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A parametric class of trust-region algorithms for unconstrained nonconvex optimization is considered where the value of the objective function is never computed. The class contains a deterministic version of the first-order Adagrad method…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-08 S. Gratton , S. Jerad , Ph. L. Toint

We consider the optimization problem of the form $\min_{x \in \mathbb{R}^d} f(x) \triangleq \mathbb{E}_{\xi} [F(x; \xi)]$, where the component $F(x;\xi)$ is $L$-mean-squared Lipschitz but possibly nonconvex and nonsmooth. The recently…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-15 Lesi Chen , Jing Xu , Luo Luo

In this paper, we investigate accelerated first-order methods for smooth convex optimization problems under inexact information on the gradient of the objective. The noise in the gradient is considered to be additive with two possibilities:…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-10 Vasin Artem , Alexander Gasnikov , Pavel Dvurechensky , Vladimir Spokoiny

Reinforcement learning is about learning agent models that make the best sequential decisions in unknown environments. In an unknown environment, the agent needs to explore the environment while exploiting the collected information, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-12 Hong Qian , Yang Yu

This paper deals with stochastic optimization problems involving Markovian noise with a zero-order oracle. We present and analyze a novel derivative-free method for solving such problems in strongly convex smooth and non-smooth settings…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-06 Boris Prokhorov , Semyon Chebykin , Alexander Gasnikov , Aleksandr Beznosikov

The paper discusses derivative-free optimization (DFO), which involves minimizing a function without access to gradients or directional derivatives, only function evaluations. Classical DFO methods, which mimic gradient-based methods, such…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-17 Bumsu Kim , HanQin Cai , Daniel McKenzie , Wotao Yin

We present a new feasible proximal gradient method for constrained optimization where both the objective and constraint functions are given by the summation of a smooth, possibly nonconvex function and a convex simple function. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-01 Digvijay Boob , Qi Deng , Guanghui Lan

Recent studies have shown that fractional calculus is an effective alternative mathematical tool in various scientific fields. However, some investigations indicate that results established in differential and integral calculus do not…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-09 Higor V. M. Ferreira , Camila A. Tavares , Nelson H. T. Lemes , José P. C. dos Santos

Decentralized optimization is a powerful paradigm that finds applications in engineering and learning design. This work studies decentralized composite optimization problems with non-smooth regularization terms. Most existing gradient-based…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-29 Sulaiman A. Alghunaim , Kun Yuan , Ali H. Sayed

The data-driven discovery of interpretable models approximating the underlying dynamics of a physical system has gained attraction in the past decade. Current approaches employ pre-specified functional forms or basis functions and often…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-30 Rahul Golder , M. M. Faruque Hasan

This paper investigates projection-free algorithms for stochastic constrained multi-level optimization. In this context, the objective function is a nested composition of several smooth functions, and the decision set is closed and convex.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-07 Wei Jiang , Sifan Yang , Wenhao Yang , Yibo Wang , Yuanyu Wan , Lijun Zhang

Recently there has been renewed interests in derivative free approaches to stochastic optimization. In this paper, we examine the rates of convergence for the Kiefer-Wolfowitz algorithm and the mirror descent algorithm, under various…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-10-31 Liyi Dai

We consider in this paper a class of composite optimization problems whose objective function is given by the summation of a general smooth and nonsmooth component, together with a relatively simple nonsmooth term. We present a new class of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-10-27 Guanghui Lan

Our work focuses on stochastic gradient methods for optimizing a smooth non-convex loss function with a non-smooth non-convex regularizer. Research on this class of problem is quite limited, and until recently no non-asymptotic convergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-15 Michael R. Metel , Akiko Takeda

This paper presents an algorithm for solving multiobjective optimization problems involving composite functions, where we minimize a quadratic model that approximates $F(x) - F(x^k)$ and that can be derivative-free. We establish theoretical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-29 V. S. Amaral , P. B. Assunção , D. R. Souza

We consider the problem of minimizing a convex objective which is the sum of a smooth part, with Lipschitz continuous gradient, and a nonsmooth part. Inspired by various applications, we focus on the case when the nonsmooth part is a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-08-28 Ting Kei Pong

Discrete gradient methods are geometric integration techniques that can preserve the dissipative structure of gradient flows. Due to the monotonic decay of the function values, they are well suited for general convex and nonconvex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-17 Matthias J. Ehrhardt , Erlend S. Riis , Torbjørn Ringholm , Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb

In the past few years, following the differentiable programming paradigm, there has been a growing interest in computing the gradient information of physical processes (e.g., physical simulation, image rendering). However, such processes…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-06-24 Quentin Le Lidec , Louis Montaut , Cordelia Schmid , Ivan Laptev , Justin Carpentier

We consider the case of derivative-free algorithms for non-convex optimization, also known as zero order algorithms, that use only function evaluations rather than gradients. For a wide variety of gradient approximators based on finite…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-30 Lampros Flokas , Emmanouil-Vasileios Vlatakis-Gkaragkounis , Georgios Piliouras

An algorithm is said to be adaptive to a certain parameter (of the problem) if it does not need a priori knowledge of such a parameter but performs competitively to those that know it. This dissertation presents our work on adaptive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-10 Zhenxun Zhuang