Related papers: Beyond Submodular Maximization via One-Sided Smoot…
In this paper, we study the problem of monotone (weakly) DR-submodular continuous maximization. While previous methods require the gradient information of the objective function, we propose a derivative-free algorithm LDGM for the first…
We show that there is a largely unexplored class of functions (positive polymatroids) that can define proper discrete metrics over pairs of binary vectors and that are fairly tractable to optimize over. By exploiting submodularity, we are…
We study the problem of finding a maximum matching in a graph given by an input stream listing its edges in some arbitrary order, where the quantity to be maximized is given by a monotone submodular function on subsets of edges. This…
We study dynamic algorithms for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function over a stream of $n$ insertions and deletions. We show that any algorithm that maintains a $(0.5+\epsilon)$-approximate solution under a cardinality…
A soft-max function has two main efficiency measures: (1) approximation - which corresponds to how well it approximates the maximum function, (2) smoothness - which shows how sensitive it is to changes of its input. Our goal is to identify…
In contrast to the many continuous global optimization methods that assume the objective function and constraints are factorable, we study how to find globally maximal solutions to problems that are not factorable, focusing on a particular…
We investigate the continuous non-monotone DR-submodular maximization problem subject to a down-closed convex solvable constraint. Our first contribution is to construct an example to demonstrate that (first-order) stationary points can…
We study minimization of a structured objective function, being the sum of a smooth function and a composition of a weakly convex function with a linear operator. Applications include image reconstruction problems with regularizers that…
A cutting-plane model for a nonsmooth function is the maximum of several first-order expansions centered at different points. Using such a model in a bundle method leads to linear convergence (of serious steps) to a minimum. In smooth…
DR-submodular continuous functions are important objectives with wide real-world applications spanning MAP inference in determinantal point processes (DPPs), and mean-field inference for probabilistic submodular models, amongst others.…
Diversity maximization is an important concept in information retrieval, computational geometry and operations research. Usually, it is a variant of the following problem: Given a ground set, constraints, and a function $f(\cdot)$ that…
Maximizing submodular functions have been studied extensively for a wide range of subset-selection problems. However, much less attention has been given to the role of submodularity in sequence-selection and ranking problems. A…
We define a new class of set functions that in addition to being monotone and subadditive, also admit a very limited form of submodularity defined over a permutation of the ground set. We refer to this permutation as a submodular order.…
We shed new light on the \textit{smoothness} of optimization problems arising in prediction error parameter estimation of linear and nonlinear systems. We show that for regions of the parameter space where the model is not contractive, the…
In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing continuous submodular functions that naturally arise in many learning applications such as those involving utility functions in active learning and sensing, matrix approximations and network…
Finding a \emph{single} best solution is the most common objective in combinatorial optimization problems. However, such a single solution may not be applicable to real-world problems as objective functions and constraints are only…
Submodular maximization constitutes a prominent research topic in combinatorial optimization and theoretical computer science, with extensive applications across diverse domains. While substantial advancements have been achieved in…
Models with fewer parameters are often easier to interpret and more robust. Parsimony can be achieved through optimizing objectives like the AIC or BIC, which are functions of the the number of free parameters in the model. Optimizing this…
We investigate two new optimization problems -- minimizing a submodular function subject to a submodular lower bound constraint (submodular cover) and maximizing a submodular function subject to a submodular upper bound constraint…
Let $\mathcal{N}\mathcal{F}$ be the class of smooth non-flat curves near the origin and near infinity previously introduced by the second author and let $\gamma\in\mathcal{N}\mathcal{F}$. We show - via a unifying approach relative to the…