Related papers: Strong Evaluation Complexity Bounds for Arbitrary-…
We revisit the standard ``telescoping sum'' argument ubiquitous in the final steps of analyzing evaluation complexity of algorithms for smooth nonconvex optimization, and obtain a refined formulation of the resulting bound as a function of…
A worst-case complexity bound is proved for a sequential quadratic optimization (commonly known as SQP) algorithm that has been designed for solving optimization problems involving a stochastic objective function and deterministic nonlinear…
An algorithm for unconstrained non-convex optimization is described, which does not evaluate the objective function and in which minimization is carried out, at each iteration, within a randomly selected subspace. It is shown that this…
In this paper, we study nonconvex constrained optimization problems with both equality and inequality constraints, covering deterministic and stochastic settings. We propose a novel first-order algorithm framework that employs a…
Estimation of convex functions finds broad applications in engineering and science, while convex shape constraint gives rise to numerous challenges in asymptotic performance analysis. This paper is devoted to minimax optimal estimation of…
We introduce new global and local inexact oracle concepts for a wide class of convex functions in composite convex minimization. Such inexact oracles naturally come from primal-dual framework, barrier smoothing, inexact computations of…
In this paper we consider stochastic composite convex optimization problems with the objective function satisfying a stochastic bounded gradient condition, with or without a quadratic functional growth property. These models include the…
In this paper we address the convergence of stochastic approximation when the functions to be minimized are not convex and nonsmooth. We show that the "mean-limit" approach to the convergence which leads, for smooth problems, to the ODE…
We propose a new stochastic first-order algorithmic framework to solve stochastic composite nonconvex optimization problems that covers both finite-sum and expectation settings. Our algorithms rely on the SARAH estimator introduced in…
We prove novel convergence results for a stochastic proximal gradient algorithm suitable for solving a large class of convex optimization problems, where a convex objective function is given by the sum of a smooth and a possibly non-smooth…
It is well-known that the lower bound of iteration complexity for solving nonconvex unconstrained optimization problems is $\Omega(1/\epsilon^2)$, which can be achieved by standard gradient descent algorithm when the objective function is…
We consider minimizing a function consisting of a quadratic term and a proximable term which is possibly nonconvex and nonsmooth. This problem is also known as scaled proximal operator. Despite its simple form, existing methods suffer from…
Proximal operations are among the most common primitives appearing in both practical and theoretical (or high-level) optimization methods. This basic operation typically consists in solving an intermediary (hopefully simpler) optimization…
Majorization-minimization schemes are a broad class of iterative methods targeting general optimization problems, including nonconvex, nonsmooth and stochastic. These algorithms minimize successively a sequence of upper bounds of the…
We study the conditions under which one is able to efficiently apply variance-reduction and acceleration schemes on finite sum optimization problems. First, we show that, perhaps surprisingly, the finite sum structure by itself, is not…
Based on the ideas of arXiv:1710.06612, we consider the problem of minimization of the Holder-continuous non-smooth functional $f$ with non-positive convex (generally, non-smooth) Lipschitz-continuous functional constraint. We propose some…
The problem of minimizing the maximum of $N$ convex, Lipschitz functions plays significant roles in optimization and machine learning. It has a series of results, with the most recent one requiring $O(N\epsilon^{-2/3} + \epsilon^{-8/3})$…
We describe an approach for finding upper bounds on an ODE dynamical system's maximal Lyapunov exponent among all trajectories in a specified set. A minimization problem is formulated whose infimum is equal to the maximal Lyapunov exponent,…
This paper is devoted to a new modification of a recently proposed adaptive stochastic mirror descent algorithm for constrained convex optimization problems in the case of several convex functional constraints. Algorithms, standard and its…
In this paper, we provide near-optimal accelerated first-order methods for minimizing a broad class of smooth nonconvex functions that are strictly unimodal on all lines through a minimizer. This function class, which we call the class of…