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Bilevel optimization is characterized by a two-level optimization structure, where the upper-level problem is constrained by optimal lower-level solutions, and such structures are prevalent in real-world problems. The constraint by optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-29 Ruth Wan Theng Chew , Quoc Phong Nguyen , Bryan Kian Hsiang Low

Block coordinate descent methods and stochastic subgradient methods have been extensively studied in optimization and machine learning. By combining randomized block sampling with stochastic subgradient methods based on dual averaging, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-09-16 Qi Deng , Guanghui Lan , Anand Rangarajan

In this paper, we study smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization problems, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions. We assume access to noisy evaluations of the functions and their gradients,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-15 Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi , Anthony Nguyen

Hierarchical optimization refers to problems with interdependent decision variables and objectives, such as minimax and bilevel formulations. While various algorithms have been proposed, existing methods and analyses lack adaptivity in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-27 Xiaochuan Gong , Jie Hao , Mingrui Liu

Contextual Stochastic Bilevel Optimization (CSBO) extends standard stochastic bilevel optimization (SBO) by incorporating context-dependent lower-level problems. CSBO problems are generally intractable since existing methods require solving…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-07 Maxime Bouscary , Jiawei Zhang , Saurabh Amin

Bilevel optimization minimizes an objective function, defined by an upper-level problem whose feasible region is the solution of a lower-level problem. We study the oracle complexity of finding an $\epsilon$-stationary point with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-01 Lesi Chen , Jingzhao Zhang

Bayesian optimization is a sample-efficient method for solving expensive, black-box optimization problems. Stochastic programming concerns optimization under uncertainty where, typically, average performance is the quantity of interest. In…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-19 Jack M. Buckingham , Ivo Couckuyt , Juergen Branke

Bilevel optimization involves a hierarchical structure where one problem is nested within another, leading to complex interdependencies between levels. We propose a single-loop, tuning-free algorithm that guarantees anytime feasibility,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-15 Sina Sharifi , Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani , Mahyar Fazlyab

This paper investigates simple bilevel optimization problems where we minimize an upper-level objective over the optimal solution set of a convex lower-level objective. Existing methods for such problems either only guarantee asymptotic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-05 Pengyu Chen , Xu Shi , Rujun Jiang , Jiulin Wang

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-15 Jia Bi , Steve R. Gunn

Although upper bound guarantees for bilevel optimization have been widely studied, progress on lower bounds has been limited due to the complexity of the bilevel structure. In this work, we focus on the smooth nonconvex-strongly-convex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Kaiyi Ji

One key challenge for solving a general stochastic optimization problem with expectations in the objective and constraint functions using ordinary stochastic iterative methods lies in the infeasibility issue caused by the randomness over…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2019-08-30 Chencheng Ye , Ying Cui

Optimal control of obstacle problems arises in a wide range of applications and is computationally challenging due to its nonsmoothness, nonlinearity, and bilevel structure. Classical numerical approaches rely on mesh-based discretization…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-08 Yongcun Song , Shangzhi Zeng , Jin Zhang , Lvgang Zhang

Stochastic optimization finds a wide range of applications in operations research and management science. However, existing stochastic optimization techniques usually require the information of random samples (e.g., demands in the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-04-18 Xi Chen , Qihang Lin , Zizhuo Wang

In this paper, we study a class of bilevel programming problem where the inner objective function is strongly convex. More specifically, under some mile assumptions on the partial derivatives of both inner and outer objective functions, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-02-08 Saeed Ghadimi , Mengdi Wang

We consider the standard optimistic bilevel optimization problem, in particular upper- and lower-level constraints can be coupled. By means of the lower-level value function, the problem is transformed into a single-level optimization…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-17 Andreas Fischer , Alain B. Zemkoho , Shenglong Zhou

This paper considers the simple bilevel optimization (SBO) problem, which minimizes a composite convex function over the optimal solution set of another composite convex minimization problem. We first show that this bilevel problem is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-11 Rujun Jiang , Xu Shi , Weizheng Song , Jiulin Wang

Consider convex optimization problems subject to a large number of constraints. We focus on stochastic problems in which the objective takes the form of expected values and the feasible set is the intersection of a large number of convex…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-11-13 Mengdi Wang , Yichen Chen , Jialin Liu , Yuantao Gu

Recently, bi-level optimization (BLO) has taken center stage in some very exciting developments in the area of signal processing (SP) and machine learning (ML). Roughly speaking, BLO is a classical optimization problem that involves two…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-22 Yihua Zhang , Prashant Khanduri , Ioannis Tsaknakis , Yuguang Yao , Mingyi Hong , Sijia Liu

We consider a scalar objective minimization problem over the solution set of another optimization problem. This problem is known as simple bilevel optimization problem and has drawn a significant attention in the last few years. Our inner…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-09-18 Yekini Shehu , Phan Tu Vuong , Alain Zemkoho