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Bayesian optimization is a popular and versatile approach that is well suited to solve challenging optimization problems. Their popularity comes from their effective minimization of expensive function evaluations, their capability to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-14 André L. Marchildon , David W. Zingg

Building upon our earlier work of a martingale approach to global optimization, a powerful stochastic search scheme for the global optimum of cost functions is proposed on the basis of change of measures on the states that evolve as…

Methodology · Statistics 2015-12-23 Mamatha Venugopal , Ram Mohan Vasu , Debasish Roy

Bayesian Optimization (BO) has been widely applied to optimize expensive black-box functions while retaining sample efficiency. However, scaling BO to high-dimensional spaces remains challenging. Existing literature proposes performing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-27 Quanlin Chen , Yiyu Chen , Jing Huo , Tianyu Ding , Yang Gao , Yuetong Chen

We consider parallel global optimization of derivative-free expensive-to-evaluate functions, and propose an efficient method based on stochastic approximation for implementing a conceptual Bayesian optimization algorithm proposed by…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-07 Jialei Wang , Scott C. Clark , Eric Liu , Peter I. Frazier

In the context of the analysis of measured data, one is often faced with the task to differentiate data numerically. Typically, this occurs when measured data are concerned or data are evaluated numerically during the evolution of partial…

Computational Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Karsten Ahnert , Markus Abel

We study the problem of global maximization of a function f given a finite number of evaluations perturbed by noise. We consider a very weak assumption on the function, namely that it is locally smooth (in some precise sense) with respect…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Michal Valko , Alexandra Carpentier , Rémi Munos

Grover's algorithm can be employed in global optimization methods providing, in some cases, a quadratic speedup over classical algorithms. This paper describes a new method for continuous global optimization problems that uses a classical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-01-22 Pedro Lara , Renato Portugal , Carlile Lavor

In many applications of mathematical optimization, one may wish to optimize an objective function without access to its derivatives. These situations call for derivative-free optimization (DFO) methods. Among the most successful approaches…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-11 Abraar Chaudhry , Katya Scheinberg

We propose a novel algorithm that extends the methods of ball smoothing and Gaussian smoothing for noisy derivative-free optimization by accounting for the heterogeneous curvature of the objective function. The algorithm dynamically adapts…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-06 Sam Reifenstein , Timothee Leleu , Yoshihisa Yamamoto

This work investigates the performance of numerical optimization algorithms applied to the State-Averaged Orbital-Optimized Variational Quantum Eigensolver for the H2 molecule under various quantum noise conditions. The goal is to assess…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-23 Silvie Illésová , Tomáš Bezděk , Vojtěch Novák , Bruno Senjean , Martin Beseda

We consider an unconstrained problem of minimizing a smooth convex function which is only available through noisy observations of its values, the noise consisting of two parts. Similar to stochastic optimization problems, the first part is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-09-22 Eduard Gorbunov , Pavel Dvurechensky , Alexander Gasnikov

A recent development in Bayesian optimization is the use of local optimization strategies, which can deliver strong empirical performance on high-dimensional problems compared to traditional global strategies. The "folk wisdom" in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-12 Kaiwen Wu , Kyurae Kim , Roman Garnett , Jacob R. Gardner

Bandit based optimisation has a remarkable advantage over gradient based approaches due to their global perspective, which eliminates the danger of getting stuck at local optima. However, for continuous optimisation problems or problems…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-05-30 Ole-Christoffer Granmo

A common approach for minimizing a smooth nonlinear function is to employ finite-difference approximations to the gradient. While this can be easily performed when no error is present within the function evaluations, when the function is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-24 Hao-Jun Michael Shi , Yuchen Xie , Melody Qiming Xuan , Jorge Nocedal

In this paper, we study the problem of finding the global minima of a given function. Specifically, we consider complicated functions with numerous local minima, as is often the case for real-world data mining losses. We do so by applying a…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2025-11-20 Simon Klüttermann

Global optimization, particularly for non-convex functions with multiple local minima, poses significant challenges for traditional gradient-based methods. While metaheuristic approaches offer empirical effectiveness, they often lack…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Andrea Agazzi , Vittorio Carlei , Marco Romito , Samuele Saviozzi

This paper studies Bayesian ranking and selection (R&S) problems with correlated prior beliefs and continuous domains, i.e. Bayesian optimization (BO). Knowledge gradient methods [Frazier et al., 2008, 2009] have been widely studied for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-07-28 Jian Wu , Peter I. Frazier

Consensus-based optimization (CBO) is an agent-based derivative-free method for non-smooth global optimization that has been introduced in 2017, leveraging a surprising interplay between stochastic exploration and Laplace principle. In…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2024-10-01 Massimo Fornasier , Lukang Sun

We address composite optimization problems, which consist in minimizing the sum of a smooth and a merely lower semicontinuous function, without any convexity assumptions. Numerical solutions of these problems can be obtained by proximal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-14 Alberto De Marchi

A new global stochastic search, guided mainly through derivative-free directional information computable from the sample statistical moments of the design variables within a Monte Carlo setup, is proposed. The search is aided by imparting…

Methodology · Statistics 2014-03-10 Saikat Sarkar , Debasish Roy , Ram Mohan Vasu