Related papers: A simple and improved algorithm for noisy, convex,…
In this paper, we present a stochastic gradient algorithm for minimizing a smooth objective function that is an expectation over noisy cost samples, and only the latter are observed for any given parameter. Our algorithm employs a gradient…
In this paper, we study zeroth-order algorithms for minimax optimization problems that are nonconvex in one variable and strongly-concave in the other variable. Such minimax optimization problems have attracted significant attention lately…
The paper considers a distributed algorithm for global minimization of a nonconvex function. The algorithm is a first-order consensus + innovations type algorithm that incorporates decaying additive Gaussian noise for annealing, converging…
An algorithm based on the interior-point methodology for solving continuous nonlinearly constrained optimization problems is proposed, analyzed, and tested. The distinguishing feature of the algorithm is that it presumes that only noisy…
In this paper, we introduce various mechanisms to obtain accelerated first-order stochastic optimization algorithms when the objective function is convex or strongly convex. Specifically, we extend the Catalyst approach originally designed…
Optimization of convex functions under stochastic zeroth-order feedback has been a major and challenging question in online learning. In this work, we consider the problem of optimizing second-order smooth and strongly convex functions…
We present a novel gradient-free algorithm to solve a convex stochastic optimization problem, such as those encountered in medicine, physics, and machine learning (e.g., adversarial multi-armed bandit problem), where the objective function…
This paper presents a finite difference quasi-Newton method for the minimization of noisy functions. The method takes advantage of the scalability and power of BFGS updating, and employs an adaptive procedure for choosing the differencing…
In this work, we develop first-order (Hessian-free) and zero-order (derivative-free) implementations of the Cubically regularized Newton method for solving general non-convex optimization problems. For that, we employ finite difference…
We investigate the convergence properties of a class of iterative algorithms designed to minimize a potentially non-smooth and noisy objective function, which may be algebraically intractable and whose values may be obtained as the output…
We introduce and study the problem of dueling optimization with a monotone adversary, which is a generalization of (noiseless) dueling convex optimization. The goal is to design an online algorithm to find a minimizer $\mathbf{x}^{*}$ for a…
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…
In this paper we study convex bi-level optimization problems for which the inner level consists of minimization of the sum of smooth and nonsmooth functions. The outer level aims at minimizing a smooth and strongly convex function over the…
We study the problem of optimizing a function under a \emph{budgeted number of evaluations}. We only assume that the function is \emph{locally} smooth around one of its global optima. The difficulty of optimization is measured in terms of…
Zeroth-order optimization, which does not use derivative information, is one of the significant research areas in the field of mathematical optimization and machine learning. Although various studies have explored zeroth-order algorithms,…
Algorithms for bandit convex optimization and online learning often rely on constructing noisy gradient estimates, which are then used in appropriately adjusted first-order algorithms, replacing actual gradients. Depending on the properties…
Min-max problems have broad applications in machine learning, including learning with non-decomposable loss and learning with robustness to data distribution. Convex-concave min-max problem is an active topic of research with efficient…
This paper considers stochastic first-order algorithms for convex-concave minimax problems of the form $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y}f(\bf x, \bf y)$, where $f$ can be presented by the average of $n$ individual components which are $L$-average…
In this paper, we investigate accelerated first-order methods for smooth convex optimization problems under inexact information on the gradient of the objective. The noise in the gradient is considered to be additive with two possibilities:…
Online minimization of an unknown convex function over the interval $[0,1]$ is considered under first-order stochastic bandit feedback, which returns a random realization of the gradient of the function at each query point. Without knowing…