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Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization with ordinal feedback has emerged as a fundamental problem in modern machine learning systems, particularly in human-in-the-loop settings such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-23 Haishan Ye

This paper discusses several (sub)gradient methods attaining the optimal complexity for smooth problems with Lipschitz continuous gradients, nonsmooth problems with bounded variation of subgradients, weakly smooth problems with H\"older…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-05-02 Masoud Ahookhosh

We consider the problem of minimizing a smooth, Lipschitz, convex function over a compact, convex set using sub-zeroth-order oracles: an oracle that outputs the sign of the directional derivative for a given point and a given direction, an…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-02 Mustafa O. Karabag , Cyrus Neary , Ufuk Topcu

In this paper, we discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: a smooth function plus a non-smooth function. Further, the smooth part can be expressed by the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-11-17 Luo Luo , Zihao Chen , Zhihua Zhang , Wu-Jun Li

We consider non-smooth saddle point optimization problems. To solve these problems, we propose a zeroth-order method under bounded or Lipschitz continuous noise, possible adversarial. In contrast to the state-of-the-art algorithms, our…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-28 Darina Dvinskikh , Vladislav Tominin , Yaroslav Tominin , Alexander Gasnikov

In this paper, we study stochastic non-convex optimization with non-convex random functions. Recent studies on non-convex optimization revolve around establishing second-order convergence, i.e., converging to a nearly second-order optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-11-02 Mingrui Liu , Tianbao Yang

We develop and analyze stochastic optimization algorithms for problems in which the expected loss is strongly convex, and the optimum is (approximately) sparse. Previous approaches are able to exploit only one of these two structures,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2012-07-19 Alekh Agarwal , Sahand Negahban , Martin J. Wainwright

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

Composite convex optimization problems which include both a nonsmooth term and a low-rank promoting term have important applications in machine learning and signal processing, such as when one wishes to recover an unknown matrix that is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-09-28 Dan Garber , Atara Kaplan

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Anik Kumar Paul , Shalabh Bhatnagar

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-02-21 Sattar Vakili , Sudeep Salgia , Qing Zhao

The paper is devoted to new modifications of recently proposed adaptive methods of Mirror Descent for convex minimization problems in the case of several convex functional constraints. Methods for problems of two classes are considered. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-29 Fedor S. Stonyakin , Mohammad S. Alkousa , Alexey N. Stepanov , Maxim A. Barinov

We present two easy-to-implement gradient-free/zeroth-order methods to optimize a stochastic non-smooth function accessible only via a black-box. The methods are built upon efficient first-order methods in the heavy-tailed case, i.e., when…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-25 Nikita Kornilov , Alexander Gasnikov , Pavel Dvurechensky , Darina Dvinskikh

Randomized smoothing is a widely adopted technique for optimizing nonsmooth objective functions. However, its efficiency analysis typically relies on global Lipschitz continuity, a condition rarely met in practical applications. To address…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-10 Jingfan Xia , Zhenwei Lin , Qi Deng

In stochastic convex optimization problems, most existing adaptive methods rely on prior knowledge about the diameter bound $D$ when the smoothness or the Lipschitz constant is unknown. This often significantly affects performance as only a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-08 Clément Lezane , Alexandre d'Aspremont

In recent years, nonconvex minimax problems have attracted significant attention due to their broad applications in machine learning, including generative adversarial networks, robust optimization and adversarial training. Most existing…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-06 Yan Gao , Yongchao Liu

We study stochastic zeroth-order optimization with decision-dependent distributions, where the sampling law depends on the current decision and only noisy function values are available. For the non-smooth non-convex setting, we establish an…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-08 Chengchang Liu , Zongqi Wan , Haishan Ye , John C. S. Lui

We consider the problem of minimization of a convex function on a simple set with convex non-smooth inequality constraint and describe first-order methods to solve such problems in different situations: smooth or non-smooth objective…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-01-30 Anastasia Bayandina , Pavel Dvurechensky , Alexander Gasnikov , Fedor Stonyakin , Alexander Titov

The usual approach to developing and analyzing first-order methods for smooth convex optimization assumes that the gradient of the objective function is uniformly smooth with some Lipschitz constant $L$. However, in many settings the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-11 Haihao Lu , Robert M. Freund , Yurii Nesterov

We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function given quantum access to a stochastic gradient oracle. We provide two new methods for the special case of minimizing a Lipschitz convex function. Each method obtains a dimension…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-07-26 Aaron Sidford , Chenyi Zhang