Related papers: Swarm gradient dynamics for global optimization: t…
We consider minimization of a smooth nonconvex function with inexact oracle access to gradient and Hessian (without assuming access to the function value) to achieve approximate second-order optimality. A novel feature of our method is that…
This paper analyzes block-coordinate proximal gradient methods for minimizing the sum of a separable smooth function and a (nonseparable) nonsmooth function, both of which are allowed to be nonconvex. The main tool in our analysis is the…
Gradient-based minimax optimal algorithms have greatly promoted the development of continuous optimization and machine learning. One seminal work due to Yurii Nesterov [Nes83a] established $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{L/\mu})$ gradient…
This paper considers distributed stochastic optimization, in which a number of agents cooperate to optimize a global objective function through local computations and information exchanges with neighbors over a network. Stochastic…
In this work, we consider constrained stochastic optimization problems under hidden convexity, i.e., those that admit a convex reformulation via non-linear (but invertible) map $c(\cdot)$. A number of non-convex problems ranging from…
We consider stochastic optimization problems involving an expected value of a nonlinear function of a base random vector and a conditional expectation of another function depending on the base random vector, a dependent random vector, and…
This book is devoted to finite-dimensional problems of non-convex non-smooth optimization and numerical methods for their solution. The problem of nonconvexity is studied in the book on two main models of nonconvex dependencies: these are…
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 propose an algorithm for distributed optimization over time-varying communication networks. Our algorithm uses an optimized ratio between the number of rounds of communication and gradient evaluations to achieve fast convergence. The…
In this paper we are concerned with the global minimization of a possibly non-smooth and non-convex objective function constrained on the unit hypersphere by means of a multi-agent derivative-free method. The proposed algorithm falls into…
We propose a stochastic optimization method for the minimization of the sum of three convex functions, one of which has Lipschitz continuous gradient as well as restricted strong convexity. Our approach is most suitable in the setting where…
Majorization-minimization schemes are a broad class of iterative methods targeting general optimization problems, including nonconvex, nonsmooth and stochastic. These algorithms minimize successively a sequence of upper bounds of the…
We show that the Wang-Landau algorithm can be formulated as a stochastic gradient descent algorithm minimizing a smooth and convex objective function, of which the gradient is estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo iterations. The…
The necessity to find the global optimum of multiextremal functions arises in many applied problems where finding local solutions is insufficient. One of the desirable properties of global optimization methods is \emph{strong homogeneity}…
We develop multi-step gradient methods for network-constrained optimization of strongly convex functions with Lipschitz-continuous gradients. Given the topology of the underlying network and bounds on the Hessian of the objective function,…
This paper considers the problem of minimizing the summation of a differentiable function and a nonsmooth function on a Riemannian manifold. In recent years, proximal gradient method and its invariants have been generalized to the…
In a Hilbert setting, for convex differentiable optimization, we develop a general framework for adaptive accelerated gradient methods. They are based on damped inertial dynamics where the coefficients are designed in a closed-loop way.…
A new approach to combinatorial optimization based on systematic move-class deflation is proposed. The algorithm combines heuristics of genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, and is mainly entropy-driven. It is tested on two problems…
We propose a novel gradient-based online optimization framework for solving stochastic programming problems that frequently arise in the context of cyber-physical and robotic systems. Our problem formulation accommodates constraints that…
Due to its applications in many different places in machine learning and other connected engineering applications, the problem of minimization of a smooth function that satisfies the Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz condition receives much attention…