Related papers: Convergence guarantees for a class of non-convex a…
Optimizing non-convex functions is of primary importance in the vast majority of machine learning algorithms. Even though many gradient descent based algorithms have been studied, successive convex approximation based algorithms have been…
This study develops a fixed-time convergent saddle point dynamical system for solving min-max problems under a relaxation of standard convexity-concavity assumption. In particular, it is shown that by leveraging the dynamical systems…
We introduce and analyze an algorithm for the minimization of convex functions that are the sum of differentiable terms and proximable terms composed with linear operators. The method builds upon the recently developed smoothed gap…
Recent studies have shown that many nonconvex machine learning problems satisfy a generalized-smooth condition that extends beyond traditional smooth nonconvex optimization. However, the existing algorithms are not fully adapted to such…
We propose Frank--Wolfe (FW) algorithms with an adaptive Bregman step-size strategy for smooth adaptable (also called: relatively smooth) (weakly-) convex functions. This means that the gradient of the objective function is not necessarily…
We consider convex-concave saddle-point problems where the objective functions may be split in many components, and extend recent stochastic variance reduction methods (such as SVRG or SAGA) to provide the first large-scale linearly…
This paper focuses on convex constrained optimization problems, where the solution is subject to a convex inequality constraint. In particular, we aim at challenging problems for which both projection into the constrained domain and a…
In this paper, we extend our previous results and formally propose the SCvx-fast algorithm, a new addition to the Successive Convexification algorithmic framework. The said algorithm solves non-convex optimal control problems with specific…
We consider the stochastic approximation problem where a convex function has to be minimized, given only the knowledge of unbiased estimates of its gradients at certain points, a framework which includes machine learning methods based on…
Higher-order tensor methods were recently proposed for minimizing smooth convex and nonconvex functions. Higher-order algorithms accelerate the convergence of the classical first-order methods thanks to the higher-order derivatives used in…
Conditional Gradient algorithms (aka Frank-Wolfe algorithms) form a classical set of methods for constrained smooth convex minimization due to their simplicity, the absence of projection steps, and competitive numerical performance. While…
This work proposes an implementable proximal-type method for a broad class of optimization problems involving nonsmooth and nonconvex objective and constraint functions. In contrast to existing methods that rely on an ad hoc model…
We consider the problem of minimizing the sum of an average function of a large number of smooth convex components and a general, possibly non-differentiable, convex function. Although many methods have been proposed to solve this problem…
We provide an overview of primal-dual algorithms for nonsmooth and non-convex-concave saddle-point problems. This flows around a new analysis of such methods, using Bregman divergences to formulate simplified conditions for convergence.
In this paper we consider large-scale smooth optimization problems with multiple linear coupled constraints. Due to the non-separability of the constraints, arbitrary random sketching would not be guaranteed to work. Thus, we first…
In this paper we address the convergence of stochastic approximation when the functions to be minimized are not convex and nonsmooth. We show that the "mean-limit" approach to the convergence which leads, for smooth problems, to the ODE…
We address the problem of computing stationary points for non-smooth, non-convex optimization problems. While this topic is well studied in the smooth setting, fewer algorithmic and theoretical results exist for the non-smooth case. Within…
Composite convex optimization problems which include both a nonsmooth term and a low-rank promoting term have important applications in machine learning and signal processing, such as when one wishes to recover an unknown matrix that is…
This paper presents an algorithmic framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems using only stochastic function evaluations. We employ central finite-difference based gradient estimation methods to approximate the…
We introduce a notion of self-concordant smoothing for minimizing the sum of two convex functions, one of which is smooth and the other nonsmooth. The key highlight is a natural property of the resulting problem's structure that yields a…