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We propose an Adagrad-like algorithm for multi-objective unconstrained optimization that relies on the computation of a common descent direction only. Unlike classical local algorithms for multi-objective optimization, our approach does not…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Marianna De Santis , Gabriele Eichfelder , Margherita Porcelli

In this paper we present an inexact zeroth-order method suitable for the solution nonsmooth and nonconvex stochastic composite optimization problems, in which the objective is split into a real-valued Lipschitz continuous stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-11 Spyridon Pougkakiotis , Dionysis Kalogerias

We present a novel gradient-free algorithm to solve a convex stochastic optimization problem, such as those encountered in medicine, physics, and machine learning (e.g., adversarial multi-armed bandit problem), where the objective function…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-22 Georgii Bychkov , Darina Dvinskikh , Anastasia Antsiferova , Alexander Gasnikov , Aleksandr Lobanov

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) with zeroth-order (ZO) optimization reduces memory by approximating gradients through function evaluations. However, existing methods essentially perform updates in a one-dimensional space, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-19 Jian Feng , Zhihong Huang

Frequently, the burgeoning field of black-box optimization encounters challenges due to a limited understanding of the mechanisms of the objective function. To address such problems, in this work we focus on the deterministic concept of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-30 Aleksandr Lobanov , Alexander Gasnikov , Andrei Krasnov

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) using standard first-order (FO) optimization often drives training toward sharp, poorly generalizing minima. Conversely, zeroth-order (ZO) methods offer stronger exploratory behavior without relying…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-12 Feihu Jin , Ying Tan

In this paper we propose a general framework to characterize and solve the stochastic optimization problems with multiple objectives underlying many real world learning applications. We first propose a projection based algorithm which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-07-16 Mehrdad Mahdavi , Tianbao Yang , Rong Jin

In this paper, we consider the composite optimization problem, where the objective function integrates a continuously differentiable loss function with a nonsmooth regularization term. Moreover, only the function values for the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-09 Shanglin Liu , Lei Wang , Nachuan Xiao , Xin Liu

Zeroth-Order (ZO) optimization has emerged as a promising solution for fine-tuning LLMs under strict memory constraints, as it avoids the prohibitive memory cost of storing activations for backpropagation. However, existing ZO methods…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-25 Wei Lin , Yining Jiang , Qingyu Song , Qiao Xiang , Hong Xu

This paper considers the decision-dependent optimization problem, where the data distributions react in response to decisions affecting both the objective function and linear constraints. We propose a new method termed repeated projected…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-13 Zifan Wang , Changxin Liu , Thomas Parisini , Michael M. Zavlanos , Karl H. Johansson

We investigate the convergence properties of a class of iterative algorithms designed to minimize a potentially non-smooth and noisy objective function, which may be algebraically intractable and whose values may be obtained as the output…

Computation · Statistics 2025-12-04 Christophe Andrieu , Nicolas Chopin , Ettore Fincato , Mathieu Gerber

It is well known that both gradient descent and stochastic coordinate descent achieve a global convergence rate of $O(1/k)$ in the objective value, when applied to a scheme for minimizing a Lipschitz-continuously differentiable,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-15 Ching-pei Lee , Stephen J. Wright

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

In this work, we study first-order algorithms for solving Bilevel Optimization (BO) where the objective functions are smooth but possibly nonconvex in both levels and the variables are restricted to closed convex sets. As a first step, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-13 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

This paper investigates the stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem of minimizing a global cost function formed by the summation of $n$ local cost functions. We solve such a problem by involving zeroth-order (ZO) information…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-10-15 Shengjun Zhang , Yunlong Dong , Dong Xie , Lisha Yao , Colleen P. Bailey , Shengli Fu

This paper investigates a category of constrained fractional optimization problems that emerge in various practical applications. The objective function for this category is characterized by the ratio of a numerator and denominator, both…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-28 Yizun Lin , Jian-Feng Cai , Zhao-Rong Lai , Cheng Li

Hard-thresholding is an important type of algorithm in machine learning that is used to solve $\ell_0$ constrained optimization problems. However, the true gradient of the objective function can be difficult to access in certain scenarios,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Xinzhe Yuan , William de Vazelhes , Bin Gu , Huan Xiong

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-01 Xiao Li , Lei Zhao , Daoli Zhu , Anthony Man-Cho So

In online convex optimization (OCO), Lipschitz continuity of the functions is commonly assumed in order to obtain sublinear regret. Moreover, many algorithms have only logarithmic regret when these functions are also strongly convex.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-01 Yihan Zhou , Victor S. Portella , Mark Schmidt , Nicholas J. A. Harvey

We study the problem of zeroth-order (black-box) optimization of a Lipschitz function $f$ defined on a compact subset $\mathcal X$ of $\mathbb R^d$, with the additional constraint that algorithms must certify the accuracy of their…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2023-03-23 François Bachoc , Tommaso R Cesari , Sébastien Gerchinovitz