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Decentralized optimization algorithms have attracted intensive interests recently, as it has a balanced communication pattern, especially when solving large-scale machine learning problems. Stochastic Path Integrated Differential Estimator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-02 Taoxing Pan , Jun Liu , Jie Wang

We propose and analyze a randomized zeroth-order approach based on approximating the exact gradient byfinite differences computed in a set of orthogonal random directions that changes with each iteration. A number ofpreviously proposed…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-16 David Kozak , Cesare Molinari , Lorenzo Rosasco , Luis Tenorio , Silvia Villa

Zeroth-order optimization methods are developed to overcome the practical hurdle of having knowledge of explicit derivatives. Instead, these schemes work with merely access to noisy functions evaluations. One of the predominant approaches…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-22 Wouter Jongeneel

Many modern large-scale machine learning problems benefit from decentralized and stochastic optimization. Recent works have shown that utilizing both decentralized computing and local stochastic gradient estimates can outperform…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-06 Haoran Sun , Songtao Lu , Mingyi Hong

This study focuses on solving group zero-norm regularized robust loss minimization problems. We propose a proximal Majorization-Minimization (PMM) algorithm to address a class of equivalent Difference-of-Convex (DC) surrogate optimization…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-30 Ling Liang , Shujun Bi

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) with first-order methods like back-propagation is computationally intensive. Zeroth-Order (ZO) optimisation uses function evaluations instead of gradients, reducing memory usage, but suffers from…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-07-24 Alessio Galatolo , Zhenbang Dai , Katie Winkle , Meriem Beloucif

The proximal bundle method (PBM) is a fundamental and computationally effective algorithm for solving nonsmooth optimization problems. In this paper, we present the first variant of the PBM for smooth objectives, achieving an accelerated…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-30 David Fersztand , Xu Andy Sun

Zeroth-order methods have become important tools for solving problems where we have access only to function evaluations. However, the zeroth-order methods only using gradient approximations are $n$ times slower than classical first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-10 Erik Berglund , Sarit Khirirat , Xiaoyu Wang

We consider the task of decentralized minimization of the sum of smooth strongly convex functions stored across the nodes of a network. For this problem, lower bounds on the number of gradient computations and the number of communication…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-16 Dmitry Kovalev , Adil Salim , Peter Richtárik

In this paper, we propose a multilevel stochastic framework for the solution of nonconvex unconstrained optimization problems. The proposed approach uses random regularized first-order models that exploit an available hierarchical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-27 Filippo Marini , Margherita Porcelli , Elisa Riccietti

We introduce a novel framework for decentralized projection-free optimization, extending projection-free methods to a broader class of upper-linearizable functions. Our approach leverages decentralized optimization techniques with the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-25 Yiyang Lu , Mohammad Pedramfar , Vaneet Aggarwal

In this paper, we consider non-smooth stochastic convex optimization with two function evaluations per round under infinite noise variance. In the classical setting when noise has finite variance, an optimal algorithm, built upon the…

We study the problem of distributed zero-order optimization for a class of strongly convex functions. They are formed by the average of local objectives, associated to different nodes in a prescribed network of connections. We propose a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-06-29 Arya Akhavan , Massimiliano Pontil , Alexandre B. Tsybakov

Nonsmooth composite optimization with orthogonality constraints has a wide range of applications in statistical learning and data science. However, this problem is challenging due to its nonsmooth objective and computationally expensive…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-15 Ganzhao Yuan

We revisit the one-point feedback zeroth-order (ZO) optimization problem, a classical setting in derivative-free optimization where only a single noisy function evaluation is available per query. Compared to their two-point counterparts,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-19 Haishan Ye , Xiangyu Chang

We propose a zero-order optimization method for sequential min-max problems based on two populations of interacting particles. The systems are coupled so that one population aims to solve the inner maximization problem, while the other aims…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-25 Giacomo Borghi , Hui Huang , Jinniao Qiu

Zeroth-order optimization is an important research topic in machine learning. In recent years, it has become a key tool in black-box adversarial attack to neural network based image classifiers. However, existing zeroth-order optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-03-21 Haishan Ye , Zhichao Huang , Cong Fang , Chris Junchi Li , Tong Zhang

Decentralized solutions to finite-sum minimization are of significant importance in many signal processing, control, and machine learning applications. In such settings, the data is distributed over a network of arbitrarily-connected nodes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-14 Ran Xin , Soummya Kar , Usman A. Khan

This paper considers the nonconvex nonsmooth problem in which the objective function is Lipschitz continuous. We focus on the stochastic setting where the algorithm can access stochastic function value evaluations with heavy-tailed noise,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Zhuanghua Liu , Luo Luo

In this paper, we focus on finding the global minimizer of a general unconstrained nonsmooth nonconvex optimization problem. Taking advantage of the smoothing method and the consensus-based optimization (CBO) method, we propose a novel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-14 Jiazhen Wei , Wei Bian