Related papers: Long term dynamics of the subgradient method for L…
We analyze the constant step size subgradient method on nonsmooth, nonconvex functions. We identify geometric assumptions on the objective function under which i) its domain admits a partition (stratification) into smooth manifolds (strata)…
We show that the vanishing stepsize subgradient method -- widely adopted for machine learning applications -- can display rather messy behavior even in the presence of favorable assumptions. We establish that convergence of bounded…
We consider the gradient method with variable step size for minimizing functions that are definable in o-minimal structures on the real field and differentiable with locally Lipschitz gradients. We prove that global convergence holds if…
The subgradient method is one of the most fundamental algorithmic schemes for nonsmooth optimization. The existing complexity and convergence results for this method are mainly derived for Lipschitz continuous objective functions. In this…
An algorithm is proposed, analyzed, and tested for minimizing locally Lipschitz objective functions that may be nonconvex and/or nonsmooth. The algorithm, which is built upon the gradient-sampling methodology, is designed specifically for…
This paper addresses the study of derivative-free smooth optimization problems, where the gradient information on the objective function is unavailable. Two novel general derivative-free methods are proposed and developed for minimizing…
The convergence theory for the gradient sampling algorithm is extended to directionally Lipschitz functions. Although directionally Lipschitz functions are not necessarily locally Lipschitz, they are almost everywhere differentiable and…
The gradient method for minimize a differentiable convex function on Riemannian manifolds with lower bounded sectional curvature is analyzed in this paper. The analysis of the method is presented with three different finite procedures for…
We propose a single time-scale stochastic subgradient method for constrained optimization of a composition of several nonsmooth and nonconvex functions. The functions are assumed to be locally Lipschitz and differentiable in a generalized…
We study differentiable strongly quasiconvex functions for providing new properties for algorithmic and monotonicity purposes. Furthemore, we provide insights into the decreasing behaviour of strongly quasiconvex functions, applying this…
We consider the problem of minimizing the average of a large number of smooth but possibly non-convex functions. In the context of most machine learning applications, each loss function is non-negative and thus can be expressed as the…
In a series of papers \cite{LSJR16, PP17, LPP}, it was established that some of the most commonly used first order methods almost surely (under random initializations) and with step-size being small enough, avoid strict saddle points, as…
Classical results show that gradient descent converges linearly to minimizers of smooth strongly convex functions. A natural question is whether there exists a locally nearly linearly convergent method for nonsmooth functions with quadratic…
We construct examples of Lipschitz continuous functions, with pathological subgradient dynamics both in continuous and discrete time. In both settings, the iterates generate bounded trajectories, and yet fail to detect any (generalized)…
In this work, we approach the minimization of a continuously differentiable convex function under linear equality constraints by a second-order dynamical system with an asymptotically vanishing damping term. The system under consideration…
Gradient descent (GD) is a collection of continuous optimization methods that have achieved immeasurable success in practice. Owing to data science applications, GD with diminishing step sizes has become a prominent variant. While this…
We revisit the geometrically decaying step size given a positive inverse condition number, under which a locally Lipschitz function shows linear convergence. The positivity does not require the function to satisfy convexity, weak convexity,…
The problem of minimization of the sum of two convex functions has various theoretical and real-world applications. One of the popular methods for solving this problem is the proximal gradient method (proximal forward-backward algorithm). A…
Composite optimization problems, where the sum of a smooth and a merely lower semicontinuous function has to be minimized, are often tackled numerically by means of proximal gradient methods as soon as the lower semicontinuous part of the…
We show that the subgradient method converges only to local minimizers when applied to generic Lipschitz continuous and subdifferentially regular functions that are definable in an o-minimal structure. At a high level, the argument we…