Related papers: Stochastic Submodular Maximization: The Case of Co…
Stochastic nonconvex optimization problems with nonlinear constraints have a broad range of applications in intelligent transportation, cyber-security, and smart grids. In this paper, first, we propose an inexact-proximal accelerated…
Machine learning algorithms typically rely on optimization subroutines and are well-known to provide very effective outcomes for many types of problems. Here, we flip the reliance and ask the reverse question: can machine learning…
In this paper, we introduce a powerful and efficient framework for direct optimization of ranking metrics. The problem is ill-posed due to the discrete structure of the loss, and to deal with that, we introduce two important techniques:…
In this work, we develop analysis and algorithms for a class of (stochastic) bilevel optimization problems whose lower-level (LL) problem is strongly convex and linearly constrained. Most existing approaches for solving such problems rely…
We consider robust submodular maximization problems (RSMs), where given a set of $m$ monotone submodular objective functions, the robustness is with respect to the worst-case (scaled) objective function. The model we consider generalizes…
A wide variety of problems in machine learning, including exemplar clustering, document summarization, and sensor placement, can be cast as constrained submodular maximization problems. A lot of recent effort has been devoted to developing…
We consider a family of algorithms that successively sample and minimize simple stochastic models of the objective function. We show that under reasonable conditions on approximation quality and regularity of the models, any such algorithm…
We propose a stochastic approximation method for approximating the efficient frontier of chance-constrained nonlinear programs. Our approach is based on a bi-objective viewpoint of chance-constrained programs that seeks solutions on the…
When analyzing complex networks a key target is to uncover their modular structure, which means searching for a family of modules, namely node subsets spanning each a subnetwork more densely connected than the average. This work proposes a…
The study of combinatorial optimization problems with a submodular objective has attracted much attention in recent years. Such problems are important in both theory and practice because their objective functions are very general. Obtaining…
Minimax optimization problems have attracted a lot of attention over the past few years, with applications ranging from economics to machine learning. While advanced optimization methods exist for such problems, characterizing their…
We study stochastic optimization of nonconvex loss functions, which are typical objectives for training neural networks. We propose stochastic approximation algorithms which optimize a series of regularized, nonlinearized losses on large…
In this paper, we present approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems under probabilistic constraints. Specifically, we focus on stochastic variants of two important combinatorial optimization problems: the k-center…
Distributed stochastic optimization has drawn great attention recently due to its effectiveness in solving large-scale machine learning problems. Though numerous algorithms have been proposed and successfully applied to general practical…
It has been found that stochastic algorithms often find good solutions much more rapidly than inherently-batch approaches. Indeed, a very useful rule of thumb is that often, when solving a machine learning problem, an iterative technique…
The graduated optimization approach is a method for finding global optimal solutions for nonconvex functions by using a function smoothing operation with stochastic noise. This paper makes three contributions regarding graduated…
We consider stochastic dynamic programming problems with high-dimensional, discrete state-spaces and finite, discrete-time horizons that prohibit direct computation of the value function from a given Bellman equation for all states and time…
Inspired by regularization techniques in statistics and machine learning, we study complementary composite minimization in the stochastic setting. This problem corresponds to the minimization of the sum of a (weakly) smooth function endowed…
We propose new sequential simulation-optimization algorithms for general convex optimization via simulation problems with high-dimensional discrete decision space. The performance of each choice of discrete decision variables is evaluated…
We consider the problem of maximizing a monotone nondecreasing set function under multiple constraints, where the constraints are also characterized by monotone nondecreasing set functions. We propose two greedy algorithms to solve the…