Related papers: A One-bit, Comparison-Based Gradient Estimator
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…
In this paper, we propose a proximal gradient method and an accelerated proximal gradient method for solving composite optimization problems, where the objective function is the sum of a smooth and a convex, possibly nonsmooth, function. We…
Differentiable simulators promise faster computation time for reinforcement learning by replacing zeroth-order gradient estimates of a stochastic objective with an estimate based on first-order gradients. However, it is yet unclear what…
Recent advances in convex optimization have leveraged computer-assisted proofs to develop optimized first-order methods that improve over classical algorithms. However, each optimized method is specially tailored for a particular problem…
We propose a novel generalization of the conditional gradient (CG / Frank-Wolfe) algorithm for minimizing a smooth function $f$ under an intersection of compact convex sets, using a first-order oracle for $\nabla f$ and linear minimization…
First order methods endowed with global convergence guarantees operate using global lower bounds on the objective. The tightening of the bounds has been shown to increase both the theoretical guarantees and the practical performance. In…
In this paper, we study zeroth-order algorithms for minimax optimization problems that are nonconvex in one variable and strongly-concave in the other variable. Such minimax optimization problems have attracted significant attention lately…
In this paper, we are interested in finding the global minimizer of a nonsmooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization problem. By combining the discrete consensus-based optimization (CBO) algorithm and the gradient descent method, we develop…
We consider the problem of minimizing the composition of a smooth (nonconvex) function and a smooth vector mapping, where the inner mapping is in the form of an expectation over some random variable or a finite sum. We propose a stochastic…
In a variety of problems originating in supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning, the loss function is defined by an expectation over a collection of random variables, which might be part of a probabilistic model or the external…
In this paper we consider large-scale composite optimization problems having the objective function formed as a sum of two terms (possibly nonconvex), one has (block) coordinate-wise Lipschitz continuous gradient and the other is…
In this note we propose a new variant of the hybrid variance-reduced proximal gradient method in [7] to solve a common stochastic composite nonconvex optimization problem under standard assumptions. We simply replace the independent…
An Adagrad-inspired class of algorithms for smooth unconstrained optimization is presented in which the objective function is never evaluated and yet the gradient norms decrease at least as fast as $\calO(1/\sqrt{k+1})$ while second-order…
We present a variant of accelerated gradient descent algorithms, adapted from Nesterov's optimal first-order methods, for weakly-quasi-convex and weakly-quasi-strongly-convex functions. We show that by tweaking the so-called estimate…
This work introduces a simple and efficient linesearch method for composite minimization that accelerates proximal-gradient iterations with fast Newton-type directions. Our algorithm is based on simple operations and only requires the…
We consider nonconvex-concave minimax optimization problems of the form $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y\in{\mathcal Y}} f({\bf x},{\bf y})$, where $f$ is strongly-concave in $\bf y$ but possibly nonconvex in $\bf x$ and ${\mathcal Y}$ is a convex…
Federated learning heavily relies on distributed gradient descent techniques. In the situation where gradient information is not available, the gradients need to be estimated from zeroth-order information, which typically involves computing…
We study stochastic gradient descent for solving conditional stochastic optimization problems, in which an objective to be minimized is given by a parametric nested expectation with an outer expectation taken with respect to one random…
Rapid advances in data collection and processing capabilities have allowed for the use of increasingly complex models that give rise to nonconvex optimization problems. These formulations, however, can be arbitrarily difficult to solve in…
A number of optimization approaches have been proposed for optimizing nonconvex objectives (e.g. deep learning models), such as batch gradient descent, stochastic gradient descent and stochastic variance reduced gradient descent. Theory…