Related papers: Finite-Sum Coupled Compositional Stochastic Optimi…
The problem of minimizing sum-of-nonconvex functions (i.e., convex functions that are average of non-convex ones) is becoming increasingly important in machine learning, and is the core machinery for PCA, SVD, regularized Newton's method,…
We consider decentralized time-varying stochastic optimization problems where each of the functions held by the nodes has a finite sum structure. Such problems can be efficiently solved using variance reduction techniques. Our aim is to…
Approximations of functions with finite data often do not respect certain "structural" properties of the functions. For example, if a given function is non-negative, a polynomial approximation of the function is not necessarily also…
We revisit the classical dual ascent algorithm for minimization of convex functionals in the presence of linear constraints, and give convergence results which apply even for non-convex functionals. We describe limit points in terms of the…
We study distributed composite optimization over networks: agents minimize the sum of a smooth (strongly) convex function, the agents' sum-utility, plus a non-smooth (extended-valued) convex one. We propose a general algorithmic framework…
Modern large-scale finite-sum optimization relies on two key aspects: distribution and stochastic updates. For smooth and strongly convex problems, existing decentralized algorithms are slower than modern accelerated variance-reduced…
In this paper, we study a class of problems where the sum of truncated convex functions is minimized. In statistical applications, they are commonly encountered when $\ell_0$-penalized models are fitted and usually lead to NP-Hard…
We propose functional causal Bayesian optimization (fCBO), a method for finding interventions that optimize a target variable in a known causal graph. fCBO extends the CBO family of methods to enable functional interventions, which set a…
Large sectors of the recent optimization literature focused in the last decade on the development of optimal stochastic first order schemes for constrained convex models under progressively relaxed assumptions. Stochastic proximal point is…
Most algorithms for solving optimization problems or finding saddle points of convex-concave functions are fixed-point algorithms. In this work we consider the generic problem of finding a fixed point of an average of operators, or an…
In this paper, we aim to design the optimal sensor collaboration strategy for the estimation of time-varying parameters, where collaboration refers to the act of sharing measurements with neighboring sensors prior to transmission to a…
The stochastic compositional minimax problem has attracted a surge of attention in recent years since it covers many emerging machine learning models. Meanwhile, due to the emergence of distributed data, optimizing this kind of problem…
In this paper we address the convergence of stochastic approximation when the functions to be minimized are not convex and nonsmooth. We show that the "mean-limit" approach to the convergence which leads, for smooth problems, to the ODE…
This paper proposes a constrained stochastic successive convex approximation (CSSCA) algorithm to find a stationary point for a general non-convex stochastic optimization problem, whose objective and constraint functions are non-convex and…
Recent advances in optimization theory have shown that smooth strongly convex finite sums can be minimized faster than by treating them as a black box "batch" problem. In this work we introduce a new method in this class with a theoretical…
We develop a line-search second-order algorithmic framework for minimizing finite sums. We do not make any convexity assumptions, but require the terms of the sum to be continuously differentiable and have Lipschitz-continuous gradients.…
Monotone inclusions have a wide range of applications, including minimization, saddle-point, and equilibria problems. We introduce new stochastic algorithms, with or without variance reduction, to estimate a root of the expectation of…
Consensus-based optimization (CBO) is a versatile multi-particle metaheuristic optimization method suitable for performing nonconvex and nonsmooth global optimizations in high dimensions. It has proven effective in various applications…
In this paper, we investigate unconstrained and constrained sample-based federated optimization, respectively. For each problem, we propose a privacy preserving algorithm using stochastic successive convex approximation (SSCA) techniques,…
Stochastic approximation (SA) with multiple coupled sequences has found broad applications in machine learning such as bilevel learning and reinforcement learning (RL). In this paper, we study the finite-time convergence of nonlinear SA…