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We study the problem of differentially-private (DP) stochastic (convex-concave) saddle-points in the $\ell_1$ setting. We propose $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-DP algorithms based on stochastic mirror descent that attain nearly…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-17 Tomás González , Cristóbal Guzmán , Courtney Paquette

Distributed consensus optimization has received considerable attention in recent years; several distributed consensus-based algorithms have been proposed for (nonsmooth) convex and (smooth) nonconvex objective functions. However, the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-05 Vyacheslav Kungurtsev

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-29 Amir Ali Farzin , Yuen-Man Pun , Philipp Braun , Tyler Summers , Iman Shames

By enabling multiple agents to cooperatively solve a global optimization problem in the absence of a central coordinator, decentralized stochastic optimization is gaining increasing attention in areas as diverse as machine learning,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-10 Yongqiang Wang , Tamer Basar

We consider stochastic convex optimization with a strongly convex (but not necessarily smooth) objective. We give an algorithm which performs only gradient updates with optimal rate of convergence.

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-06-15 Elad Hazan , Satyen Kale

In this work, we address a class of nonconvex nonsmooth optimization problems where the objective function is the sum of two smooth functions (one of which is proximable) and two nonsmooth functions (one proper, closed and proximable, and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-26 Jan Harold Alcantara , Ching-pei Lee , Akiko Takeda

In this paper we consider a distributed optimization scenario in which the aggregate objective function to minimize is partitioned, big-data and possibly non-convex. Specifically, we focus on a set-up in which the dimension of the decision…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-03-27 Ivano Notarnicola , Giuseppe Notarstefano

This paper proposes a novel technique called "successive stochastic smoothing" that optimizes nonsmooth and discontinuous functions while considering various constraints. Our methodology enables local and global optimization, making it a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-17 Vladimir Norkin , Alois Pichler , Anton Kozyriev

This paper considers zeroth-order optimization for stochastic convex minimization problem. We propose a parameter-free stochastic zeroth-order method (POEM) by introducing a step-size scheme based on the distance over finite difference and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-06 Kunjie Ren , Luo Luo

Zeroth-order methods are extensively used in machine learning applications where gradients are infeasible or expensive to compute, such as black-box attacks, reinforcement learning, and language model fine-tuning. Existing optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Liang Zhang , Bingcong Li , Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Sewoong Oh , Michael Muehlebach , Niao He

Motivated by growing concerns over ensuring privacy on social networks, we develop new algorithms and impossibility results for fitting complex statistical models to network data subject to rigorous privacy guarantees. We consider the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-10-05 Christian Borgs , Jennifer Chayes , Adam Smith , Ilias Zadik

We consider the problem of finding local minimizers in non-convex and non-smooth optimization. Under the assumption of strict saddle points, positive results have been derived for first-order methods. We present the first known results for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-13 Zhishen Huang , Stephen Becker

In this paper, we develop a distributed algorithm for solving a class of distributed convex optimization problems where the local objective functions can be a general nonsmooth function, and all equalities and inequalities are network-wide…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-14 Yeong-Ung Kim , Hyo-Sung Ahn

In this work, we consider the distributed optimization of non-smooth convex functions using a network of computing units. We investigate this problem under two regularity assumptions: (1) the Lipschitz continuity of the global objective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-06-04 Kevin Scaman , Francis Bach , Sébastien Bubeck , Yin Tat Lee , Laurent Massoulié

Zeroth-order optimization methods are developed to overcome the practical hurdle of having knowledge of explicit derivatives. Instead, these schemes work with merely access to noisy functions evaluations. One of the predominant approaches…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-22 Wouter Jongeneel

In this paper, we study and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for solving bilvel problems, when neither the upper/lower objective values, nor their unbiased gradient estimates are available. In particular, exploiting…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-02 Alireza Aghasi , Saeed Ghadimi

By ensuring differential privacy in the learning algorithms, one can rigorously mitigate the risk of large models memorizing sensitive training data. In this paper, we study two algorithms for this purpose, i.e., DP-SGD and DP-NSGD, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-28 Xiaodong Yang , Huishuai Zhang , Wei Chen , Tie-Yan Liu

When working with user data providing well-defined privacy guarantees is paramount. In this work, we aim to manipulate and share an entire sparse dataset with a third party privately. In fact, differential privacy has emerged as the gold…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-05-16 Alessandro Epasto , Hossein Esfandiari , Vahab Mirrokni , Andres Munoz Medina

We propose a novel zeroth-order optimization algorithm based on an efficient sampling strategy. Under mild global regularity conditions on the objective function, we establish non-asymptotic convergence rates for the proposed method.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-24 Xicheng Zhang

In this paper, we present a differential privacy version of convex and nonconvex sparse classification approach. Based on alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) algorithm, we transform the solving of sparse problem into the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-08-05 Puyu Wang , Hai Zhang