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The minimization of convex functions which are only available through partial and noisy information is a key methodological problem in many disciplines. In this paper we consider convex optimization with noisy zero-th order information,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-05-27 Francis Bach , Vianney Perchet

We propose a new framework for analyzing zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) from the perspective of \emph{oblivious randomized sketching}.In this framework, commonly used gradient estimators in ZOO-such as finite difference (FD) and random…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-14 Haishan Ye , Xiangyu Chang , Xi Chen

Submodular functions have applications throughout machine learning, but in many settings, we do not have direct access to the underlying function $f$. We focus on stochastic functions that are given as an expectation of functions over a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-06-07 Matthew Staib , Bryan Wilder , Stefanie Jegelka

We consider the nonsmooth convex composition optimization problem where the objective is a composition of two finite-sum functions and analyze stochastic compositional variance reduced gradient (SCVRG) methods for them. SCVRG and its…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-08-01 Tianyi Lin , Chenyou Fan , Mengdi Wang

This paper is devoted to the analysis of worst case complexity bounds for linesearch-type derivative-free algorithms for the minimization of general non-convex smooth functions. We prove that two linesearch-type algorithms enjoy the same…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-13 Andrea Brilli , Morteza Kimiaei , Giampaolo Liuzzi , Stefano Lucidi

In stochastic convex optimization problems, most existing adaptive methods rely on prior knowledge about the diameter bound $D$ when the smoothness or the Lipschitz constant is unknown. This often significantly affects performance as only a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-08 Clément Lezane , Alexandre d'Aspremont

We consider optimal transport based distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems with locally strongly convex transport cost functions and affine decision rules. Under conventional convexity assumptions on the underlying loss…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-04-27 Jose Blanchet , Karthyek Murthy , Fan Zhang

This paper considers stochastic convex optimization problems where the objective and constraint functions involve expectations with respect to the data indices or environmental variables, in addition to deterministic convex constraints on…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-07-21 Zeeshan Akhtar , Amrit Singh Bedi , Ketan Rajawat

We address the problem of zero-order optimization from noisy observations for an objective function satisfying the Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz or the strong convexity condition. Additionally, we assume that the objective function has an additive…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-09-03 Arya Akhavan , Alexandre B. Tsybakov

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.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-06-25 A. Patrascu , I. Necoara

We consider minimization of composite functions of the form $f(g(x))+h(x)$, where $f$ and $h$ are convex functions (which can be nonsmooth) and $g$ is a smooth vector mapping. In addition, we assume that $g$ is the average of finite number…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-17 Junyu Zhang , Lin Xiao

We propose a projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions and the constraint set is a closed convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-11 Tesi Xiao , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), which derives reward signals directly from pairwise preference data, has shown its effectiveness on aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences. Despite its widespread use across…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-04-09 Duanyu Feng , Bowen Qin , Chen Huang , Zheng Zhang , Wenqiang Lei

In this work we consider unconstrained optimization problems. The objective function is known through a zeroth order stochastic oracle that gives an estimate of the true objective function. To solve these problems, we propose a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-04 Alberto De Santis , Giampaolo Liuzzi , Stefano Lucidi

This article deals with the computation of guaranteed lower bounds of the error in the framework of finite element (FE) and domain decomposition (DD) methods. In addition to a fully parallel computation, the proposed lower bounds separate…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2016-06-22 Valentine Rey , Pierre Gosselet , Christian Rey

In this paper, we consider derivative free optimization problems, where the objective function is smooth but is computed with some amount of noise, the function evaluations are expensive and no derivative information is available. We are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-05 Albert S Berahas , Liyuan Cao , Krzysztof Choromanski , Katya Scheinberg

In this paper, we will provide an introduction to the derivative-free optimization algorithms which can be potentially applied to train deep learning models. Existing deep learning model training is mostly based on the back propagation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-04-23 Jiawei Zhang

Superiorization reduces, not necessarily minimizes, the value of a target function while seeking constraints-compatibility. This is done by taking a solely feasibility-seeking algorithm, analyzing its perturbations resilience, and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-04-03 Yair Censor , Howard Heaton , Reinhard Schulte

An Adagrad-inspired class of algorithms for smooth unconstrained optimization is presented in which the objective function is never evaluated and yet the gradient norms decrease at least as fast as $\calO(1/\sqrt{k+1})$ while second-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-16 S. Gratton , Ph. L. Toint

Many computer vision problems are formulated as the optimization of a cost function. This approach faces two main challenges: (i) designing a cost function with a local optimum at an acceptable solution, and (ii) developing an efficient…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2019-04-15 Jayakorn Vongkulbhisal , Fernando De la Torre , João P. Costeira