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Related papers: Hardness Amplification of Optimization Problems

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Probabilistic inference is fundamentally hard, yet many tasks require optimization on top of inference, which is even harder. We present a new optimization-via-compilation strategy to scalably solve a certain class of such problems. In…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2025-04-11 Minsung Cho , John Gouwar , Steven Holtzen

Variational representations of divergences and distances between high-dimensional probability distributions offer significant theoretical insights and practical advantages in numerous research areas. Recently, they have gained popularity in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Jeremiah Birrell , Markos A. Katsoulakis , Yannis Pantazis

In this paper we consider distributed optimization problems in which the cost function is separable, i.e., a sum of possibly non-smooth functions all sharing a common variable, and can be split into a strongly convex term and a convex one.…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-06-27 Ivano Notarnicola , Giuseppe Notarstefano

We propose an algorithm using a modified variant of amplitude amplification to solve combinatorial optimization problems via the use of a subdivided phase oracle. Instead of dividing input states into two groups and shifting the phase…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-09-07 Naphan Benchasattabuse , Takahiko Satoh , Michal Hajdušek , Rodney Van Meter

An algorithm for solving nonconvex smooth optimization problems is proposed, analyzed, and tested. The algorithm is an extension of the Trust Region Algorithm with Contractions and Expansions (TRACE) [Math. Prog. 162(1):132, 2017]. In…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-26 Frank E. Curtis , Qi Wang

We consider the 0-1 Incremental Knapsack Problem (IKP) where the capacity grows over time periods and if an item is placed in the knapsack in a certain period, it cannot be removed afterwards. The contribution of a packed item in each time…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-01-16 Federico Della Croce , Ulrich Pferschy , Rosario Scatamacchia

In this paper we consider the problem of finding stable maxima of expensive (to evaluate) functions. We are motivated by the optimisation of physical and industrial processes where, for some input ranges, small and unavoidable variations in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-02-22 Alistair Shilton , Sunil Gupta , Santu Rana , Svetha Venkatesh , Majid Abdolshah , Dang Nguyen

In this paper, we propose a stochastic optimization method that adaptively controls the sample size used in the computation of gradient approximations. Unlike other variance reduction techniques that either require additional storage or the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-11-01 Raghu Bollapragada , Richard Byrd , Jorge Nocedal

We present the viewpoint that optimization problems encountered in machine learning can often be interpreted as minimizing a convex functional over a function space, but with a non-convex constraint set introduced by model parameterization.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-21 Yongqiang Cai , Qianxiao Li , Zuowei Shen

The marginal maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) estimation problem, which calculates the mode of the marginal posterior distribution of a subset of variables with the remaining variables marginalized, is an important inference problem…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2013-07-19 Qiang Liu , Alexander Ihler

It is well known that estimating the expectation of any given bounded random variable with values in $[-B, B]$ has a sample complexity of $\mathrm{O}(B^2/\epsilon^2)$ that is independent of the underlying probability measure. We show that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-29 Yan Li

Approximation algorithms for classical constraint satisfaction problems are one of the main research areas in theoretical computer science. Here we define a natural approximation version of the QMA-complete local Hamiltonian problem and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-10-25 Sevag Gharibian , Julia Kempe

In high-stakes engineering applications, optimization algorithms must come with provable worst-case guarantees over a mathematically defined class of problems. Designing for the worst case, however, inevitably sacrifices performance on the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-04 Andrea Martin , Ian R. Manchester , Luca Furieri

We develop a complexity theory for approximate real computations. We first produce a theory for exact computations but with condition numbers. The input size depends on a condition number, which is not assumed known by the machine. The…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2020-05-05 Gregorio Malajovich , Mike Shub

Mathematical Selection is a method in which we select a particular choice from a set of such. It have always been an interesting field of study for mathematicians. Combinatorial optimisation is the practice of selecting the best constituent…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-31 Anurag Dutta , K. Lakshmanan , John Harshith , A. Ramamoorthy

We study the problem of testing discrete distributions with a focus on the high probability regime. Specifically, given samples from one or more discrete distributions, a property $\mathcal{P}$, and parameters $0< \epsilon, \delta <1$, we…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-09-15 Ilias Diakonikolas , Themis Gouleakis , Daniel M. Kane , John Peebles , Eric Price

Many problems of theoretical and practical interest involve finding an optimum over a family of convex functions. For instance, finding the projection on the convex functions in $H^k(\Omega)$, and optimizing functionals arising from some…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2008-04-11 Néstor E. Aguilera , Pedro Morin

In this paper, we demonstrate gap amplification for reconfiguration problems. In particular, we prove an explicit factor of PSPACE-hardness of approximation for three popular reconfiguration problems only assuming the Reconfiguration…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2024-03-19 Naoto Ohsaka

Various distributed optimization methods have been developed for solving problems which have simple local constraint sets and whose objective function is the sum of local cost functions of distributed agents in a network. Motivated by…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-11-17 Tsung-Hui Chang , Angelia Nedić , Anna Scaglione

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