex optimization is typically based on the smoothness constant and plays a crucial role in the performance of algorithms. Recently, there has been a resurgent interest in introducing adaptive…
We study submodular maximization problems with matroid constraints, in particular, problems where the objective can be expressed via compositions of analytic and multilinear functions. We show that for functions of this form, the so-called…
This paper considers non-smooth optimization problems where we seek to minimize the pointwise maximum of a continuously parameterized family of functions. Since the objective function is given as the solution to a maximization problem,…
We study the composite convex optimization problems with a Quasi-Self-Concordant smooth component. This problem class naturally interpolates between classic Self-Concordant functions and functions with Lipschitz continuous Hessian.…
In this paper we analyze several new methods for solving nonconvex optimization problems with the objective function formed as a sum of two terms: one is nonconvex and smooth, and another is convex but simple and its structure is known.…
We consider a broad class of first-order optimization algorithms which are \emph{oblivious}, in the sense that their step sizes are scheduled regardless of the function under consideration, except for limited side-information such as…
Stochastic non-smooth convex optimization constitutes a class of problems in machine learning and operations research. This paper considers minimization of a non-smooth function based on stochastic subgradients. When the function has a…
Selecting an effective step-size is a fundamental challenge in first-order optimization, especially for problems with non-Euclidean geometries. This paper presents a novel adaptive step-size strategy for optimization algorithms that rely on…
We develop new sub-optimality bounds for gradient descent (GD) that depend on the conditioning of the objective along the path of optimization rather than on global, worst-case constants. Key to our proofs is directional smoothness, a…