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Related papers: Zeroth-Order Algorithms for Smooth Saddle-Point Pr…

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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

We consider (stochastic) convex-concave saddle point (SP) problems with high-dimensional decision variables, arising in various applications including machine learning problems. To contend with the challenges in computing full gradients, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-30 Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani , Afrooz Jalilzadeh , Necdet Serhat Aybat

We develop a novel and single-loop variance-reduced algorithm to solve a class of stochastic nonconvex-convex minimax problems involving a nonconvex-linear objective function, which has various applications in different fields such as…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-10-27 Quoc Tran-Dinh , Deyi Liu , Lam M. Nguyen

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

We consider distributed smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization over networks, modeled as a connected graph. We examine the behavior of distributed gradient-based algorithms near strict saddle points. Specifically, we establish that (i)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-26 Amir Daneshmand , Gesualdo Scutari , Vyacheslav Kungurtsev

Using convex combination and linesearch techniques, we introduce a novel primal-dual algorithm for solving structured convex-concave saddle point problems with a generic smooth nonbilinear coupling term. Our adaptive linesearch strategy…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-17 Xiaokai Chang , Junfeng Yang , Hongchao Zhang

Constrained non-convex optimization is fundamentally challenging, as global solutions are generally intractable and constraint qualifications may not hold. However, in many applications, including safe policy optimization in control and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-14 Ilyas Fatkhullin , Niao He , Guanghui Lan , Florian Wolf

Recently, the problem of local minima in very high dimensional non-convex optimization has been challenged and the problem of saddle points has been introduced. This paper introduces a dynamic type of normalization that forces the system to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-02-08 Armen Aghajanyan

This paper studies first order methods for solving smooth minimax optimization problems $\min_x \max_y g(x,y)$ where $g(\cdot,\cdot)$ is smooth and $g(x,\cdot)$ is concave for each $x$. In terms of $g(\cdot,y)$, we consider two settings --…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-03 Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Prateek Jain , Praneeth Netrapalli , Sewoong Oh

Stochastic optimization problems with unknown decision-dependent distributions have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to its importance in applications. Since the gradient of the objective function is inaccessible as a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-30 Yuya Hikima , Akiko Takeda

We propose a regularized saddle-point algorithm for convex networked optimization problems with resource allocation constraints. Standard distributed gradient methods suffer from slow convergence and require excessive communication when…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2012-08-16 Andrea Simonetto , Tamas Keviczky , Mikael Johansson

We analyze stochastic gradient descent for optimizing non-convex functions. In many cases for non-convex functions the goal is to find a reasonable local minimum, and the main concern is that gradient updates are trapped in saddle points.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-03-10 Rong Ge , Furong Huang , Chi Jin , Yang Yuan

In this paper, we study zeroth-order algorithms for nonconvex minimax problems with coupled linear constraints under the deterministic and stochastic settings, which have attracted wide attention in machine learning, signal processing and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-06 Huiling Zhang , Zi Xu , Yuhong Dai

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

We develop an inexact primal-dual first-order smoothing framework to solve a class of non-bilinear saddle point problems with primal strong convexity. Compared with existing methods, our framework yields a significant improvement over the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-25 Le Thi Khanh Hien , Renbo Zhao , William B. Haskell

In this paper, we focus on solving a class of constrained non-convex non-concave saddle point problems in a decentralized manner by a group of nodes in a network. Specifically, we assume that each node has access to a summand of a global…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-01 Weijie Liu , Aryan Mokhtari , Asuman Ozdaglar , Sarath Pattathil , Zebang Shen , Nenggan Zheng

We extend the Frank-Wolfe (FW) optimization algorithm to solve constrained smooth convex-concave saddle point (SP) problems. Remarkably, the method only requires access to linear minimization oracles. Leveraging recent advances in FW…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-03-07 Gauthier Gidel , Tony Jebara , Simon Lacoste-Julien

We present new algorithms for optimizing non-smooth, non-convex stochastic objectives based on a novel analysis technique. This improves the current best-known complexity for finding a $(\delta,\epsilon)$-stationary point from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Ashok Cutkosky , Harsh Mehta , Francesco Orabona

This work considers stochastic optimization problems in which the objective function values can only be computed by a blackbox corrupted by some random noise following an unknown distribution. The proposed method is based on sequential…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-15 Charles Audet , Jean Bigeon , Romain Couderc , Michael Kokkolaras

We consider max-min and min-max problems with objective functions that are possibly non-smooth, submodular with respect to the minimiser and concave with respect to the maximiser. We investigate the performance of a zeroth-order method…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-29 Amir Ali Farzin , Yuen-Man Pun , Philipp Braun , Tyler Summers , Iman Shames