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Pairwise learning is essential in machine learning, especially for problems involving loss functions defined on pairs of training examples. Online gradient descent (OGD) algorithms have been proposed to handle online pairwise learning,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-11 Hilal AlQuabeh , Bhaskar Mukhoty , Bin Gu

We introduce a novel deterministic quantum search algorithm that provides a practical alternative to conventional probabilistic search approaches. Our scheme eliminates the inherent uncertainty of quantum search without relying on arbitrary…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-07-22 John Burke , Ciaran McGoldrick

We characterize the query complexity of finding stationary points of one-dimensional non-convex but smooth functions. We consider four settings, based on whether the algorithms under consideration are deterministic or randomized, and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-21 Sinho Chewi , Sébastien Bubeck , Adil Salim

The study of first-order optimization is sensitive to the assumptions made on the objective functions. These assumptions induce complexity classes which play a key role in worst-case analysis, including the fundamental concept of algorithm…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-30 Charles Guille-Escuret , Adam Ibrahim , Baptiste Goujaud , Ioannis Mitliagkas

Gradient Descent (GD) and Conjugate Gradient (CG) methods are among the most effective iterative algorithms for solving unconstrained optimization problems, particularly in machine learning and statistical modeling, where they are employed…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-19 Xianqi Jiao , Jia Liu , Zhiping Chen

We study the hardness of learning unitary transformations in $U(d)$ via gradient descent on time parameters of alternating operator sequences. We provide numerical evidence that, despite the non-convex nature of the loss landscape, gradient…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-02-20 Bobak Toussi Kiani , Seth Lloyd , Reevu Maity

As the use of machine learning (ML) permeates into diverse application domains, there is an urgent need to support a declarative framework for ML. Ideally, a user will specify an ML task in a high-level and easy-to-use language and the…

In this work, we study optimization specified only through a comparison oracle: given two points, it reports which one is preferred. We call it function-free optimization because we do not assume access to, nor the existence of, a canonical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Katya Scheinberg , Zikai Xiong

Finding a local minimum or maximum of a function is often achieved through the gradient-descent optimization method. For a function in dimension d, the gradient requires to compute at each step d partial derivatives. This method is for…

Computational Physics · Physics 2018-05-01 Vincent Tejedor

We consider the problem of sampling from a strongly log-concave density in $\mathbb{R}^d$, and prove an information theoretic lower bound on the number of stochastic gradient queries of the log density needed. Several popular sampling…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-07-06 Niladri S. Chatterji , Peter L. Bartlett , Philip M. Long

Randomly initialized first-order optimization algorithms are the method of choice for solving many high-dimensional nonconvex problems in machine learning, yet general theoretical guarantees cannot rule out convergence to critical points of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-09-28 Dar Gilboa , Sam Buchanan , John Wright

Many fundamental problems in machine learning can be formulated by the convex program \[ \min_{\theta\in R^d}\ \sum_{i=1}^{n}f_{i}(\theta), \] where each $f_i$ is a convex, Lipschitz function supported on a subset of $d_i$ coordinates of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-09 Sally Dong , Haotian Jiang , Yin Tat Lee , Swati Padmanabhan , Guanghao Ye

This work studies constrained stochastic optimization problems where the objective and constraint functions are convex and expressed as compositions of stochastic functions. The problem arises in the context of fair classification, fair…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-13 Srujan Teja Thomdapu , Harshvardhan , Ketan Rajawat

Zeroth-order optimization is the process of minimizing an objective $f(x)$, given oracle access to evaluations at adaptively chosen inputs $x$. In this paper, we present two simple yet powerful GradientLess Descent (GLD) algorithms that do…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-20 Daniel Golovin , John Karro , Greg Kochanski , Chansoo Lee , Xingyou Song , Qiuyi Zhang

We consider the problem of performing linear regression over a stream of $d$-dimensional examples, and show that any algorithm that uses a subquadratic amount of memory exhibits a slower rate of convergence than can be achieved without…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-13 Vatsal Sharan , Aaron Sidford , Gregory Valiant

Differentiable optimization layers enable learning systems to make decisions by solving embedded optimization problems. However, computing gradients via implicit differentiation requires solving a linear system with Hessian terms, which is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Zihao Zhao , Kai-Chia Mo , Shing-Hei Ho , Brandon Amos , Kai Wang

We study the oracle complexity of finding $\varepsilon$-Pareto stationary points in smooth multiobjective optimization with $m$ objectives. Progress is measured by the Pareto stationarity gap $\mathcal{G}(x)$, the norm of the best convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-17 Phillipe R. Sampaio

Motivated by emerging applications in machine learning, we consider an optimization problem in a general form where the gradient of the objective function is available through a biased stochastic oracle. We assume a bias-control parameter…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-10 Yin Liu , Sam Davanloo Tajbakhsh

This paper investigates distributed zeroth-order optimization for smooth nonconvex problems, targeting the trade-off between convergence rate and sampling cost per zeroth-order gradient estimation in current algorithms that use either the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-10 Huaiyi Mu , Yujie Tang , Jie Song , Zhongkui Li

This paper studies the problem of expected loss minimization given a data distribution that is dependent on the decision-maker's action and evolves dynamically in time according to a geometric decay process. Novel algorithms for both the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-19 Mitas Ray , Dmitriy Drusvyatskiy , Maryam Fazel , Lillian J. Ratliff