Related papers: Design of First-Order Optimization Algorithms via …
We present a hierarchy of semidefinite programs (SDPs) for the problem of fitting a shape-constrained (multivariate) polynomial to noisy evaluations of an unknown shape-constrained function. These shape constraints include convexity or…
We study first-order methods with preconditioning for solving structured nonlinear convex optimization problems. We propose a new family of preconditioners generated by symmetric polynomials. They provide first-order optimization methods…
This paper introduces an efficient first-order method based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) to solve semidefinite programs (SDPs) arising from sum-of-squares (SOS) programming. We exploit the sparsity of the…
In this paper, we present a generic framework to extend existing uniformly optimal convex programming algorithms to solve more general nonlinear, possibly nonconvex, optimization problems. The basic idea is to incorporate a local search…
We consider two problems that arise in machine learning applications: the problem of recovering a planted sparse vector in a random linear subspace and the problem of decomposing a random low-rank overcomplete 3-tensor. For both problems,…
One of the most attractive recent approaches to processing well-structured large-scale convex optimization problems is based on smooth convex-concave saddle point reformu-lation of the problem of interest and solving the resulting problem…
We study the robustness of accelerated first-order algorithms to stochastic uncertainties in gradient evaluation. Specifically, for unconstrained, smooth, strongly convex optimization problems, we examine the mean-squared error in the…
Accelerated first order methods, also called fast gradient methods, are popular optimization methods in the field of convex optimization. However, they are prone to suffer from oscillatory behaviour that slows their convergence when medium…
This paper presents a practical method for finding the globally optimal solution to the sum-of-ratios problem arising in image processing, engineering and management. Unlike traditional methods which may get trapped in local minima due to…
Successive quadratic approximations, or second-order proximal methods, are useful for minimizing functions that are a sum of a smooth part and a convex, possibly nonsmooth part that promotes regularization. Most analyses of iteration…
It is classical that, when the small deformation is assumed, the incremental analysis problem of an elastoplastic structure with a piecewise-linear yield condition and a linear strain hardening model can be formulated as a convex quadratic…
When sum-of-squares (SOS) programs are recast as semidefinite programs (SDPs) using the standard monomial basis, the constraint matrices in the SDP possess a structural property that we call \emph{partial orthogonality}. In this paper, we…
We investigate a class of nonconvex optimization problems characterized by a feasible set consisting of level-bounded nonconvex regularizers, with a continuously differentiable objective. We propose a novel hybrid approach to tackle such…
The Sum-of-Squares (SOS) approximation method is a technique used in optimization problems to derive lower bounds on the optimal value of an objective function. By representing the objective function as a sum of squares in a feature space,…
In this two-part paper, we propose a general algorithmic framework for the minimization of a nonconvex smooth function subject to nonconvex smooth constraints. The algorithm solves a sequence of (separable) strongly convex problems and…
We present a new feasible proximal gradient method for constrained optimization where both the objective and constraint functions are given by the summation of a smooth, possibly nonconvex function and a convex simple function. The…
We give the first polynomial-time algorithm for performing linear or polynomial regression resilient to adversarial corruptions in both examples and labels. Given a sufficiently large (polynomial-size) training set drawn i.i.d. from…
In a recent paper, Bubeck, Lee, and Singh introduced a new first order method for minimizing smooth strongly convex functions. Their geometric descent algorithm, largely inspired by the ellipsoid method, enjoys the optimal linear rate of…
Given a sample covariance matrix, we solve a maximum likelihood problem penalized by the number of nonzero coefficients in the inverse covariance matrix. Our objective is to find a sparse representation of the sample data and to highlight…
Gradient methods are widely used in optimization problems. In practice, while the smoothness parameter can be estimated utilizing techniques such as backtracking, estimating the strong convexity parameter remains a challenge; moreover, even…