Related papers: A Proximal Zeroth-Order Algorithm for Nonconvex No…
We present new algorithms for optimizing non-smooth, non-convex stochastic objectives based on a novel analysis technique. This improves the current best-known complexity for finding a $(\delta,\epsilon)$-stationary point from…
The dual challenges of prohibitive communication overhead and the impracticality of gradient computation due to data privacy or black-box constraints in distributed systems motivate this work on communication-constrained gradient-free…
The difference-of-convex (DC) program is an important model in nonconvex optimization due to its structure, which encompasses a wide range of practical applications. In this paper, we aim to tackle a generalized class of DC programs, where…
In this work, we present a globalized stochastic semismooth Newton method for solving stochastic optimization problems involving smooth nonconvex and nonsmooth convex terms in the objective function. We assume that only noisy gradient and…
We investigate the finite-time analysis of finding ($\delta,\epsilon$)-stationary points for nonsmooth nonconvex objectives in decentralized stochastic optimization. A set of agents aim at minimizing a global function using only their local…
For a linear equality constrained convex optimization problem involving two objective functions with a ``nonsmooth" + ``nonsmooth" composite structure, we study two algorithms derived from a mixed-order dynamical system which incorporates…
In order to solve the minimization of a nonsmooth convex function, we design an inertial second-order dynamic algorithm, which is obtained by approximating the nonsmooth function by a class of smooth functions. By studying the asymptotic…
In this paper we analyze a class of nonconvex optimization problem from the viewpoint of abstract convexity. Using the respective generalizations of the subgradient we propose an abstract notion proximal operator and derive a number of…
Various optimal gradient-based algorithms have been developed for smooth nonconvex optimization. However, many nonconvex machine learning problems do not belong to the class of smooth functions and therefore the existing algorithms are…
Rank-based zeroth-order (ZO) optimization -- which relies only on the ordering of function evaluations -- offers strong robustness to noise and monotone transformations, and underlies many successful algorithms such as CMA-ES, natural…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is a subset of gradient-free optimization that emerges in many signal processing and machine learning applications. It is used for solving optimization problems similarly to gradient-based methods. However, it…
This paper addresses stochastic optimization of Lipschitz-continuous, nonsmooth and nonconvex objectives over compact convex sets, where only noisy function evaluations are available. While gradient-free methods have been developed for…
We propose a proximal algorithm for minimizing objective functions consisting of three summands: the composition of a nonsmooth function with a linear operator, another nonsmooth function, each of the nonsmooth summands depending on an…
This paper proposes a novel family of primal-dual-based distributed algorithms for smooth, convex, multi-agent optimization over networks that uses only gradient information and gossip communications. The algorithms can also employ…
In this paper, we develop a parameterized proximal point algorithm (P-PPA) for solving a class of separable convex programming problems subject to linear and convex constraints. The proposed algorithm is provable to be globally convergent…
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…
This paper introduces a class of model-free feedback methods for solving generic constrained optimization problems where the specific mathematical forms of the objective and constraint functions are not available. The proposed methods,…
This paper explores the performance of a random Gaussian smoothing zeroth-order (ZO) scheme for minimising quasar-convex (QC) and strongly quasar-convex (SQC) functions in both unconstrained and constrained settings. For the unconstrained…
We consider empirical risk minimization of linear predictors with convex loss functions. Such problems can be reformulated as convex-concave saddle point problems, and thus are well suitable for primal-dual first-order algorithms. However,…
In this study, we consider an optimization problem with uncertainty dependent on decision variables, which has recently attracted attention due to its importance in machine learning and pricing applications. In this problem, the gradient of…