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We aim at computing the derivative of the solution to a parametric optimization problem with respect to the involved parameters. For a class broader than that of strongly convex functions, this can be achieved by automatic differentiation…
We consider differentiable games where the goal is to find a Nash equilibrium. The machine learning community has recently started using variants of the gradient method (GD). Prime examples are extragradient (EG), the optimistic gradient…
We consider a continuous-time optimization method based on a dynamical system, where a massive particle starting at rest moves in the conservative force field generated by the objective function, without any kind of friction. We formulate a…
This paper studies the Nesterov-Spokoiny Acceleration (NSA), a variant of the accelerated gradient method by Nesterov and Spokoiny. For smooth convex optimization, NSA achieves a strict $o(1/k^2)$ convergence rate in function value and an…
In this paper, we study a variant of the quadratic penalty method for linearly constrained convex problems, which has already been widely used but actually lacks theoretical justification. Namely, the penalty parameter steadily increases…
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…
Composite convex optimization models arise in several applications, and are especially prevalent in inverse problems with a sparsity inducing norm and in general convex optimization with simple constraints. The most widely used algorithms…
In the fields of statistics, machine learning, image science, and related areas, there is an increasing demand for decentralized collection or storage of large-scale datasets, as well as distributed solution methods. To tackle this…
Stochastic optimization is a cornerstone of modern machine learning. This paper studies the generalization performance of two classical stochastic optimization algorithms: stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and Nesterov's accelerated…
First-order methods with momentum such as Nesterov's fast gradient method are very useful for convex optimization problems, but can exhibit undesirable oscillations yielding slow convergence rates for some applications. An adaptive…
This paper addresses a distributed convex optimization problem with a class of coupled constraints, which arise in a multi-agent system composed of multiple communities modeled by cliques. First, we propose a fully distributed…
Gradient restarting has been shown to improve the numerical performance of accelerated gradient methods. This paper provides a mathematical analysis to understand these advantages. First, we establish global linear convergence guarantees…
In this paper, a general stochastic optimization procedure is studied, unifying several variants of the stochastic gradient descent such as, among others, the stochastic heavy ball method, the Stochastic Nesterov Accelerated Gradient…
This paper deals with a natural stochastic optimization procedure derived from the so-called Heavy-ball method differential equation, which was introduced by Polyak in the 1960s with his seminal contribution [Pol64]. The Heavy-ball method…
We propose a new method for unconstrained optimization of a smooth and strongly convex function, which attains the optimal rate of convergence of Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent. The new algorithm has a simple geometric…
For minimizing a strongly convex objective function subject to linear inequality constraints, we consider a penalty approach that allows one to utilize stochastic methods for problems with a large number of constraints and/or objective…
Many important machine learning applications involve regularized nonconvex bi-level optimization. However, the existing gradient-based bi-level optimization algorithms cannot handle nonconvex or nonsmooth regularizers, and they suffer from…
This note considers the momentum method by Polyak and the accelerated gradient method by Nesterov, both without line search but with fixed step length applied to strictly convex quadratic functions assuming that exact gradients are used and…
We introduce a generic scheme for accelerating first-order optimization methods in the sense of Nesterov, which builds upon a new analysis of the accelerated proximal point algorithm. Our approach consists of minimizing a convex objective…
This paper studies the online convex optimization problem by using an Online Continuous-Time Nesterov Accelerated Gradient method (OCT-NAG). We show that the continuous-time dynamics generated by the online version of the Bregman Lagrangian…