Related papers: On Monte-Carlo methods in convex stochastic optimi…
Much recent research has been conducted in the area of Bayesian learning, particularly with regard to the optimization of hyper-parameters via Gaussian process regression. The methodologies rely chiefly on the method of maximizing the…
There is a recent surge of interest in nonconvex reformulations via low-rank factorization for stochastic convex semidefinite optimization problem in the purpose of efficiency and scalability. Compared with the original convex formulations,…
In this paper, we propose a predictor-corrector type Consensus Based Optimization (CBO) algorithm on a convex feasible set. Our proposed algorithm generalizes the CBO algorithm in [11] to tackle a constrained optimization problem for the…
Recent studies on diffusion-based sampling methods have shown that Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) algorithms can be beneficial for non-convex optimization, and rigorous theoretical guarantees have been proven for both asymptotic and finite-time…
A number of optimal decision problems with uncertainty can be formulated into a stochastic optimal control framework. The Least-Squares Monte Carlo (LSMC) algorithm is a popular numerical method to approach solutions of such stochastic…
The uniform sampling of convex regions in high dimension is an important computational issue, from both theoretical and applied point of view. The hit-and-run montecarlo algorithms are the most efficient methods known to perform it and one…
In stochastic convex optimization the goal is to minimize a convex function $F(x) \doteq {\mathbf E}_{{\mathbf f}\sim D}[{\mathbf f}(x)]$ over a convex set $\cal K \subset {\mathbb R}^d$ where $D$ is some unknown distribution and each…
We treat the so-called scenario approach, a popular probabilistic approximation method for robust minmax optimization problems via independent and indentically distributed (i.i.d) sampling from the uncertainty set, from various…
This paper studies multi-level stochastic approximation algorithms. Our aim is to extend the scope of the multilevel Monte Carlo method recently introduced by Giles (Giles 2008) to the framework of stochastic optimization by means of…
The stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA) and the corresponding Monte Carlo (MC) method are among the most common approaches for studying stochastic processes. They rely on knowledge of interevent probability density functions (PDFs) and on…
We provide novel theoretical results regarding local optima of regularized $M$-estimators, allowing for nonconvexity in both loss and penalty functions. Under restricted strong convexity on the loss and suitable regularity conditions on the…
Consider the problem of minimizing the expected value of a (possibly nonconvex) cost function parameterized by a random (vector) variable, when the expectation cannot be computed accurately (e.g., because the statistics of the random…
We propose a stochastic approximation method for approximating the efficient frontier of chance-constrained nonlinear programs. Our approach is based on a bi-objective viewpoint of chance-constrained programs that seeks solutions on the…
Optimization algorithms and Monte Carlo sampling algorithms have provided the computational foundations for the rapid growth in applications of statistical machine learning in recent years. There is, however, limited theoretical…
The scenario-based optimization approach (`scenario approach') provides an intuitive way of approximating the solution to chance-constrained optimization programs, based on finding the optimal solution under a finite number of sampled…
Motivated by recent increased interest in optimization algorithms for non-convex optimization in application to training deep neural networks and other optimization problems in data analysis, we give an overview of recent theoretical…
Monte-Carlo simulations are routinely used for estimating the scaling exponents of complex systems. However, due to finite-size effects, determining the exponent values is often difficult and not reliable. Here we present a novel technique…
In this paper, we provide new insights on the Unadjusted Langevin Algorithm. We show that this method can be formulated as a first order optimization algorithm of an objective functional defined on the Wasserstein space of order $2$. Using…
Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…
We introduce a new approach to develop stochastic optimization algorithms for a class of stochastic composite and possibly nonconvex optimization problems. The main idea is to combine two stochastic estimators to create a new hybrid one. We…