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In this work, we study first-order algorithms for solving Bilevel Optimization (BO) where the objective functions are smooth but possibly nonconvex in both levels and the variables are restricted to closed convex sets. As a first step, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-13 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

We consider the problem of finding local minimizers in non-convex and non-smooth optimization. Under the assumption of strict saddle points, positive results have been derived for first-order methods. We present the first known results for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-13 Zhishen Huang , Stephen Becker

Randomized smoothing is a widely adopted technique for optimizing nonsmooth objective functions. However, its efficiency analysis typically relies on global Lipschitz continuity, a condition rarely met in practical applications. To address…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-10 Jingfan Xia , Zhenwei Lin , Qi Deng

This note studies numerical methods for solving compositional optimization problems, where the inner function is smooth, and the outer function is Lipschitz continuous, non-smooth, and non-convex but exhibits one of two special structures…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-22 Yao Yao , Qihang Lin , Tianbao Yang

We present new algorithms for optimizing non-smooth, non-convex stochastic objectives based on a novel analysis technique. This improves the current best-known complexity for finding a $(\delta,\epsilon)$-stationary point from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Ashok Cutkosky , Harsh Mehta , Francesco Orabona

We consider minimization of stochastic functionals that are compositions of a (potentially) non-smooth convex function $h$ and smooth function $c$ and, more generally, stochastic weakly-convex functionals. We develop a family of stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-09-25 John Duchi , Feng Ruan

This paper considers the problem of unconstrained minimization of smooth convex functions having Lipschitz continuous gradients with known Lipschitz constant. We recently proposed an optimized gradient method (OGM) for this problem and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-14 Donghwan Kim , Jeffrey A. Fessler

A fully stochastic second-order adaptive-regularization method for unconstrained nonconvex optimization is presented which never computes the objective-function value, but yet achieves the optimal $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^{-3/2})$ complexity…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-22 Serge Gratton , Sadok Jerad , Philippe L. Toint

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 propose a new first-order method for minimizing nonconvex functions with a Lipschitz continuous gradient and Hessian. The proposed method is an accelerated gradient descent with two restart mechanisms and finds a solution where the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-19 Naoki Marumo , Akiko Takeda

In this paper we study a class of unconstrained and constrained bilevel optimization problems in which the lower level is a possibly nonsmooth convex optimization problem, while the upper level is a possibly nonconvex optimization problem.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-08 Zhaosong Lu , Sanyou Mei

We discuss non-Euclidean deterministic and stochastic algorithms for optimization problems with strongly and uniformly convex objectives. We provide accuracy bounds for the performance of these algorithms and design methods which are…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-01-09 Anatoli Iouditski , Yuri Nesterov

We study a class of bilevel optimization problems in which both the upper- and lower-level problems have minimax structures. This setting captures a broad range of emerging applications. Despite the extensive literature on bilevel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-11 Yiyang Shen , Yutian He , Weiran Wang , Qihang Lin

We consider feasibility and constrained optimization problems defined over smooth and/or strongly convex sets. These notions mirror their popular function counterparts but are much less explored in the first-order optimization literature.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-02 Ning Liu , Benjamin Grimmer

We present a practical implementation of an optimal first-order method, due to Nesterov, for large-scale total variation regularization in tomographic reconstruction, image deblurring, etc. The algorithm applies to $\mu$-strongly convex…

This paper presents a stochastic block-coordinate proximal Newton method for minimizing the sum of a blockwise Lipschitz-continuously differentiable function and a separable nonsmooth convex function. At each iteration, the method randomly…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-25 Hong Zhu , Xun Qian

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-01-16 Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi

In this paper, we study a class of stochastic and finite-sum convex optimization problems with deterministic constraints. Existing methods typically aim to find an $\epsilon$-$expectedly\ feasible\ stochastic\ optimal$ solution, in which…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-26 Zhaosong Lu , Yifeng Xiao

Sign-based stochastic methods have gained attention due to their ability to achieve robust performance despite using only the sign information for parameter updates. However, the current convergence analysis of sign-based methods relies on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-24 Tao Sun , Congliang Chen , Peng Qiao , Li Shen , Xinwang Liu , Dongsheng Li

This work considers the problem of finding a first-order stationary point of a non-convex function with potentially unbounded smoothness constant using a stochastic gradient oracle. We focus on the class of $(L_0,L_1)$-smooth functions…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-14 Matthew Faw , Litu Rout , Constantine Caramanis , Sanjay Shakkottai