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In this paper we propose several adaptive gradient methods for stochastic optimization. Unlike AdaGrad-type of methods, our algorithms are based on Armijo-type line search and they simultaneously adapt to the unknown Lipschitz constant of…

Zeroth-order methods are extensively used in machine learning applications where gradients are infeasible or expensive to compute, such as black-box attacks, reinforcement learning, and language model fine-tuning. Existing optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Liang Zhang , Bingcong Li , Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Sewoong Oh , Michael Muehlebach , Niao He

The use of min-max optimization in adversarial training of deep neural network classifiers and training of generative adversarial networks has motivated the study of nonconvex-nonconcave optimization objectives, which frequently arise in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-02 Jelena Diakonikolas , Constantinos Daskalakis , Michael I. Jordan

We propose a novel randomized incremental gradient algorithm, namely, VAriance-Reduced Accelerated Gradient (Varag), for finite-sum optimization. Equipped with a unified step-size policy that adjusts itself to the value of the condition…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-01 Guanghui Lan , Zhize Li , Yi Zhou

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is widely used to handle challenging tasks, such as query-based black-box adversarial attacks and reinforcement learning. Various attempts have been made to integrate prior information into the gradient…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-11-09 Shuyu Cheng , Guoqiang Wu , Jun Zhu

This paper considers a general problem of convex stochastic optimization in a relatively low-dimensional space (e.g., 100 variables). It is known that for deterministic convex optimization problems of small dimensions, the fastest…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-27 Egor Gladin , Alexander Gasnikov , Elena Ermakova

In this paper, we study stochastic minimax problems with decision-dependent distributions (SMDD), where the probability distribution of stochastic variable depends on decision variable. For SMDD with nonconvex-(strongly) concave objective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-16 Yan Gao , Yongchao Liu

The gradient descent-ascent (GDA) algorithm has been widely applied to solve minimax optimization problems. In order to achieve convergent policy parameters for minimax optimization, it is important that GDA generates convergent variable…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-02-18 Ziyi Chen , Yi Zhou , Tengyu Xu , Yingbin Liang

We study monotone variational inequalities that can arise as optimality conditions for constrained convex optimisation or convex-concave minimax problems and propose a novel algorithm that uses only one gradient/operator evaluation and one…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-24 Michael Sedlmayer , Dang-Khoa Nguyen , Radu Ioan Bot

In this work, we propose and analyze DCA-PAGE, a novel algorithm that integrates the difference-of-convex algorithm (DCA) with the ProbAbilistic Gradient Estimator (PAGE) to solve structured nonsmooth difference-of-convex programs. In the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-16 Anh Duc Nguyen , Alp Yurtsever , Suvrit Sra , Kim-Chuan Toh

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is popular in real-world applications that accessing the gradient information is expensive or unavailable. Recently, adaptive ZO methods that normalize gradient estimators by the empirical standard deviation…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-03 Haishan Ye , Luo Luo

Block coordinate descent methods and stochastic subgradient methods have been extensively studied in optimization and machine learning. By combining randomized block sampling with stochastic subgradient methods based on dual averaging, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-09-16 Qi Deng , Guanghui Lan , Anand Rangarajan

Classically, a mainstream approach for solving a convex-concave min-max problem is to instead solve the variational inequality problem arising from its first-order optimality conditions. Is it possible to solve min-max problems faster by…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-06 Henry Shugart , Jason M. Altschuler

This paper studies the stochastic nonconvex-strongly-concave minimax optimization over a multi-agent network. We propose an efficient algorithm, called Decentralized Recursive gradient descEnt Ascent Method (DREAM), which achieves the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-15 Lesi Chen , Haishan Ye , Luo Luo

In the framework of real Hilbert spaces we study continuous in time dynamics as well as numerical algorithms for the problem of approaching the set of zeros of a single-valued monotone and continuous operator $V$. The starting poin is a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-23 Radu Ioan Bot , Ernö Robert Csetnek , Dang-Khoa Nguyen

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method is popular for solving non-convex optimization problems in machine learning. This work investigates SGD from a viewpoint of graduated optimization, which is a widely applied approach for non-convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-15 Da Li , Jingjing Wu , Qingrun Zhang

The stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method is a widely used approach for solving stochastic optimization problems, but its convergence is typically slow. Existing variance reduction techniques, such as SAGA, improve convergence by…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-21 Fabio Nobile , Matteo Raviola , Nathan Schaeffer

Nonconvex optimization is central in solving many machine learning problems, in which block-wise structure is commonly encountered. In this work, we propose cyclic block coordinate methods for nonconvex optimization problems with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-31 Xufeng Cai , Chaobing Song , Stephen J. Wright , Jelena Diakonikolas

Rank-based zeroth-order (ZO) optimization -- which relies only on the ordering of function evaluations -- offers strong robustness to noise and monotone transformations, and underlies many successful algorithms such as CMA-ES, natural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 Haishan Ye

Distributed optimization problems usually face inexact communication issues induced by channel noise, communication quantization or differential privacy protection. Most existing algorithms need a two-timescale setting of the stepsize of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-03 Shengchao Zhao , Yongchao Liu