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Empirical risk minimization is an important class of optimization problems with many popular machine learning applications, and stochastic variance reduction methods are popular choices for solving them. Among these methods, SVRG and…
In this paper, we investigate the problem of stochastic multi-level compositional optimization, where the objective function is a composition of multiple smooth but possibly non-convex functions. Existing methods for solving this problem…
Techniques for reducing the variance of gradient estimates used in stochastic programming algorithms for convex finite-sum problems have received a great deal of attention in recent years. By leveraging dissipativity theory from control, we…
Stochastic gradient methods with momentum are widely used in applications and at the core of optimization subroutines in many popular machine learning libraries. However, their sample complexities have not been obtained for problems beyond…
Nonconvex sparse models have received significant attention in high-dimensional machine learning. In this paper, we study a new model consisting of a general convex or nonconvex objectives and a variety of continuous nonconvex…
Stochastic optimization algorithms are widely used for machine learning with large-scale data. However, their convergence often suffers from non-vanishing variance. Variance Reduction (VR) methods, such as SVRG and SARAH, address this issue…
The method of nonlinear conjugate gradients (NCG) is widely used in practice for unconstrained optimization, but it satisfies weak complexity bounds at best when applied to smooth convex functions. In contrast, Nesterov's accelerated…
We propose an adaptive smoothing algorithm based on Nesterov's smoothing technique in \cite{Nesterov2005c} for solving "fully" nonsmooth composite convex optimization problems. Our method combines both Nesterov's accelerated proximal…
The Stochastic Gradient Descent method (SGD) and its stochastic variants have become methods of choice for solving finite-sum optimization problems arising from machine learning and data science thanks to their ability to handle large-scale…
In this work, we consider constrained stochastic optimization problems under hidden convexity, i.e., those that admit a convex reformulation via non-linear (but invertible) map $c(\cdot)$. A number of non-convex problems ranging from…
We present a unified theorem for the convergence analysis of stochastic gradient algorithms for minimizing a smooth and convex loss plus a convex regularizer. We do this by extending the unified analysis of Gorbunov, Hanzely \& Richt\'arik…
In this paper, we consider non-convex stochastic bilevel optimization (SBO) problems that have many applications in machine learning. Although numerous studies have proposed stochastic algorithms for solving these problems, they are limited…
Classical stochastic gradient methods are well suited for minimizing expected-value objective functions. However, they do not apply to the minimization of a nonlinear function involving expected values or a composition of two expected-value…
An optimization algorithm for nonsmooth nonconvex constrained optimization problems with upper-C2 objective functions is proposed and analyzed. Upper-C2 is a weakly concave property that exists in difference of convex (DC) functions and…
In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…
The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…
Recently, multi-objective optimization (MOO) has gained attention for its broad applications in ML, operations research, and engineering. However, MOO algorithm design remains in its infancy and many existing MOO methods suffer from…
We consider minimizing $f(x) = \mathbb{E}[f(x,\omega)]$ when $f(x,\omega)$ is possibly nonsmooth and either strongly convex or convex in $x$. (I) Strongly convex. When $f(x,\omega)$ is $\mu-$strongly convex in $x$, we propose a variable…
Large-scale nonconvex optimization problems are ubiquitous in modern machine learning, and among practitioners interested in solving them, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) reigns supreme. We revisit the analysis of SGD in the nonconvex…
Stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) algorithms have been shown to work favorably in solving large-scale learning problems. Despite the remarkable success, the stochastic gradient complexity of SVRG-type algorithms usually scales…