Related papers: Non-convex Distributionally Robust Optimization: N…

Out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization is a challenging machine learning problem yet highly desirable in many high-stake applications. Existing methods suffer from overly pessimistic modeling with low generalization confidence. As…

Distributed Optimization is an increasingly important subject area with the rise of multi-agent control and optimization. We consider a decentralized stochastic optimization problem where the agents on a graph aim to asynchronously optimize…

We study stochastic optimization of nonconvex loss functions, which are typical objectives for training neural networks. We propose stochastic approximation algorithms which optimize a series of regularized, nonlinearized losses on large…

This paper proposes a novel non-parametric multidimensional convex regression estimator which is designed to be robust to adversarial perturbations in the empirical measure. We minimize over convex functions the maximum (over Wasserstein…

We consider a two-stage distributionally robust optimization (DRO) model with multimodal uncertainty, where both the mode probabilities and uncertainty distributions could be affected by the first-stage decisions. To address this setting,…

We consider optimal decision-making problems in an uncertain environment. In particular, we consider the case in which the distribution of the input is unknown, yet there is abundant historical data drawn from the distribution. In this…

Sampling-based optimization (SBO), like cross-entropy method and evolutionary algorithms, has achieved many successes in solving non-convex problems without gradients, yet its convergence is poorly understood. In this paper, we establish a…

In stochastic optimization, a common tool to deal sequentially with large sample is to consider the well-known stochastic gradient algorithm. Nevertheless, since the stepsequence is the same for each direction, this can lead to bad results…

Distributionally robust stochastic optimization (DRSO) is an approach to optimization under uncertainty in which, instead of assuming that there is a known true underlying probability distribution, one hedges against a chosen set of…

The minimax excess risk optimization (MERO) problem is a new variation of the traditional distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problem, which achieves uniformly low regret across all test distributions under suitable conditions. In…

Dual averaging and gradient descent with their stochastic variants stand as the two canonical recipe books for first-order optimization: Every modern variant can be viewed as a descendant of one or the other. In the convex regime, these…

Recently introduced distributed zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) algorithms have shown their utility in distributed reinforcement learning (RL). Unfortunately, in the gradient estimation process, almost all of them require random samples…

We study nonconvex finite-sum problems and analyze stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) methods for them. SVRG and related methods have recently surged into prominence for convex optimization given their edge over stochastic gradient…

This paper considers stochastic optimization problems for a large class of objective functions, including convex and continuous submodular. Stochastic proximal gradient methods have been widely used to solve such problems; however, their…

We study distributed stochastic gradient (D-SG) method and its accelerated variant (D-ASG) for solving decentralized strongly convex stochastic optimization problems where the objective function is distributed over several computational…

This paper considers nonconvex distributed constrained optimization over networks, modeled as directed (possibly time-varying) graphs. We introduce the first algorithmic framework for the minimization of the sum of a smooth nonconvex…

Trustworthy machine learning aims at combating distributional uncertainties in training data distributions compared to population distributions. Typical treatment frameworks include the Bayesian approach, (min-max) distributionally robust…

In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the average of a large number of nonsmooth and convex functions. Such problems often arise in typical machine learning problems as empirical risk minimization, but are computationally…

This paper considers the distributed optimization problem over a network, where the objective is to optimize a global function formed by a sum of local functions, using only local computation and communication. We develop an Accelerated…

We prove novel convergence results for a stochastic proximal gradient algorithm suitable for solving a large class of convex optimization problems, where a convex objective function is given by the sum of a smooth and a possibly non-smooth…