Related papers: Optimization with Access to Auxiliary Information
An algorithm is proposed for solving optimization problems arising in neural network training for supervised learning. The unique feature of the algorithm is the use of an auxiliary loss, in addition to the original loss employed for model…
In stochastic zeroth-order optimization, a problem of practical relevance is understanding how to fully exploit the local geometry of the underlying objective function. We consider a fundamental setting in which the objective function is…
Many real-world design problems involve optimizing an expensive black-box function $f(x)$, such as hardware design or drug discovery. Bayesian Optimization has emerged as a sample-efficient framework for this problem. However, the basic…
The representation of functions by artificial neural networks depends on a large number of parameters in a non-linear fashion. Suitable parameters of these are found by minimizing a 'loss functional', typically by stochastic gradient…
We present an algorithm for minimizing an objective with hard-to-compute gradients by using a related, easier-to-access function as a proxy. Our algorithm is based on approximate proximal point iterations on the proxy combined with…
In imitation learning for planning, parameters of heuristic functions are optimized against a set of solved problem instances. This work revisits the necessary and sufficient conditions of strictly optimally efficient heuristics for forward…
We consider convex stochastic optimization problems under different assumptions on the properties of available stochastic subgradient. It is known that, if the value of the objective function is available, one can obtain, in parallel,…
We design an algorithm which finds an $\epsilon$-approximate stationary point (with $\|\nabla F(x)\|\le \epsilon$) using $O(\epsilon^{-3})$ stochastic gradient and Hessian-vector products, matching guarantees that were previously available…
The graduated optimization approach is a method for finding global optimal solutions for nonconvex functions by using a function smoothing operation with stochastic noise. This paper makes three contributions regarding graduated…
This work introduces the nested-set Hessian approximation, a second-order approximation method that can be used in any derivative-free optimization routine that requires such information. It is built on the foundation of the generalized…
We present an algorithm for minimizing a sum of functions that combines the computational efficiency of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with the second order curvature information leveraged by quasi-Newton methods. We unify these…
In this work we derive a second-order approach to bilevel optimization, a type of mathematical programming in which the solution to a parameterized optimization problem (the "lower" problem) is itself to be optimized (in the "upper"…
Second-order information -- such as curvature or data covariance -- is critical for optimisation, diagnostics, and robustness. However, in many modern settings, only the gradients are observable. We show that the gradients alone can reveal…
Using quasi-Newton methods in stochastic optimization is not a trivial task given the difficulty of extracting curvature information from the noisy gradients. Moreover, pre-conditioning noisy gradient observations tend to amplify the noise.…
This paper proposes several novel optimization algorithms for minimizing a nonlinear objective function. The algorithms are enlightened by the optimal state trajectory of an optimal control problem closely related to the minimized objective…
Modern realities and trends in learning require more and more generalization ability of models, which leads to an increase in both models and training sample size. It is already difficult to solve such tasks in a single device mode. This is…
In this paper we present a novel quasi-Newton algorithm for use in stochastic optimisation. Quasi-Newton methods have had an enormous impact on deterministic optimisation problems because they afford rapid convergence and computationally…
We consider the problem of minimizing a convex objective which is the sum of a smooth part, with Lipschitz continuous gradient, and a nonsmooth part. Inspired by various applications, we focus on the case when the nonsmooth part is a…
The superiorization methodology is intended to work with input data of constrained minimization problems, that is, a target function and a set of constraints. However, it is based on an antipodal way of thinking to what leads to constrained…
We propose a new gradient descent algorithm with added stochastic terms for finding the global optimizers of nonconvex optimization problems. A key component in the algorithm is the adaptive tuning of the randomness based on the value of…