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Saddle-point optimization problems are an important class of optimization problems with applications to game theory, multi-agent reinforcement learning and machine learning. A majority of the rich literature available for saddle-point…
Machine learning problems such as neural network training, tensor decomposition, and matrix factorization, require local minimization of a nonconvex function. This local minimization is challenged by the presence of saddle points, of which…
Escaping saddle points is a central research topic in nonconvex optimization. In this paper, we propose a simple gradient-based algorithm such that for a smooth function $f\colon\mathbb{R}^n\to\mathbb{R}$, it outputs an…
Local search heuristics for non-convex optimizations are popular in applied machine learning. However, in general it is hard to guarantee that such algorithms even converge to a local minimum, due to the existence of complicated saddle…
Many machine learning algorithms minimize a regularized risk, and stochastic optimization is widely used for this task. When working with massive data, it is desirable to perform stochastic optimization in parallel. Unfortunately, many…
In this paper we investigate the convergence of a recently popular class of first-order primal-dual algorithms for saddle point problems under the presence of errors occurring in the proximal maps and gradients. We study several types of…
We propose and analyze several inexact regularized Newton-type methods for finding a global saddle point of convex-concave unconstrained min-max optimization problems. Compared to first-order methods, our understanding of second-order…
Two-point zeroth order methods are important in many applications of zeroth-order optimization, such as robotics, wind farms, power systems, online optimization, and adversarial robustness to black-box attacks in deep neural networks, where…
The saddlepoint approximation gives an approximation to the density of a random variable in terms of its moment generating function. When the underlying random variable is itself the sum of $n$ unobserved i.i.d. terms, the basic classical…
Symmetric submodular maximization is an important class of combinatorial optimization problems, including MAX-CUT on graphs and hyper-graphs. The state-of-the-art algorithm for the problem over general constraints has an approximation ratio…
Decentralized optimization methods have been in the focus of optimization community due to their scalability, increasing popularity of parallel algorithms and many applications. In this work, we study saddle point problems of sum type,…
We develop an efficient method for solving non-convex constrained optimization problems that are pervasive in economics. The optimal solution to these problems often involves randomization. We employ a Lagrangian framework and prove that…
We propose stochastic optimization algorithms that can find local minima faster than existing algorithms for nonconvex optimization problems, by exploiting the third-order smoothness to escape non-degenerate saddle points more efficiently.…
The min-max optimization problem, also known as the saddle point problem, is a classical optimization problem which is also studied in the context of zero-sum games. Given a class of objective functions, the goal is to find a value for the…
This paper studies the saddle point problem of polynomials. We give an algorithm for computing saddle points. It is based on solving Lasserre's hierarchy of semidefinite relaxations. Under some genericity assumptions on defining…
Computing saddle points with a prescribed Morse index on potential energy surfaces is crucial for characterizing transition states for nosie-induced rare transition events in physics and chemistry. Many numerical algorithms for this type of…
We propose a new algorithm that finds an $\varepsilon$-approximate fixed point of a smooth function from the $n$-dimensional $\ell_2$ unit ball to itself. We use the general framework of finding approximate solutions to a variational…
We describe a line-search algorithm which achieves the best-known worst-case complexity results for problems with a certain "strict saddle" property that has been observed to hold in low-rank matrix optimization problems. Our algorithm is…
Optimal stopping is the problem of determining when to stop a stochastic system in order to maximize reward, which is of practical importance in domains such as finance, operations management and healthcare. Existing methods for…
We develop several efficient algorithms for the classical \emph{Matrix Scaling} problem, which is used in many diverse areas, from preconditioning linear systems to approximation of the permanent. On an input $n\times n$ matrix $A$, this…