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Under mild assumptions stochastic gradient methods asymptotically achieve an optimal rate of convergence if the arithmetic mean of all iterates is returned as an approximate optimal solution. However, in the absence of stochastic noise, the…
In this paper, we study convex optimization problems where agents of a network cooperatively minimize the global objective function which consists of multiple local objective functions. Different from most of the existing works, the local…
We study a stochastic budget-allocation problem over $K$ tasks. At each round $t$, the learner chooses an allocation $X_t \in \Delta_K$. Task $k$ succeeds with probability $F_k(X_{t,k})$, where $F_1,\dots,F_K$ are nondecreasing…
In this work, we study the online convex optimization problem with curved losses and delayed feedback. When losses are strongly convex, existing approaches obtain regret bounds of order $d_{\max} \ln T$, where $d_{\max}$ is the maximum…
Decision trees provide a rich family of highly non-linear but efficient models, due to which they continue to be the go-to family of predictive models by practitioners across domains. But learning trees is challenging due to their discrete…
An algorithm is said to be adaptive to a certain parameter (of the problem) if it does not need a priori knowledge of such a parameter but performs competitively to those that know it. This dissertation presents our work on adaptive…
In this paper, we consider a best action identification problem in the stochastic linear bandit setup with a fixed confident constraint. In the considered best action identification problem, instead of minimizing the accumulative regret as…
This paper considers the distributed bandit convex optimization problem with time-varying constraints. In this problem, the global loss function is the average of all the local convex loss functions, which are unknown beforehand. Each agent…
We consider the problem of global optimization of an unknown non-convex smooth function with zeroth-order feedback. In this setup, an algorithm is allowed to adaptively query the underlying function at different locations and receives noisy…
Gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent are central to modern machine learning, yet their behavior under large step sizes remains theoretically unclear. Recent work suggests that acceleration often arises near the edge of…
This paper studies batched bandit learning problems for nondegenerate functions. We introduce an algorithm that solves the batched bandit problem for nondegenerate functions near-optimally. More specifically, we introduce an algorithm,…
We develop parameter-free algorithms for unconstrained online learning with regret guarantees that scale with the gradient variation $V_T(u) = \sum_{t=2}^T \|\nabla f_t(u)-\nabla f_{t-1}(u)\|^2$. For $L$-smooth convex loss, we provide…
We propose a new gradient descent algorithm with added stochastic terms for finding the global optimizers of nonconvex optimization problems. A key component in the algorithm is the adaptive tuning of the randomness based on the value of…
We consider linear prediction with a convex Lipschitz loss, or more generally, stochastic convex optimization problems of generalized linear form, i.e.~where each instantaneous loss is a scalar convex function of a linear function. We show…
Learning to optimize - the idea that we can learn from data algorithms that optimize a numerical criterion - has recently been at the heart of a growing number of research efforts. One of the most challenging issues within this approach is…
In this paper, we consider supervised learning problems such as logistic regression and study the stochastic gradient method with averaging, in the usual stochastic approximation setting where observations are used only once. We show that…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular and efficient method with wide applications in training deep neural nets and other nonconvex models. While the behavior of SGD is well understood in the convex learning setting, the existing…
Selecting an effective step-size is a fundamental challenge in first-order optimization, especially for problems with non-Euclidean geometries. This paper presents a novel adaptive step-size strategy for optimization algorithms that rely on…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a foundational algorithm for large-scale statistical learning and stochastic optimization. However, statistical inference based on SGD iterates remains challenging when stochastic gradients have infinite…
Online decision making aims to learn the optimal decision rule by making personalized decisions and updating the decision rule recursively. It has become easier than before with the help of big data, but new challenges also come along.…