Related papers: Dealing with unbounded gradients in stochastic sad…
We consider stochastic convex optimization problems with affine constraints and develop several methods using either primal or dual approach to solve it. In the primal case, we use a special penalization technique to make the initial…
We consider the case of derivative-free algorithms for non-convex optimization, also known as zero order algorithms, that use only function evaluations rather than gradients. For a wide variety of gradient approximators based on finite…
We consider a wide range of regularized stochastic minimization problems with two regularization terms, one of which is composed with a linear function. This optimization model abstracts a number of important applications in artificial…
In this paper, we study the problem of escaping from saddle points in smooth nonconvex optimization problems subject to a convex set $\mathcal{C}$. We propose a generic framework that yields convergence to a second-order stationary point of…
We consider the problem of minimizing a non-convex objective while preserving the privacy of the examples in the training data. Building upon the previous variance-reduced algorithm SpiderBoost, we introduce a new framework that utilizes…
We propose an optimization proxy in terms of iterative implicit gradient methods for solving constrained optimization problems with nonconvex loss functions. This framework can be applied to a broad range of machine learning settings,…
In this paper, we explore a broad class of constrained saddle point problems with a bilevel structure, wherein the upper-level objective function is nonconvex-concave and smooth over compact and convex constraint sets, subject to a strongly…
This contribution examines optimization problems that involve stochastic dominance constraints. These problems have uncountably many constraints. We develop methods to solve the optimization problem by reducing the constraints to a finite…
We propose a primal-dual smoothing framework for finding a near-stationary point of a class of non-smooth non-convex optimization problems with max-structure. We analyze the primal and dual gradient complexities of the framework via two…
Distributed nonconvex optimization underpins key functionalities of numerous distributed systems, ranging from power systems, smart buildings, cooperative robots, vehicle networks to sensor networks. Recently, it has also merged as a…
Typically, the sequence of points generated by an optimization algorithm may have multiple limit points. Under convexity assumptions, however, (sub)gradient methods are known to generate a convergent sequence of points. In this paper, we…
Driven by the need to solve increasingly complex optimization problems in signal processing and machine learning, there has been increasing interest in understanding the behavior of gradient-descent algorithms in non-convex environments.…
Stochastic nonconvex-concave min-max saddle point problems appear in many machine learning and control problems including distributionally robust optimization, generative adversarial networks, and adversarial learning. In this paper, we…
Reinforcement Learning is a powerful framework for training agents to navigate different situations, but it is susceptible to changes in environmental dynamics. However, solving Markov Decision Processes that are robust to changes is…
We consider regression problems with binary weights. Such optimization problems are ubiquitous in quantized learning models and digital communication systems. A natural approach is to optimize the corresponding Lagrangian using variants of…
In centralized settings, it is well known that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) avoids saddle points and converges to local minima in nonconvex problems. However, similar guarantees are lacking for distributed first-order algorithms. The…
Constrained optimization problems where both the objective and constraints may be nonsmooth and nonconvex arise across many learning and data science settings. In this paper, we show for any Lipschitz, weakly convex objectives and…
This paper is devoted to the study of stochastic optimization problems under the generalized smoothness assumption. By considering the unbiased gradient oracle in Stochastic Gradient Descent, we provide strategies to achieve in bounds the…
We study stochastic optimization of nonconvex loss functions, which are typical objectives for training neural networks. We propose stochastic approximation algorithms which optimize a series of regularized, nonlinearized losses on large…
Saddle points provide a hierarchical view of the energy landscape, revealing transition pathways and interconnected basins of attraction, and offering insight into the global structure, metastability, and possible collective mechanisms of…