Related papers: Convergence Rate of Block-Coordinate Maximization …
We show a new way to round vector solutions of semidefinite programming (SDP) hierarchies into integral solutions, based on a connection between these hierarchies and the spectrum of the input graph. We demonstrate the utility of our method…
Majorization-minimization algorithms consist of successively minimizing a sequence of upper bounds of the objective function so that along the iterations the objective function decreases. Such a simple principle allows to solve a large…
In this paper we propose a randomized primal-dual proximal block coordinate updating framework for a general multi-block convex optimization model with coupled objective function and linear constraints. Assuming mere convexity, we establish…
We investigate a class of general combinatorial graph problems, including MAX-CUT and community detection, reformulated as quadratic objectives over nonconvex constraints and solved via the alternating direction method of multipliers…
At each iteration of a Block Coordinate Descent method one minimizes an approximation of the objective function with respect to a generally small set of variables subject to constraints in which these variables are involved. The…
We present a coordinate ascent method for a class of semidefinite programming problems that arise in non-convex quadratic integer optimization. These semidefinite programs are characterized by a small total number of active constraints and…
We study the problem of minimizing the sum of potentially non-differentiable convex cost functions with partially overlapping dependences in an asynchronous manner, where communication in the network is not coordinated. We study the…
The stochastic gradient (SG) method can minimize an objective function composed of a large number of differentiable functions, or solve a stochastic optimization problem, to a moderate accuracy. The block coordinate descent/update (BCD)…
This paper studies noisy low-rank matrix completion: given partial and noisy entries of a large low-rank matrix, the goal is to estimate the underlying matrix faithfully and efficiently. Arguably one of the most popular paradigms to tackle…
Nonconvex optimization is central in solving many machine learning problems, in which block-wise structure is commonly encountered. In this work, we propose cyclic block coordinate methods for nonconvex optimization problems with…
We consider the optimization problem of minimizing the sum-of-nonconvex function, i.e., a convex function that is the average of nonconvex components. The existing stochastic algorithms for such a problem only focus on a single machine and…
Resolving a conjecture of Abbe, Bandeira and Hall, the authors have recently shown that the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation of the maximum likelihood estimator achieves the sharp threshold for exactly recovering the community…
We propose a zero-order optimization method for sequential min-max problems based on two populations of interacting particles. The systems are coupled so that one population aims to solve the inner maximization problem, while the other aims…
Sum of squares (SOS) optimization is a powerful technique for solving problems where the positivity of a polynomials must be enforced. The common approach to solve an SOS problem is by relaxation to a Semidefinite Program (SDP). The main…
In this paper, we consider the community detection problem under either the stochastic block model (SBM) assumption or the degree-correlated stochastic block model (DCSBM) assumption. The modularity maximization formulation for the…
Sparse optimization is a central problem in machine learning and computer vision. However, this problem is inherently NP-hard and thus difficult to solve in general. Combinatorial search methods find the global optimal solution but are…
In this paper, we present novel randomized algorithms for solving saddle point problems whose dual feasible region is given by the direct product of many convex sets. Our algorithms can achieve an ${\cal O}(1/N)$ and ${\cal O}(1/N^2)$ rate…
(Block-)coordinate minimization is an iterative optimization method which in every iteration finds a global minimum of the objective over a variable or a subset of variables, while keeping the remaining variables constant. While for some…
The minimum sum-of-squares clustering (MSSC), or k-means type clustering, has been recently extended to exploit prior knowledge on the cardinality of each cluster. Such knowledge is used to increase performance as well as solution quality.…
Motivated by recent increased interest in optimization algorithms for non-convex optimization in application to training deep neural networks and other optimization problems in data analysis, we give an overview of recent theoretical…