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We survey incremental methods for minimizing a sum $\sum_{i=1}^mf_i(x)$ consisting of a large number of convex component functions $f_i$. Our methods consist of iterations applied to single components, and have proved very effective in…
The best techniques for the constrained maximum-entropy sampling problem, a discrete-optimization problem arising in the design of experiments, are via a variety of concave continuous relaxations of the objective function. A standard…
Detecting hidden convexity is one of the tools to address nonconvex minimization problems. After giving a formal definition of hidden convexity, we introduce the notion of conditional infimum, as it will prove instrumental in detecting…
Locating proximal points is a component of numerous minimization algorithms. This work focuses on developing a method to find the proximal point of a convex function at a point, given an inexact oracle. Our method assumes that exact…
In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing continuous submodular functions that naturally arise in many learning applications such as those involving utility functions in active learning and sensing, matrix approximations and network…
This paper presents an algorithm for approximately minimizing a convex function in simple, not necessarily bounded convex domains, assuming only that function values and subgradients are available. No global information about the objective…
We investigate the convergence properties of exact and inexact forward-backward algorithms to minimise the sum of two weakly convex functions defined on a Hilbert space, where one has a Lipschitz-continuous gradient. We show that the exact…
A parametrized convex function depends on a variable and a parameter, and is convex in the variable for any valid value of the parameter. Such functions can be used to specify parametrized convex optimization problems, i.e., a convex…
In monotone submodular function maximization, approximation guarantees based on the curvature of the objective function have been extensively studied in the literature. However, the notion of curvature is often pessimistic, and we rarely…
In this paper we introduce two conceptual algorithms for minimising abstract convex functions. Both algorithms rely on solving a proximal-type subproblem with an abstract Bregman distance based proximal term. We prove their convergence when…
The continuation method is a popular approach in non-convex optimization and computer vision. The main idea is to start from a simple function that can be minimized efficiently, and gradually transform it to the more complicated original…
We calculate universal finite-size scaling functions for systems with an n-component order parameter and algebraically decaying interactions. Just as previously has been found for short-range interactions, this leads to a singular…
This article addresses structure-preserving smooth approximation of semiconcave functions. semiconcave functions are of particular interest because they naturally arise in a variety of variational problems, including {optimal feedback…
The usual approach to developing and analyzing first-order methods for smooth convex optimization assumes that the gradient of the objective function is uniformly smooth with some Lipschitz constant $L$. However, in many settings the…
We consider scalar equilibrium problems governed by a bifunction in a finite-dimensional framework. By using classical arguments in Convex Analysis, we show that under suitable generalized convexity assumptions imposed on the bifunction,…
Many classical geometric inequalities on functionals of convex bodies depend on the dimension of the ambient space. We show that this dimension dependence may often be replaced (totally or partially) by different symmetry measures of the…
Convex regression is a method for estimating the convex function from a data set. This method has played an important role in operations research, economics, machine learning, and many other areas. However, it has been empirically observed…
The use of separable approximations is proposed to mitigate the curse of dimensionality related to the approximation of high-dimensional value functions in optimal control. The separable approximation exploits intrinsic decaying sensitivity…
The convex hull property is the natural generalization of maximum principles from scalar to vector valued functions. Maximum principles for finite element approximations are often crucial for the preservation of qualitative properties of…
We consider structured optimisation problems defined in terms of the sum of a smooth and convex function, and a proper, l.s.c., convex (typically non-smooth) one in reflexive variable exponent Lebesgue spaces $L_{p(\cdot)}(\Omega)$. Due to…