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Related papers: Solving Chance-Constrained Problems via a Smooth S…

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We consider stochastic optimization problems which use observed data to estimate essential characteristics of the random quantities involved. Sample average approximation (SAA) or empirical (plug-in) estimation are very popular ways to use…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-03-16 Darinka Dentcheva , Yang Lin

We propose conformal predictive programming (CPP), a framework to solve chance constrained optimization problems, i.e., optimization problems with constraints that are functions of random variables. CPP utilizes samples from these random…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-06 Yiqi Zhao , Xinyi Yu , Matteo Sesia , Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh , Lars Lindemann

Our work focuses on stochastic gradient methods for optimizing a smooth non-convex loss function with a non-smooth non-convex regularizer. Research on this class of problem is quite limited, and until recently no non-asymptotic convergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-15 Michael R. Metel , Akiko Takeda

In this paper, we discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: a smooth function plus a non-smooth function. Further, the smooth part can be expressed by the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-11-17 Luo Luo , Zihao Chen , Zhihua Zhang , Wu-Jun Li

This paper addresses the task of estimating a covariance matrix under a patternless sparsity assumption. In contrast to existing approaches based on thresholding or shrinkage penalties, we propose a likelihood-based method that regularizes…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-09-13 Jason Xu , Kenneth Lange

Optimization problems with composite functions consist of an objective function which is the sum of a smooth and a (convex) nonsmooth term. This particular structure is exploited by the class of proximal gradient methods and some of their…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-17 Christian Kanzow , Theresa Lechner

Chance-constrained programming (CCP) is one of the most difficult classes of optimization problems that has attracted the attention of researchers since the 1950s. In this survey, we focus on cases when only a limited information on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-15 Simge Küçükyavuz , Ruiwei Jiang

The motivation for this paper stems from the desire to develop an adaptive sampling method for solving constrained optimization problems in which the objective function is stochastic and the constraints are deterministic. The method…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-01-01 Yuchen Xie , Raghu Bollapragada , Richard Byrd , Jorge Nocedal

This work proposes an implementable proximal-type method for a broad class of optimization problems involving nonsmooth and nonconvex objective and constraint functions. In contrast to existing methods that rely on an ad hoc model…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-26 Gregorio M. Sempere , Welington de Oliveira , Johannes O. Royset

We develop a trust-region method for efficiently minimizing the sum of a smooth function, a nonsmooth convex function, and the composition of a finite-valued support function with a smooth function. Optimization problems with this structure…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-09 Drew P. Kouri

We consider the unconstrained optimization problem whose objective function is composed of a smooth and a non-smooth conponents where the smooth component is the expectation a random function. This type of problem arises in some interesting…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-07-01 Qihang Lin , Xi Chen , Javier Pena

Sampling from nonsmooth target probability distributions is essential in various applications, including the Bayesian Lasso. We propose a splitting-based sampling algorithm for the time-implicit discretization of the probability flow for…

Computation · Statistics 2025-07-14 Fuqun Han , Stanley Osher , Wuchen Li

In this paper we first study a smooth optimization approach for solving a class of nonsmooth strictly concave maximization problems whose objective functions admit smooth convex minimization reformulations. In particular, we apply…

Methodology · Statistics 2009-04-07 Zhaosong Lu

We consider trust-region methods for solving optimization problems where the objective is the sum of a smooth, nonconvex function and a nonsmooth, convex regularizer. We extend the global convergence theory of such methods to include…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-10 Minh N. Dao , Hung M. Phan , Lindon Roberts

We analyze convergence rates of stochastic optimization procedures for non-smooth convex optimization problems. By combining randomized smoothing techniques with accelerated gradient methods, we obtain convergence rates of stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-04-10 John C. Duchi , Peter L. Bartlett , Martin J. Wainwright

We propose a novel study of the stochastic proximal gradient method for minimizing the sum of two convex functions, one of which is smooth. Under suitable assumptions and without requiring any boundedness or control of the variance of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-16 Javier I. Madariaga

We consider constrained optimization problems with a nonsmooth objective function in the form of mathematical expectation. The Sample Average Approximation (SAA) is used to estimate the objective function and variable sample size strategy…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-09 Natasa Krejic , Natasa Krklec Jerinkic , Tijana Ostojic

Probabilistic smoothing is a standard tool for global optimization, but existing methods rely on Gaussian kernels and specific transforms, often resulting in strong hyperparameter sensitivity and limited robustness. We propose a general…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Kukyoung Jang , Taehyun Cho , Junrui Zhang , Ping Xu , Kyungjae Lee

We study the empirical likelihood approach to construct confidence intervals for the optimal value and the optimality gap of a given solution, henceforth quantify the statistical uncertainty of sample average approximation, for optimization…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-10-25 Henry Lam , Enlu Zhou

The generalized smooth condition, $(L_{0},L_{1})$-smoothness, has triggered people's interest since it is more realistic in many optimization problems shown by both empirical and theoretical evidence. Two recent works established the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Zijian Liu , Srikanth Jagabathula , Zhengyuan Zhou