Related papers: Optimal Approximation -- Smoothness Tradeoffs for …
We study the typical learning properties of the recently introduced Soft Margin Classifiers (SMCs), learning realizable and unrealizable tasks, with the tools of Statistical Mechanics. We derive analytically the behaviour of the learning…
This paper optimizes the step coefficients of first-order methods for smooth convex minimization in terms of the worst-case convergence bound (i.e., efficiency) of the decrease in the gradient norm. This work is based on the performance…
Stochastic optimal control (SOC) aims to direct the behavior of noisy systems and has widespread applications in science, engineering, and artificial intelligence. In particular, reward fine-tuning of diffusion and flow matching models and…
We consider fairness in submodular maximization subject to a knapsack constraint, a fundamental problem with various applications in economics, machine learning, and data mining. In the model, we are given a set of ground elements, each…
Learning systems match predicted scores to observations over some domain. Often, it is critical to produce accurate predictions in some subset (or region) of the domain, yet less important to accurately predict in other regions. We…
Offline reinforcement learning (RL) aims at learning an optimal strategy using a pre-collected dataset without further interactions with the environment. While various algorithms have been proposed for offline RL in the previous literature,…
Representational similarity metrics typically force all units to be matched, making them susceptible to noise and outliers common in neural representations. We extend the soft-matching distance to a partial optimal transport setting that…
The paper introduces several new concepts for solving nonconvex or nonsmooth optimization problems, including convertible nonconvex function, exact convertible nonconvex function and differentiable convertible nonconvex function. It is…
We study the problem of optimizing a function under a \emph{budgeted number of evaluations}. We only assume that the function is \emph{locally} smooth around one of its global optima. The difficulty of optimization is measured in terms of…
In many naturally occurring optimization problems one needs to ensure that the definition of the optimization problem lends itself to solutions that are tractable to compute. In cases where exact solutions cannot be computed tractably, it…
Stochastic gradient descent type methods are ubiquitous in machine learning, but they are only applicable to the optimization of differentiable functions. Proximal algorithms are more general and applicable to nonsmooth functions. We…
In this paper we characterize sharp time-data tradeoffs for optimization problems used for solving linear inverse problems. We focus on the minimization of a least-squares objective subject to a constraint defined as the sub-level set of a…
Aiming for accurate estimation of system reliability of load-sharing systems, a flexible model for such systems is constructed by approximating the cumulative hazard functions of component lifetimes using piecewise linear functions. The…
We study the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular set function subject to linear packing constraints. An instance of this problem consists of a matrix $A \in [0,1]^{m \times n}$, a vector $b \in [1,\infty)^m$, and a monotone…
In computing, as in many aspects of life, changes incur cost. Many optimization problems are formulated as a one-time instance starting from scratch. However, a common case that arises is when we already have a set of prior assignments, and…
The study of online algorithms with machine-learned predictions has gained considerable prominence in recent years. One of the common objectives in the design and analysis of such algorithms is to attain (Pareto) optimal tradeoffs between…
We propose a refinement of the maxmin approach to robustness. A mechanism's payoff guarantee over an ambiguity set is \emph{robust} if the guarantee is approximately satisfied at priors near the ambiguity set (in the weak topology). We show…
We propose a new algorithm that finds an $\varepsilon$-approximate fixed point of a smooth function from the $n$-dimensional $\ell_2$ unit ball to itself. We use the general framework of finding approximate solutions to a variational…
We analyze worst-case convergence guarantees of first-order optimization methods over a function class extending that of smooth and convex functions. This class contains convex functions that admit a simple quadratic upper bound. Its study…
Randomized smoothing is currently a state-of-the-art method to construct a certifiably robust classifier from neural networks against $\ell_2$-adversarial perturbations. Under the paradigm, the robustness of a classifier is aligned with the…