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Related papers: Non-Uniform Smoothness for Gradient Descent

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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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-12 Le Duc Hieu

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 work establishes new convergence guarantees for gradient descent in smooth convex optimization via a computer-assisted analysis technique. Our theory allows nonconstant stepsize policies with frequent long steps potentially violating…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-06 Benjamin Grimmer

The gradient descent (GD) method -- is a fundamental and likely the most popular optimization algorithm in machine learning (ML), with a history traced back to a paper in 1847 (Cauchy, 1847). It was studied under various assumptions,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-20 Aleksandr Lobanov , Alexander Gasnikov , Eduard Gorbunov , Martin Takáč

An Adagrad-inspired class of algorithms for smooth unconstrained optimization is presented in which the objective function is never evaluated and yet the gradient norms decrease at least as fast as $\calO(1/\sqrt{k+1})$ while second-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-16 S. Gratton , Ph. L. Toint

The paper is devoted to new modifications of recently proposed adaptive methods of Mirror Descent for convex minimization problems in the case of several convex functional constraints. Methods for problems of two classes are considered. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-29 Fedor S. Stonyakin , Mohammad S. Alkousa , Alexey N. Stepanov , Maxim A. Barinov

The incremental gradient method is a prominent algorithm for minimizing a finite sum of smooth convex functions, used in many contexts including large-scale data processing applications and distributed optimization over networks. It is a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-09 Mert Gürbüzbalaban , Asuman Ozdaglar , Pablo Parrilo

Composite optimization problems, where the sum of a smooth and a merely lower semicontinuous function has to be minimized, are often tackled numerically by means of proximal gradient methods as soon as the lower semicontinuous part of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-07-05 Christian Kanzow , Patrick Mehlitz

We study the optimization of non-convex functions that are not necessarily smooth (gradient and/or Hessian are Lipschitz) using first order methods. Smoothness is a restrictive assumption in machine learning in both theory and practice,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-27 Daniel Yiming Cao , August Y. Chen , Karthik Sridharan , Benjamin Tang

Gradient descent (GD) is a collection of continuous optimization methods that have achieved immeasurable success in practice. Owing to data science applications, GD with diminishing step sizes has become a prominent variant. While this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-27 Vivak Patel , Albert S. Berahas

We consider stochastic unconstrained bilevel optimization problems when only the first-order gradient oracles are available. While numerous optimization methods have been proposed for tackling bilevel problems, existing methods either tend…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-27 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

This work considers gradient descent for L-smooth convex optimization with stepsizes larger than the classic regime where descent can be ensured. The stepsize schedules considered are similar to but differ slightly from the recent silver…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-15 Benjamin Grimmer , Kevin Shu , Alex L. Wang

We study a class of optimization problems on Riemannian manifolds, where the objective function consists of a smooth term and quasi-norm type penalties with exponent $p \in (0, 1]$. The essential difficulty lies in the fact that the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Lei Wang , Xiaojun Chen

We analyze nonlinearly preconditioned gradient methods for solving smooth minimization problems. We introduce a generalized smoothness property, based on the notion of abstract convexity, that is broader than Lipschitz smoothness and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-18 Konstantinos Oikonomidis , Jan Quan , Emanuel Laude , Panagiotis Patrinos

We present a novel adaptive optimization algorithm for large-scale machine learning problems. Equipped with a low-cost estimate of local curvature and Lipschitz smoothness, our method dynamically adapts the search direction and step-size.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-14 Majid Jahani , Sergey Rusakov , Zheng Shi , Peter Richtárik , Michael W. Mahoney , Martin Takáč

We analyze the constant step size subgradient method on nonsmooth, nonconvex functions. We identify geometric assumptions on the objective function under which i) its domain admits a partition (stratification) into smooth manifolds (strata)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-21 Evgenii Chzhen , Sholom Schechtman

This paper addresses stochastic optimization of Lipschitz-continuous, nonsmooth and nonconvex objectives over compact convex sets, where only noisy function evaluations are available. While gradient-free methods have been developed for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Anik Kumar Paul , Shalabh Bhatnagar

The paper presents a new descent algorithm for locally Lipschitz continuous functions $f:X\to\mathbb{R}$. The selection of a descent direction at some iteration point $x$ combines an approximation of the set-valued gradient of $f$ on a…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2019-10-25 Jan Mankau , Friedemann Schuricht

In this paper, we propose a distributed first-order algorithm with backtracking linesearch for solving multi-agent minimisation problems, where each agent handles a local objective involving nonsmooth and smooth components. Unlike existing…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-14 Felipe Atenas , Minh N. Dao , Matthew K. Tam

We study gradient descent (GD) with a constant stepsize for $\ell_2$-regularized logistic regression with linearly separable data. Classical theory suggests small stepsizes to ensure monotonic reduction of the optimization objective,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-04 Jingfeng Wu , Pierre Marion , Peter Bartlett