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We consider the fundamental problem in non-convex optimization of efficiently reaching a stationary point. In contrast to the convex case, in the long history of this basic problem, the only known theoretical results on first-order…

This paper delves into stochastic optimization problems that involve Markovian noise. We present a unified approach for the theoretical analysis of first-order gradient methods for stochastic optimization and variational inequalities. Our…

Stochastic Gradient (SG) is the defacto iterative technique to solve stochastic optimization (SO) problems with a smooth (non-convex) objective $f$ and a stochastic first-order oracle. SG's attractiveness is due in part to its simplicity of…

This work studies constrained stochastic optimization problems where the objective and constraint functions are convex and expressed as compositions of stochastic functions. The problem arises in the context of fair classification, fair…

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…

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…

We consider smooth stochastic convex optimization problems in the context of algorithms which are based on directional derivatives of the objective function. This context can be considered as an intermediate one between derivative-free…

Proximal gradient method has been playing an important role to solve many machine learning tasks, especially for the nonsmooth problems. However, in some machine learning problems such as the bandit model and the black-box learning problem,…

We study momentum-based first-order optimization algorithms in which the iterations utilize information from the two previous steps and are subject to an additive white noise. This setup uses noise to account for uncertainty in either…

In this paper, we propose a unified view of gradient-based algorithms for stochastic convex composite optimization by extending the concept of estimate sequence introduced by Nesterov. More precisely, we interpret a large class of…

Stochastic first-order methods are standard for training large-scale machine learning models. Random behavior may cause a particular run of an algorithm to result in a highly suboptimal objective value, whereas theoretical guarantees are…

We propose new sequential simulation-optimization algorithms for general convex optimization via simulation problems with high-dimensional discrete decision space. The performance of each choice of discrete decision variables is evaluated…

We study stochastic zeroth-order (ZO) optimization of smooth nonconvex objectives under heavy-tailed sample-gradient noise. This regime is motivated by empirical evidence that gradient noise in modern machine learning can violate the…

We propose an algorithm for optimizations in which the gradients contain stochastic noise. This arises, for example, in structural optimizations when computations of forces and stresses rely on methods involving Monte Carlo sampling, such…

We develop a new primitive for stochastic optimization: a low-bias, low-cost estimator of the minimizer $x_\star$ of any Lipschitz strongly-convex function. In particular, we use a multilevel Monte-Carlo approach due to Blanchet and Glynn…

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…

We study finite-sum nonconvex optimization problems, where the objective function is an average of $n$ nonconvex functions. We propose a new stochastic gradient descent algorithm based on nested variance reduction. Compared with…

This paper proposes a stochastic gradient descent method with an adaptive Gaussian noise term for the global minimization of nearly convex functions, which are nonconvex and possess multiple strict local minimizers. The noise term,…

Stochastic First-Order (SFO) methods have been a cornerstone in addressing a broad spectrum of modern machine learning (ML) challenges. However, their efficacy is increasingly questioned, especially in large-scale applications where…

We consider a decentralized learning problem, where a set of computing nodes aim at solving a non-convex optimization problem collaboratively. It is well-known that decentralized optimization schemes face two major system bottlenecks:…