Related papers: Open Problem: The Oracle Complexity of Convex Opti…
In this paper, we address the problem of minimizing a convex function f over a convex set, with the extra constraint that some variables must be integer. This problem, even when f is a piecewise linear function, is NP-hard. We study an…
We obtain a new lower bound on the information-based complexity of first-order minimization of smooth and convex functions. We show that the bound matches the worst-case performance of the recently introduced Optimized Gradient Method,…
First-order methods for solving convex optimization problems have been at the forefront of mathematical optimization in the last 20 years. The rapid development of this important class of algorithms is motivated by the success stories…
We derive lower bounds on the black-box oracle complexity of large-scale smooth convex minimization problems, with emphasis on minimizing smooth (with Holder continuous, with a given exponent and constant, gradient) convex functions over…
Optimization problems under affine constraints appear in various areas of machine learning. We consider the task of minimizing a smooth strongly convex function F(x) under the affine constraint Kx=b, with an oracle providing evaluations of…
In recent years, the success of deep learning has inspired many researchers to study the optimization of general smooth non-convex functions. However, recent works have established pessimistic worst-case complexities for this class…
Many fundamental problems in machine learning can be formulated by the convex program \[ \min_{\theta\in R^d}\ \sum_{i=1}^{n}f_{i}(\theta), \] where each $f_i$ is a convex, Lipschitz function supported on a subset of $d_i$ coordinates of…
The standard assumption for proving linear convergence of first order methods for smooth convex optimization is the strong convexity of the objective function, an assumption which does not hold for many practical applications. In this…
Using an optimization algorithm to solve a machine learning problem is one of mainstreams in the field of science. In this work, we demonstrate a comprehensive comparison of some state-of-the-art first-order optimization algorithms for…
Optimization problems with convex quadratic cost and polyhedral constraints are ubiquitous in signal processing, automatic control and decision-making. We consider here an enlarged problem class that allows to encode logical conditions and…
We provide a first-order oracle complexity lower bound for finding stationary points of min-max optimization problems where the objective function is smooth, nonconvex in the minimization variable, and strongly concave in the maximization…
We characterize the complexity of minimizing $\max_{i\in[N]} f_i(x)$ for convex, Lipschitz functions $f_1,\ldots, f_N$. For non-smooth functions, existing methods require $O(N\epsilon^{-2})$ queries to a first-order oracle to compute an…
Constrained optimization problems where both the objective and constraints may be nonsmooth and nonconvex arise across many learning and data science settings. In this paper, we show for any Lipschitz, weakly convex objectives and…
We provide sharp worst-case evaluation complexity bounds for nonconvex minimization problems with general inexpensive constraints, i.e.\ problems where the cost of evaluating/enforcing of the (possibly nonconvex or even disconnected)…
We present a simple scheme for restarting first-order methods for convex optimization problems. Restarts are made based only on achieving specified decreases in objective values, the specified amounts being the same for all optimization…
We study the optimal lower and upper complexity bounds for finding approximate solutions to the composite problem $\min_x\ f(x)+h(Ax-b)$, where $f$ is smooth and $h$ is convex. Given access to the proximal operator of $h$, for strongly…
The challenges of black box optimization arise due to imprecise responses and limited output information. This article describes new results on optimizing multivariable functions using an Order Oracle, which provides access only to the…
We study the question of whether parallelization in the exploration of the feasible set can be used to speed up convex optimization, in the local oracle model of computation. We show that the answer is negative for both deterministic and…
In information theory, some optimization problems result in convex optimization problems on strictly convex functionals of probability densities. In this note, we study these problems and show conditions of minimizers and the uniqueness of…
We develop a new parallel algorithm for minimizing Lipschitz, convex functions with a stochastic subgradient oracle. The total number of queries made and the query depth, i.e., the number of parallel rounds of queries, match the prior…