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We focus on analyzing the classical stochastic projected gradient methods under a general dependent data sampling scheme for constrained smooth nonconvex optimization. We show the worst-case rate of convergence $\tilde{O}(t^{-1/4})$ and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-26 Ahmet Alacaoglu , Hanbaek Lyu

We study stochastic convex optimization under infinite noise variance. Specifically, when the stochastic gradient is unbiased and has uniformly bounded $(1+\kappa)$-th moment, for some $\kappa \in (0,1]$, we quantify the convergence rate of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-24 Nuri Mert Vural , Lu Yu , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Stanislav Volgushev , Murat A. Erdogdu

Distributed stochastic non-convex optimization problems have recently received attention due to the growing interest of signal processing, computer vision, and natural language processing communities in applications deployed over…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-10-14 Yiyue Chen , Abolfazl Hashemi , Haris Vikalo

Functionally constrained stochastic optimization problems, where neither the objective function nor the constraint functions are analytically available, arise frequently in machine learning applications. In this work, assuming we only have…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-11 Anthony Nguyen , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian

We consider minimization of a smooth nonconvex function with inexact oracle access to gradient and Hessian (without assuming access to the function value) to achieve approximate second-order optimality. A novel feature of our method is that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-27 Shuyao Li , Stephen J. Wright

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) methods see many uses in optimization problems. Modifications to the algorithm, such as momentum-based SGD methods have been known to produce better results in certain cases. Much of this, however, is due…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Eric Lu

We suggest a general oracle-based framework that captures different parallel stochastic optimization settings described by a dependency graph, and derive generic lower bounds in terms of this graph. We then use the framework and derive…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-02-12 Blake Woodworth , Jialei Wang , Adam Smith , Brendan McMahan , Nathan Srebro

We analyze algorithms for solving stochastic variational inequalities (VI) without the bounded variance or bounded domain assumptions, where our main focus is min-max optimization with possibly unbounded constraint sets. We focus on two…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Ahmet Alacaoglu , Jun-Hyun Kim

In this paper, we study smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization problems, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions. We assume access to noisy evaluations of the functions and their gradients,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-15 Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi , Anthony Nguyen

Gradient-based minimax optimal algorithms have greatly promoted the development of continuous optimization and machine learning. One seminal work due to Yurii Nesterov [Nes83a] established $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{L/\mu})$ gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-07 Yuanshi Liu , Hanzhen Zhao , Yang Xu , Pengyun Yue , Cong Fang

We propose a projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions and the constraint set is a closed convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-11 Tesi Xiao , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi

We propose a new, more general approach to the design of stochastic gradient-based optimization methods for machine learning. In this new framework, optimizers assume access to a batch of gradient estimates per iteration, rather than a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-02 Julius Kunze , James Townsend , David Barber

In this paper, we propose and analyze a trust-region model-based algorithm for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems. Our framework utilizes random models of an objective function $f(x)$, obtained from stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-09-26 Ruobing Chen , Matt Menickelly , Katya Scheinberg

Robust discrete optimization is a highly active field of research where a plenitude of combinations between decision criteria, uncertainty sets and underlying nominal problems are considered. Usually, a robust problem becomes harder to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-14 Marc Goerigk , Mohammad Khosravi

Motivated by the prevalence and success of machine learning, a line of recent work has studied learning-augmented algorithms in the streaming model. These results have shown that for natural and practical oracles implemented with machine…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Soham Nagawanshi , Shalini Panthangi , Chen Wang , David P. Woodruff , Samson Zhou

Reinforcement learning (RL) problems are fundamental in online decision-making and have been instrumental in finding an optimal policy for Markov decision processes (MDPs). Function approximations are usually deployed to handle large or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Jiashuo Jiang , Yiming Zong , Yinyu Ye

A strategy is proposed for characterizing the worst-case performance of algorithms for solving nonconvex smooth optimization problems. Contemporary analyses characterize worst-case performance by providing, under certain assumptions on an…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-08-28 Frank E. Curtis , Daniel P. Robinson

We study the secure stochastic convex optimization problem. A learner aims to learn the optimal point of a convex function through sequentially querying a (stochastic) gradient oracle. In the meantime, there exists an adversary who aims to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-06 Wei Tang , Chien-Ju Ho , Yang Liu

Stochastic optimization problems often involve data distributions that change in reaction to the decision variables. This is the case for example when members of the population respond to a deployed classifier by manipulating their features…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-15 Dmitriy Drusvyatskiy , Lin Xiao

We propose a stochastic approximation method for approximating the efficient frontier of chance-constrained nonlinear programs. Our approach is based on a bi-objective viewpoint of chance-constrained programs that seeks solutions on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-29 Rohit Kannan , James Luedtke