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We consider max-min and min-max problems with objective functions that are possibly non-smooth, submodular with respect to the minimiser and concave with respect to the maximiser. We investigate the performance of a zeroth-order method…
First-order algorithms have been popular for solving convex and non-convex optimization problems. A key assumption for the majority of these algorithms is that the gradient of the objective function is globally Lipschitz continuous, but…
This study investigates leveraging stochastic gradient descent (SGD) to learn operators between general Hilbert spaces. We propose weak and strong regularity conditions for the target operator to depict its intrinsic structure and…
The main goal of this paper is to apply the machinery of variational analysis and generalized differentiation to study infinite horizon stochastic dynamic programming (DP) with discrete time in the Banach space setting without convexity…
Inverse problems in scientific computing often require optimization over infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. A commonly used solver in such settings is stochastic gradient descent (SGD), where gradients are approximated using randomly…
Recent work has established an empirically successful framework for adapting learning rates for stochastic gradient descent (SGD). This effectively removes all needs for tuning, while automatically reducing learning rates over time on…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) has been a go-to algorithm for nonconvex stochastic optimization problems arising in machine learning. Its theory however often requires a strong framework to guarantee convergence properties. We hereby…
We consider bandit optimization of a smooth reward function, where the goal is cumulative regret minimization. This problem has been studied for $\alpha$-H\"older continuous (including Lipschitz) functions with $0<\alpha\leq 1$. Our main…
Learning representation from relative similarity comparisons, often called ordinal embedding, gains rising attention in recent years. Most of the existing methods are based on semi-definite programming (\textit{SDP}), which is generally…
We propose a descent subgradient algorithm for unconstrained nonsmooth nonconvex multiobjective optimization problems. To find a descent direction, we present an iterative process that efficiently approximates the Goldstein subdifferential…
Gradient optimization algorithms using epochs, that is those based on stochastic gradient descent without replacement (SGDo), are predominantly used to train machine learning models in practice. However, the mathematical theory of SGDo and…
We present in this paper a family of generalized simultaneous perturbation-based gradient search (GSPGS) estimators that use noisy function measurements. The number of function measurements required by each estimator is guided by the…
We present the first q-Gaussian smoothed functional (SF) estimator of the Hessian and the first Newton-based stochastic optimization algorithm that estimates both the Hessian and the gradient of the objective function using q-Gaussian…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) plays a central role in modern machine learning. While there is extensive work on providing error upper bound for SGD, not much is known about SGD error lower bound. In this paper, we study the convergence…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is an important algorithm in machine learning. With constant learning rates, it is a stochastic process that, after an initial phase of convergence, generates samples from a stationary distribution. We show…
The (global) Lipschitz smoothness condition is crucial in establishing the convergence theory for most optimization methods. Unfortunately, most machine learning and signal processing problems are not Lipschitz smooth. This motivates us to…
Nonsmooth sparsity constrained optimization encompasses a broad spectrum of applications in machine learning. This problem is generally non-convex and NP-hard. Existing solutions to this problem exhibit several notable limitations,…
We revisit the classical problem of finding an approximately stationary point of the average of $n$ smooth and possibly nonconvex functions. The optimal complexity of stochastic first-order methods in terms of the number of gradient…
We consider a stochastic version of the proximal point algorithm for optimization problems posed on a Hilbert space. A typical application of this is supervised learning. While the method is not new, it has not been extensively analyzed in…
In this paper, we will provide an introduction to the derivative-free optimization algorithms which can be potentially applied to train deep learning models. Existing deep learning model training is mostly based on the back propagation…