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Zeroth-order methods are extensively used in machine learning applications where gradients are infeasible or expensive to compute, such as black-box attacks, reinforcement learning, and language model fine-tuning. Existing optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Liang Zhang , Bingcong Li , Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Sewoong Oh , Michael Muehlebach , Niao He

We introduce new multilevel methods for solving large-scale unconstrained optimization problems. Specifically, the philosophy of multilevel methods is applied to Newton-type methods that regularize the Newton sub-problem using second order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-16 Nick Tsipinakis , Panos Parpas

Bilevel optimization, with broad applications in machine learning, has an intricate hierarchical structure. Gradient-based methods have emerged as a common approach to large-scale bilevel problems. However, the computation of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-27 Yan Yang , Bin Gao , Ya-xiang Yuan

Bilevel optimization has arisen as a powerful tool for many machine learning problems such as meta-learning, hyperparameter optimization, and reinforcement learning. In this paper, we investigate the nonconvex-strongly-convex bilevel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-30 Kaiyi Ji , Junjie Yang , Yingbin Liang

Meta-learning problem is usually formulated as a bi-level optimization in which the task-specific and the meta-parameters are updated in the inner and outer loops of optimization, respectively. However, performing the optimization in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Hadi Tabealhojeh , Soumava Kumar Roy , Peyman Adibi , Hossein Karshenas

We study bilevel optimization problems where the lower-level problems are strongly convex and have coupled linear constraints. To overcome the potential non-smoothness of the hyper-objective and the computational challenges associated with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Wei Shen , Jiawei Zhang , Minhui Huang , Cong Shen

In this paper, we study a class of bilevel optimization problems, also known as simple bilevel optimization, where we minimize a smooth objective function over the optimal solution set of another convex constrained optimization problem.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-25 Ruichen Jiang , Nazanin Abolfazli , Aryan Mokhtari , Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani

Hyperparameter tuning is an active area of research in machine learning, where the aim is to identify the optimal hyperparameters that provide the best performance on the validation set. Hyperparameter tuning is often achieved using naive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-23 Ankur Sinha , Tanmay Khandait , Raja Mohanty

We introduce a framework based on bilevel programming that unifies gradient-based hyperparameter optimization and meta-learning. We show that an approximate version of the bilevel problem can be solved by taking into explicit account the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-07-04 Luca Franceschi , Paolo Frasconi , Saverio Salzo , Riccardo Grazzi , Massimilano Pontil

Bilevel optimization has been widely applied in many important machine learning applications such as hyperparameter optimization and meta-learning. Recently, several momentum-based algorithms have been proposed to solve bilevel optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-17 Junjie Yang , Kaiyi Ji , Yingbin Liang

Quasi-convex optimization acts a pivotal part in many fields including economics and finance; the subgradient method is an effective iterative algorithm for solving large-scale quasi-convex optimization problems. In this paper, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-25 Yaohua Hu , Jiawen Li , Carisa Kwok Wai Yu

Variational inequalities represent a broad class of problems, including minimization and min-max problems, commonly found in machine learning. Existing second-order and high-order methods for variational inequalities require precise…

We consider stochastic unconstrained bilevel optimization problems when only the first-order gradient oracles are available. While numerous optimization methods have been proposed for tackling bilevel problems, existing methods either tend…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-27 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

Bilevel learning has gained prominence in machine learning, inverse problems, and imaging applications, including hyperparameter optimization, learning data-adaptive regularizers, and optimizing forward operators. The large-scale nature of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-20 Mohammad Sadegh Salehi , Subhadip Mukherjee , Lindon Roberts , Matthias J. Ehrhardt

We present a derivative-based algorithm for nonlinearly constrained optimization problems that is tolerant of inaccuracies in the data. The algorithm solves a semi-smooth set of nonlinear equations that are equivalent to the first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-09-21 Jason E. Hicken , Pengfei Meng , Alp Dener

Bilevel optimization is a hierarchical framework where an upper-level optimization problem is constrained by a lower-level problem, commonly used in machine learning applications such as hyperparameter optimization. Existing bilevel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-03 Yuman Wu , Xiaochuan Gong , Jie Hao , Mingrui Liu

In this work, we propose derivative-free framework for bilevel optimization. We consider both the upper and lower-level problems with bound constraints on the variables, as well as general nonlinear constraints, assuming that first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-24 Edoardo Cesaroni , Giampaolo Liuzzi , Stefano Lucidi

Hierarchical decision making problems, such as bilevel programs and Stackelberg games, are attracting increasing interest in both the engineering and machine learning communities. Yet, existing solution methods lack either convergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-29 Panagiotis D. Grontas , Giuseppe Belgioioso , Carlo Cenedese , Marta Fochesato , John Lygeros , Florian Dörfler

We consider simple bilevel optimization problems where the goal is to compute among the optimal solutions of a composite convex optimization problem, one that minimizes a secondary objective function. Our main contribution is threefold. (i)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-14 Sepideh Samadi , Daniel Burbano , Farzad Yousefian

In this paper, we study and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for solving bilvel problems, when neither the upper/lower objective values, nor their unbiased gradient estimates are available. In particular, exploiting…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-02 Alireza Aghasi , Saeed Ghadimi