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Related papers: Versatile Black-Box Optimization

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In black-box optimization, a central question is which algorithm to use to solve a given, previously unseen, problem. Selecting a single algorithm, however, entails inherent risks: inaccuracies in the selector may lead to poor choices, and…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Catalin-Viorel Dinu , Diederick Vermetten , Carola Doerr

We consider derivative-free black-box global optimization of expensive noisy functions, when most of the randomness in the objective is produced by a few influential scalar random inputs. We present a new Bayesian global optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-02-23 Saul Toscano-Palmerin , Peter I. Frazier

Optimizing discrete black-box functions is key in several domains, e.g. protein engineering and drug design. Due to the lack of gradient information and the need for sample efficiency, Bayesian optimization is an ideal candidate for these…

Bayesian optimization (BO) is a powerful technology for optimizing noisy expensive-to-evaluate black-box functions, with a broad range of real-world applications in science, engineering, economics, manufacturing, and beyond. In this paper,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-30 Joel A. Paulson , Calvin Tsay

Generating adversarial examples in a black-box setting retains a significant challenge with vast practical application prospects. In particular, existing black-box attacks suffer from the need for excessive queries, as it is non-trivial to…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2020-05-11 Jie Li , Rongrong Ji , Hong Liu , Jianzhuang Liu , Bineng Zhong , Cheng Deng , Qi Tian

High-dimensional black-box optimisation remains an important yet notoriously challenging problem. Despite the success of Bayesian optimisation methods on continuous domains, domains that are categorical, or that mix continuous and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-06-11 Xingchen Wan , Vu Nguyen , Huong Ha , Binxin Ru , Cong Lu , Michael A. Osborne

We consider the problem of optimizing hybrid structures (mixture of discrete and continuous input variables) via expensive black-box function evaluations. This problem arises in many real-world applications. For example, in materials design…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-03 Aryan Deshwal , Syrine Belakaria , Janardhan Rao Doppa

Efficient optimisation of black-box problems that comprise both continuous and categorical inputs is important, yet poses significant challenges. We propose a new approach, Continuous and Categorical Bayesian Optimisation (CoCaBO), which…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-08-11 Binxin Ru , Ahsan S. Alvi , Vu Nguyen , Michael A. Osborne , Stephen J Roberts

We introduce a variational quantum algorithm to solve unconstrained black box binary optimization problems, i.e., problems in which the objective function is given as black box. This is in contrast to the typical setting of quantum…

The global testing problem studied in this paper is to seek a definite answer to whether a system of concurrent black-boxes has an observable behavior in a given finite (but could be huge) set "Bad". We introduce a novel approach to solve…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Gaoyan Xie , Zhe Dang

We present a novel black box optimization algorithm called Hessian Estimation Evolution Strategy. The algorithm updates the covariance matrix of its sampling distribution by directly estimating the curvature of the objective function. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-11 Tobias Glasmachers , Oswin Krause

We consider quantile optimization of black-box functions that are estimated with noise. We propose two new iterative three-timescale local search algorithms. The first algorithm uses an appropriately modified finite-difference-based…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-16 Jiaqiao Hu , Meichen Song , Michael C. Fu

Population-based evolutionary algorithms are often considered when approaching computationally expensive black-box optimization problems. They employ a selection mechanism to choose the best solutions from a given population after comparing…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-01-30 Judith Echevarrieta , Etor Arza , Aritz Pérez

A black-box optimization algorithm such as Bayesian optimization finds extremum of an unknown function by alternating inference of the underlying function and optimization of an acquisition function. In a high-dimensional space, such…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-05-03 Syun Izawa , Koki Kitai , Shu Tanaka , Ryo Tamura , Koji Tsuda

Black-box optimization is primarily important for many compute-intensive applications, including reinforcement learning (RL), robot control, etc. This paper presents a novel theoretical framework for black-box optimization, in which our…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-10 Yueming Lyu , Ivor W. Tsang

Black-box optimization minimizes an objective function without derivatives or explicit forms. Such an optimization method with continuous variables has been successful in the fields of machine learning and material science. For discrete…

Black-box optimization algorithms have been widely used in various machine learning problems, including reinforcement learning and prompt fine-tuning. However, directly optimizing the training loss value, as commonly done in existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-17 Feiyang Ye , Yueming Lyu , Xuehao Wang , Masashi Sugiyama , Yu Zhang , Ivor Tsang

Black-box complexity is a complexity theoretic measure for how difficult a problem is to be optimized by a general purpose optimization algorithm. It is thus one of the few means trying to understand which problems are tractable for genetic…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Benjamin Doerr , Timo Kötzing , Johannes Lengler , Carola Winzen

In real-time systems optimization, designers often face a challenging problem posed by the non-convex and non-continuous schedulability conditions, which may even lack an analytical form to understand their properties. To tackle this…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-03-20 Sen Wang , Dong Li , Shao-Yu Huang , Xuanliang Deng , Ashrarul H. Sifat , Changhee Jung , Ryan Williams , Haibo Zeng

Automated algorithm selection for continuous black-box optimization depends on representing problem information under limited probing and selecting solvers under heavy-tailed performance distributions. This paper proposes a geometric…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-22 Jiabao Brad Wang , Xiang Shi , Yiliang Yuan , Mustafa Misir