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Gradient Boosting Decision Trees (GBDTs) dominate tabular machine learning, with modern implementations like XGBoost, LightGBM, and CatBoost being based on Newton boosting: a second-order descent step in the space of decision trees. Despite…

We provide new gradient-based methods for efficiently solving a broad class of ill-conditioned optimization problems. We consider the problem of minimizing a function $f : \mathbb{R}^d \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ which is implicitly…

We analyze the convergence of a nonlocal gradient descent method for minimizing a class of high-dimensional non-convex functions, where a directional Gaussian smoothing (DGS) is proposed to define the nonlocal gradient (also referred to as…

Gradient descent methods are fundamental first-order optimization algorithms in both Euclidean spaces and Riemannian manifolds. However, the exact gradient is not readily available in many scenarios. This paper proposes a novel inexact…

This paper introduces a coordinate descent version of the V\~u-Condat algorithm. By coordinate descent, we mean that only a subset of the coordinates of the primal and dual iterates is updated at each iteration, the other coordinates being…

We propose a simple, scalable, and fast gradient descent algorithm to optimize a nonconvex objective for the rank minimization problem and a closely related family of semidefinite programs. With $O(r^3 \kappa^2 n \log n)$ random…

We study finite-sum nonconvex optimization problems, where the objective function is an average of $n$ nonconvex functions. We propose a new stochastic gradient descent algorithm based on nested variance reduction. Compared with…

In this paper, we develop new first-order method for composite non-convex minimization problems with simple constraints and inexact oracle. The objective function is given as a sum of "`hard"', possibly non-convex part, and "`simple"'…

Gradient descent and its variants are widely used in machine learning. However, oracle access of gradient may not be available in many applications, limiting the direct use of gradient descent. This paper proposes a method of estimating…

We analyze the behavior of randomized coordinate gradient descent for nonconvex optimization, proving that under standard assumptions, the iterates almost surely escape strict saddle points. By formulating the method as a nonlinear random…

We study stochastic second-order methods for solving general non-convex optimization problems. We propose using a special version of momentum to stabilize the stochastic gradient and Hessian estimates in Newton's method. We show that…

This paper presents an algorithmic framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems using only stochastic function evaluations. We employ central finite-difference based gradient estimation methods to approximate the…

In this paper, we give a sharp analysis for Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and prove that SGD is able to efficiently escape from saddle points and find an $(\epsilon, O(\epsilon^{0.5}))$-approximate second-order stationary point in…

We present two approximate versions of the proximal subgradient method for minimizing the sum of two convex functions (not necessarily differentiable). The algorithms involve, at each iteration, inexact evaluations of the proximal operator…

Coordinate descent methods have considerable impact in global optimization because global (or, at least, almost global) minimization is affordable for low-dimensional problems. Coordinate descent methods with high-order regularized models…

The stochastic gradient descent has been widely used for solving composite optimization problems in big data analyses. Many algorithms and convergence properties have been developed. The composite functions were convex primarily and…

We analyze convergence of gradient-descent methods on Riemannian manifolds. In particular, we study randomization of Riemannian gradient algorithms for minimizing smooth cost functions (of Morse-Bott type). We prove that randomized gradient…

In this paper, we study the convergence properties of the Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) method for finding a stationary point of a given objective function $J(\cdot)$. The objective function is not required to be convex. Rather, our…

This paper presents active-set methods for minimizing nonconvex twice-continuously differentiable functions subject to bound constraints. Within the faces of the feasible set, we employ descent methods with Armijo line search, utilizing…

We analyze stochastic gradient algorithms for optimizing nonconvex problems. In particular, our goal is to find local minima (second-order stationary points) instead of just finding first-order stationary points which may be some bad…