Related papers: Parametrically prox-regular functions
We consider minimization of functions that are compositions of convex or prox-regular functions (possibly extended-valued) with smooth vector functions. A wide variety of important optimization problems fall into this framework. We describe…
We introduce and investigate a new generalized convexity notion for functions called prox-convexity. The proximity operator of such a function is single-valued and firmly nonexpansive. We provide examples of (strongly) quasiconvex, weakly…
Variational convexity, together with ist strong counterpart, of extended-real-valued functions has been recently introduced by Rockafellar. In this paper we present second-order characterizations of these properties, i.e., conditions using…
In this work, we construct a proximal average for two prox-bounded functions, which recovers the classical proximal average for two convex functions. The new proximal average transforms continuously in epi-topology from one proximal hull to…
We extend the standard notion of self-concordance to non-convex optimization and develop a family of second-order algorithms with global convergence guarantees. In particular, two function classes -- \textit{weakly self-concordant}…
Approximations of functions with finite data often do not respect certain "structural" properties of the functions. For example, if a given function is non-negative, a polynomial approximation of the function is not necessarily also…
We introduce prox-convex for minimizing $F(x)=g(x)+h(C(x))+s(R(x))$, where $g$ and $h$ are convex, $C$ and $s$ are smooth, and each component of $R$ is convex (possibly nonsmooth). Here $g$ captures general convex objectives and indicator…
A parametrized convex function depends on a variable and a parameter, and is convex in the variable for any valid value of the parameter. Such functions can be used to specify parametrized convex optimization problems, i.e., a convex…
We systematically study the local single-valuedness of the Bregman proximal mapping and local smoothness of the Bregman--Moreau envelope of a nonconvex function under relative prox-regularity - an extension of prox-regularity - which was…
To minimize or upper-bound the value of a function "robustly", we might instead minimize or upper-bound the "epsilon-robust regularization", defined as the map from a point to the maximum value of the function within an epsilon-radius. This…
Regularization plays a pivotal role when facing the challenge of solving ill-posed inverse problems, where the number of observations is smaller than the ambient dimension of the object to be estimated. A line of recent work has studied…
Submodular functions are relevant to machine learning for at least two reasons: (1) some problems may be expressed directly as the optimization of submodular functions and (2) the lovasz extension of submodular functions provides a useful…
A class of real functions, which is the generalization of a family of convex functions, is introduced; in this connection, we have defined $X$-convex, strictly $X$-convex, quasi-$X$-convex, strictly quasi-$X$-convex, and semi-strictly…
The use of convex regularizers allows for easy optimization, though they often produce biased estimation and inferior prediction performance. Recently, nonconvex regularizers have attracted a lot of attention and outperformed convex ones.…
This paper is devoted to the study of the second-order variational analysis of spectral functions. It is well-known that spectral functions can be expressed as a composite function of symmetric functions and eigenvalue functions. We…
The NC-proximal average is a parametrized function used to continuously transform one proper, lsc, prox-bounded function into another. Until now, it has been defined for two functions. The purpose of this article is to redefine it so that…
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…
We consider minimization of composite functions of the form $f(g(x))+h(x)$, where $f$ and $h$ are convex functions (which can be nonsmooth) and $g$ is a smooth vector mapping. In addition, we assume that $g$ is the average of finite number…
Many practical optimization problems lack strong convexity. Fortunately, recent studies have revealed that first-order algorithms also enjoy linear convergences under various weaker regularity conditions. While the relationship among…
We investigate a class of composite nonconvex functions, where the outer function is the sum of univariate extended-real-valued convex functions and the inner function is the limit of difference-of-convex functions. A notable feature of…