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While many distributed optimization algorithms have been proposed for solving smooth or convex problems over the networks, few of them can handle non-convex and non-smooth problems. Based on a proximal primal-dual approach, this paper…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-01 Zhiguo Wang , Jiawei Zhang , Tsung-Hui Chang , Jian Li , Zhi-Quan Luo

Bilevel optimization (BLO) problem, where two optimization problems (referred to as upper- and lower-level problems) are coupled hierarchically, has wide applications in areas such as machine learning and operations research. Recently, many…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-19 Xiaotian Jiang , Ioannis Tsaknakis , Prashant Khanduri , Mingyi Hong

We analyze stochastic algorithms for optimizing nonconvex, nonsmooth finite-sum problems, where the nonconvex part is smooth and the nonsmooth part is convex. Surprisingly, unlike the smooth case, our knowledge of this fundamental problem…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-05-24 Sashank J. Reddi , Suvrit Sra , Barnabas Poczos , Alex Smola

Bilevel optimization has gained prominence in various applications. In this study, we introduce a framework for solving bilevel optimization problems, where the variables in both the lower and upper levels are constrained on Riemannian…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-05 Andi Han , Bamdev Mishra , Pratik Jawanpuria , Akiko Takeda

In this work, we present a globalized stochastic semismooth Newton method for solving stochastic optimization problems involving smooth nonconvex and nonsmooth convex terms in the objective function. We assume that only noisy gradient and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-03-12 Andre Milzarek , Xiantao Xiao , Shicong Cen , Zaiwen Wen , Michael Ulbrich

In this paper, we propose the Bi-Sub-Gradient (Bi-SG) method, which is a generalization of the classical sub-gradient method to the setting of convex bi-level optimization problems. This is a first-order method that is very easy to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-18 Roey Merchav , Shoham Sabach

With the success that the field of bilevel optimization has seen in recent years, similar methodologies have started being applied to solving more difficult applications that arise in trilevel optimization. At the helm of these applications…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-13 Tommaso Giovannelli , Griffin Dean Kent , Luis Nunes Vicente

In this paper, we discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: a smooth function plus a non-smooth function. Further, the smooth part can be expressed by the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-11-17 Luo Luo , Zihao Chen , Zhihua Zhang , Wu-Jun Li

We propose smoothed primal-dual algorithms for solving stochastic and smooth nonconvex optimization problems with linear inequality constraints. Our algorithms are single-loop and only require a single stochastic gradient based on one…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-11 Ruichuan Huang , Jiawei Zhang , Ahmet Alacaoglu

Bilevel optimization is a key framework in hierarchical decision-making, where one problem is embedded within the constraints of another. In this work, we propose a control-theoretic approach to solving bilevel optimization problems. Our…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-25 Sina Sharifi , Nazanin Abolfazli , Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani , Mahyar Fazlyab

We introduce contextual stochastic bilevel optimization (CSBO) -- a stochastic bilevel optimization framework with the lower-level problem minimizing an expectation conditioned on some contextual information and the upper-level decision…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-31 Yifan Hu , Jie Wang , Yao Xie , Andreas Krause , Daniel Kuhn

Temporal-Difference (TD) learning with nonlinear smooth function approximation for policy evaluation has achieved great success in modern reinforcement learning. It is shown that such a problem can be reformulated as a stochastic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-25 Shuang Qiu , Zhuoran Yang , Xiaohan Wei , Jieping Ye , Zhaoran Wang

We present two stochastic descent algorithms that apply to unconstrained optimization and are particularly efficient when the objective function is slow to evaluate and gradients are not easily obtained, as in some PDE-constrained…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-04-30 David Kozak , Stephen Becker , Alireza Doostan , Luis Tenorio

Bilevel optimization reveals the inner structure of otherwise oblique optimization problems, such as hyperparameter tuning, neural architecture search, and meta-learning. A common goal in bilevel optimization is to minimize a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-29 Lesi Chen , Jing Xu , Jingzhao Zhang

We consider stochastic convex optimization with a strongly convex (but not necessarily smooth) objective. We give an algorithm which performs only gradient updates with optimal rate of convergence.

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-06-15 Elad Hazan , Satyen Kale

For minimizing a strongly convex objective function subject to linear inequality constraints, we consider a penalty approach that allows one to utilize stochastic methods for problems with a large number of constraints and/or objective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-16 Meng Li , Paul Grigas , Alper Atamturk

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

Recently, lower-level constrained bilevel optimization has attracted increasing attention. However, existing methods mostly focus on either deterministic cases or problems with linear constraints. The main challenge in stochastic cases with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-13 Hantao Nie , Jiaxiang Li , Zaiwen Wen

Simple bilevel problems are optimization problems in which we want to find an optimal solution to an inner problem that minimizes an outer objective function. Such problems appear in many machine learning and signal processing applications…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-12-21 Lior Doron , Shimrit Shtern

We consider the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: one is the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and the other is a general convex function that admits a simple proximal mapping. We assume the whole…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-03-20 Lin Xiao , Tong Zhang