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Sparse Principal Component Analysis (SPCA) is an important technique for high-dimensional data analysis, improving interpretability by imposing sparsity on principal components. However, existing methods often fail to simultaneously…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Difei Cheng , Qiao Hu

In this paper we analyze a zeroth-order proximal stochastic gradient method suitable for the minimization of weakly convex stochastic optimization problems. We consider nonsmooth and nonlinear stochastic composite problems, for which…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-21 Spyridon Pougkakiotis , Dionysios S. Kalogerias

Stochastic optimization (SO) considers the problem of optimizing an objective function in the presence of noise. Most of the solution techniques in SO estimate gradients from the noise corrupted observations of the objective and adjust…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-08-03 K. Chandramouli , K. J. Prabuchandran , D. Sai Koti Reddy , Shalabh Bhatnagar

In this paper, we propose a distributed first-order algorithm with backtracking linesearch for solving multi-agent minimisation problems, where each agent handles a local objective involving nonsmooth and smooth components. Unlike existing…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-14 Felipe Atenas , Minh N. Dao , Matthew K. Tam

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

Learning rates in stochastic neural network training are currently determined a priori to training, using expensive manual or automated iterative tuning. This study proposes gradient-only line searches to resolve the learning rate for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-01-16 Dominic Kafka , Daniel N. Wilke

In this paper, we propose a successive pseudo-convex approximation algorithm to efficiently compute stationary points for a large class of possibly nonconvex optimization problems. The stationary points are obtained by solving a sequence of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-12-17 Yang Yang , Marius Pesavento

We consider the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm driven by a general stochastic sequence, including i.i.d noise and random walk on an arbitrary graph, among others; and analyze it in the asymptotic sense. Specifically, we employ…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-16 Jie Hu , Vishwaraj Doshi , Do Young Eun

Distributed descent-based methods are an essential toolset to solving optimization problems in multi-agent system scenarios. Here the agents seek to optimize a global objective function through mutual cooperation. Oftentimes, cooperation is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-08-28 Arunselvan Ramaswamy

The study of variational quantum algorithms (VQCs) has received significant attention from the quantum computing community in recent years. These hybrid algorithms, utilizing both classical and quantum components, are well-suited for noisy…

Stochastic approximation (SA) algorithms have been widely applied in minimization problems when the loss functions and/or the gradient information are only accessible through noisy evaluations. Stochastic gradient (SG) descent---a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-08-26 Jingyi Zhu , Long Wang , James C. Spall

This work presents a new algorithm for empirical risk minimization. The algorithm bridges the gap between first- and second-order methods by computing a search direction that uses a second-order-type update in one subspace, coupled with a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-06-09 Majid Jahani , Mohammadreza Nazari , Rachael Tappenden , Albert S. Berahas , Martin Takáč

This paper tackles the challenge of parameter calibration in stochastic models, particularly in scenarios where the likelihood function is unavailable in an analytical form. We introduce a gradient-based simulated parameter estimation…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-03-25 Zehao Li , Yijie Peng

Decentralized solutions to finite-sum minimization are of significant importance in many signal processing, control, and machine learning applications. In such settings, the data is distributed over a network of arbitrarily-connected nodes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-14 Ran Xin , Soummya Kar , Usman A. Khan

In this paper, we present a novel derivative-free optimization framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems. Many problems in fields ranging from simulation optimization to reinforcement learning involve settings…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-19 Raghu Bollapragada , Cem Karamanli , Stefan M. Wild

We consider the minimization of an objective function given access to unbiased estimates of its gradient through stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with constant step-size. While the detailed analysis was only performed for quadratic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-04-12 Aymeric Dieuleveut , Alain Durmus , Francis Bach

Standard first-order stochastic optimization algorithms base their updates solely on the average mini-batch gradient, and it has been shown that tracking additional quantities such as the curvature can help de-sensitize common…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-11 Ricky T. Q. Chen , Dami Choi , Lukas Balles , David Duvenaud , Philipp Hennig

In this paper, we study a Markov chain-based stochastic gradient algorithm in general Hilbert spaces, aiming at approximating the optimal solution of a quadratic loss function. We establish probabilistic upper bounds on its convergence. We…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-12-16 Priyanka Roy , Susanne Saminger-Platz

This work provides the first finite-time convergence guarantees for linearly constrained stochastic bilevel optimization using only first-order methods, requiring solely gradient information without any Hessian computations or second-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Cac Phan , Kai Wang

We study a family of distributed stochastic optimization algorithms where gradients are sampled by a token traversing a network of agents in random-walk fashion. Typically, these random-walks are chosen to be Markov chains that…

Probability · Mathematics 2024-01-19 Jie Hu , Vishwaraj Doshi , Do Young Eun