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Related papers: Gradient-Free Methods for Saddle-Point Problem

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We consider the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: one is the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and the other is a general convex function that admits a simple proximal mapping. We assume the whole…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-03-20 Lin Xiao , Tong Zhang

We consider the problem of minimizing a $d$-dimensional Lipschitz convex function using a stochastic gradient oracle. We introduce and motivate a setting where the noise of the stochastic gradient is isotropic in that it is bounded in every…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-24 Annie Marsden , Liam O'Carroll , Aaron Sidford , Chenyi Zhang

Extrapolation is a well-known technique for solving convex optimization and variational inequalities and recently attracts some attention for non-convex optimization. Several recent works have empirically shown its success in some machine…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-02-06 Yi Xu , Zhuoning Yuan , Sen Yang , Rong Jin , Tianbao Yang

Saddle point optimization is a critical problem employed in numerous real-world applications, including portfolio optimization, generative adversarial networks, and robotics. It has been extensively studied in cases where the objective…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Shubhankar Agarwal , Hamzah I. Khan , Sandeep P. Chinchali , David Fridovich-Keil

This paper focuses on the distributed optimization of stochastic saddle point problems. The first part of the paper is devoted to lower bounds for the centralized and decentralized distributed methods for smooth (strongly) convex-(strongly)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-28 Aleksandr Beznosikov , Valentin Samokhin , Alexander Gasnikov

Convergence to a saddle point for convex-concave functions has been studied for decades, while recent years has seen a surge of interest in non-convex (zero-sum) smooth games, motivated by their recent wide applications. It remains an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-04 Guojun Zhang , Pascal Poupart , Yaoliang Yu

We develop model-based methods for solving stochastic convex optimization problems, introducing the approximate-proximal point, or aProx, family, which includes stochastic subgradient, proximal point, and bundle methods. When the modeling…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-09-20 Hilal Asi , John C. Duchi

Stochastically controlled stochastic gradient (SCSG) methods have been proved to converge efficiently to first-order stationary points which, however, can be saddle points in nonconvex optimization. It has been observed that a stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-04-26 Guannan Liang , Qianqian Tong , Chunjiang Zhu , Jinbo Bi

In this paper, we propose a primal-dual algorithm with a novel momentum term using the partial gradients of the coupling function that can be viewed as a generalization of the method proposed by Chambolle and Pock in 2016 to solve saddle…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-10-22 Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani , Necdet Serhat Aybat

In this paper, we present novel randomized algorithms for solving saddle point problems whose dual feasible region is given by the direct product of many convex sets. Our algorithms can achieve an ${\cal O}(1/N)$ and ${\cal O}(1/N^2)$ rate…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-11-16 Cong Dang , Guanghui Lan

In this paper, we propose some accelerated methods for solving optimization problems under the condition of relatively smooth and relatively Lipschitz continuous functions with an inexact oracle. We consider the problem of minimizing the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-27 O. S. Savchuk , M. S. Alkousa , A. S. Shushko , A. A. Vyguzov , F. S. Stonyakin , D. A. Pasechnyuk , A. V. Gasnikov

In this paper, we give a sharp analysis for Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and prove that SGD is able to efficiently escape from saddle points and find an $(\epsilon, O(\epsilon^{0.5}))$-approximate second-order stationary point in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-05 Cong Fang , Zhouchen Lin , Tong Zhang

In this paper we consider convex optimization problems with stochastic composite objective function subject to (possibly) infinite intersection of constraints. The objective function is expressed in terms of expectation operator over a sum…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-03 Ion Necoara , Nitesh Kumar Singh

We propose a primal-dual smoothing framework for finding a near-stationary point of a class of non-smooth non-convex optimization problems with max-structure. We analyze the primal and dual gradient complexities of the framework via two…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-19 Renbo Zhao

Stochastic nonconvex optimization problems with nonlinear constraints have a broad range of applications in intelligent transportation, cyber-security, and smart grids. In this paper, first, we propose an inexact-proximal accelerated…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-07-08 Morteza Boroun , Afrooz Jalilzadeh

There is a recent surge of interest in nonconvex reformulations via low-rank factorization for stochastic convex semidefinite optimization problem in the purpose of efficiency and scalability. Compared with the original convex formulations,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-27 Jinshan Zeng , Ke Ma , Yuan Yao

We propose new sequential simulation-optimization algorithms for general convex optimization via simulation problems with high-dimensional discrete decision space. The performance of each choice of discrete decision variables is evaluated…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-15 Haixiang Zhang , Zeyu Zheng , Javad Lavaei

We revisit the smooth convex-concave bilinearly-coupled saddle-point problem of the form $\min_x\max_y f(x) + \langle y,\mathbf{B} x\rangle - g(y)$. In the highly specific case where each of the functions $f(x)$ and $g(y)$ is either affine…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-25 Dmitry Kovalev , Ekaterina Borodich

Saddle points provide a hierarchical view of the energy landscape, revealing transition pathways and interconnected basins of attraction, and offering insight into the global structure, metastability, and possible collective mechanisms of…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-10-17 Baoming Shi , Lei Zhang , Qiang Du

A central challenge to using first-order methods for optimizing nonconvex problems is the presence of saddle points. First-order methods often get stuck at saddle points, greatly deteriorating their performance. Typically, to escape from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-09-06 Sashank J Reddi , Manzil Zaheer , Suvrit Sra , Barnabas Poczos , Francis Bach , Ruslan Salakhutdinov , Alexander J Smola