Related papers: Comment on "First-order methods almost always avoi…
We prove the first convergence guarantees for a subgradient method minimizing a generic Lipschitz function over generic Lipschitz inequality constraints. No smoothness or convexity (or weak convexity) assumptions are made. Instead, we…
We consider the problem of finding a saddle point for the convex-concave objective $\min_x \max_y f(x) + \langle Ax, y\rangle - g^*(y)$, where $f$ is a convex function with locally Lipschitz gradient and $g$ is convex and possibly…
Learning new tasks by drawing on prior experience gathered from other (related) tasks is a core property of any intelligent system. Gradient-based meta-learning, especially MAML and its variants, has emerged as a viable solution to…
Gradient descent is the primary workhorse for optimizing large-scale problems in machine learning. However, its performance is highly sensitive to the choice of the learning rate. A key limitation of gradient descent is its lack of natural…
The note considers normalized gradient descent (NGD), a natural modification of classical gradient descent (GD) in optimization problems. A serious shortcoming of GD in non-convex problems is that GD may take arbitrarily long to escape from…
This paper addresses a class of nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization problems defined on complete Riemannian manifolds. The objective function has a composite structure, combining convex, differentiable, and lower semicontinuous terms,…
Smoothness is crucial for attaining fast rates in first-order optimization. However, many optimization problems in modern machine learning involve non-smooth objectives. Recent studies relax the smoothness assumption by allowing the…
Is it possible for a first-order method, i.e., only first derivatives allowed, to be quadratically convergent? For univariate loss functions, the answer is yes -- the Steffensen method avoids second derivatives and is still quadratically…
Motivated by energy based analyses for descent methods in the Euclidean setting, we investigate a generalisation of such analyses for descent methods over Riemannian manifolds. In doing so, we find that it is possible to derive…
For strongly convex objectives that are smooth, the classical theory of gradient descent ensures linear convergence relative to the number of gradient evaluations. An analogous nonsmooth theory is challenging. Even when the objective is…
Two-point zeroth order methods are important in many applications of zeroth-order optimization, such as robotics, wind farms, power systems, online optimization, and adversarial robustness to black-box attacks in deep neural networks, where…
The usual approach to developing and analyzing first-order methods for smooth convex optimization assumes that the gradient of the objective function is uniformly smooth with some Lipschitz constant $L$. However, in many settings the…
We extend the classical primal-dual interior point method from the Euclidean setting to the Riemannian one. Our method, named the Riemannian interior point method, is for solving Riemannian constrained optimization problems. We establish…
Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent (AGD), an instance of the general family of "momentum methods", provably achieves faster convergence rate than gradient descent (GD) in the convex setting. However, whether these methods are superior…
Algorithms for bilevel optimization often encounter Hessian computations, which are prohibitive in high dimensions. While recent works offer first-order methods for unconstrained bilevel problems, the constrained setting remains relatively…
Gradient descent and its variants are widely used in machine learning. However, oracle access of gradient may not be available in many applications, limiting the direct use of gradient descent. This paper proposes a method of estimating…
We study the factor model problem, which aims to uncover low-dimensional structures in high-dimensional datasets. Adopting a robust data-driven approach, we formulate the problem as a saddle-point optimization. Our primary contribution is a…
In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…
We study when the \emph{optimization curve} of first-order methods -- the sequence \${f(x\_n)}*{n\ge0}\$ produced by constant-stepsize iterations -- is convex, equivalently when the forward differences \$f(x\_n)-f(x*{n+1})\$ are…
Coordinate descent methods have considerable impact in global optimization because global (or, at least, almost global) minimization is affordable for low-dimensional problems. Coordinate descent methods with high-order regularized models…