Related papers: A Generic Approach for Escaping Saddle points

In this paper, we propose a multilevel stochastic framework for the solution of nonconvex unconstrained optimization problems. The proposed approach uses random regularized first-order models that exploit an available hierarchical…

This paper presents a novel method for reformulating non-differentiable collision avoidance constraints into smooth nonlinear constraints using strong duality of convex optimization. We focus on a controlled object whose goal is to avoid…

We propose a modified primal-dual method for general convex optimization problems with changing constraints. We obtain properties of Lagrangian saddle points for these problems which enable us to establish convergence of the proposed…

The aim of this paper is to design an efficient multigrid method for constrained convex optimization problems arising from discretization of some underlying infinite dimensional problems. Due to problem dependency of this approach, we only…

We propose a family of optimization methods that achieve linear convergence using first-order gradient information and constant step sizes on a class of convex functions much larger than the smooth and strongly convex ones. This larger…

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…

The proliferation of saddle points, rather than poor local minima, is increasingly understood to be a primary obstacle in large-scale non-convex optimization for machine learning. Variable elimination algorithms, like Variable Projection…

Matrix sensing problems exhibit pervasive non-convexity, plaguing optimization with a proliferation of suboptimal spurious solutions. Avoiding convergence to these critical points poses a major challenge. This work provides new theoretical…

In this paper we consider solving saddle point problems using two variants of Gradient Descent-Ascent algorithms, Extra-gradient (EG) and Optimistic Gradient Descent Ascent (OGDA) methods. We show that both of these algorithms admit a…

We present a scheme improving the minimum-mode following method for finding first order saddle points by confining the displacements of atoms to the subset of those subject to the largest force. By doing so it is ensured that the…

When the nonconvex problem is complicated by stochasticity, the sample complexity of stochastic first-order methods may depend linearly on the problem dimension, which is undesirable for large-scale problems. To alleviate this linear…

We propose an iterative algorithm for low-rank matrix completion that can be interpreted as both an iteratively reweighted least squares (IRLS) algorithm and a saddle-escaping smoothing Newton method applied to a non-convex rank surrogate…

A variant of consensus based distributed gradient descent (\textbf{DGD}) is studied for finite sums of smooth but possibly non-convex functions. In particular, the local gradient term in the fixed step-size iteration of each agent is…

In this paper, we study a class of stochastic and finite-sum convex optimization problems with deterministic constraints. Existing methods typically aim to find an $\epsilon$-$expectedly\ feasible\ stochastic\ optimal$ solution, in which…

We present a primal-dual algorithmic framework to obtain approximate solutions to a prototypical constrained convex optimization problem, and rigorously characterize how common structural assumptions affect the numerical efficiency. Our…

Large-scale saddle-point problems arise in such machine learning tasks as GANs and linear models with affine constraints. In this paper, we study distributed saddle-point problems (SPP) with strongly-convex-strongly-concave smooth…

Recently, Bai and Benzi proposed a class of regularized Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting methods (RHSS) iteration methods for solving the nonsingular saddle point problem. In this paper, we apply this method to solve the singular…

We study a stochastic first order primal-dual method for solving convex-concave saddle point problems over real reflexive Banach spaces using Bregman divergences and relative smoothness assumptions, in which we allow for stochastic error in…

We consider solving large scale nonconvex optimisation problems with nonnegativity constraints. Such problems arise frequently in machine learning, such as nonnegative least-squares, nonnegative matrix factorisation, as well as problems…

Inverse problems are in many cases solved with optimization techniques. When the underlying model is linear, first-order gradient methods are usually sufficient. With nonlinear models, due to nonconvexity, one must often resort to…