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We introduce a primal-dual stochastic gradient oracle method for distributed convex optimization problems over networks. We show that the proposed method is optimal in terms of communication steps. Additionally, we propose a new analysis…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-11-28 Darina Dvinskikh , Eduard Gorbunov , Alexander Gasnikov , Pavel Dvurechensky , Cesar A. Uribe

We study unconstrained optimization problems of nonsmooth, nonconvex Lipschitz functions, using only noisy pairwise comparisons governed by a known link function. Our goal is to compute a $(\delta,\varepsilon)$-Goldstein stationary point.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-10 Taha El Bakkali , El Mahdi Chayti , Omar Saadi

This review presents modern gradient-free methods to solve convex optimization problems. By gradient-free methods, we mean those that use only (noisy) realizations of the objective value. We are motivated by various applications where…

In this paper, we propose a new way to obtain optimal convergence rates for smooth stochastic (strong) convex optimization tasks. Our approach is based on results for optimization tasks where gradients have nonrandom noise. In contrast to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-04-16 Darina Dvinskikh , Alexander Tyurin , Alexander Gasnikov , Sergey Omelchenko

Zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) is an important framework for stochastic optimization when gradients are unavailable or expensive to compute. A potential limitation of existing ZOO methods is the bias inherent in most gradient estimators…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Shaocong Ma , Heng Huang

We aim to solve a structured convex optimization problem, where a nonsmooth function is composed with a linear operator. When opting for full splitting schemes, usually, primal-dual type methods are employed as they are effective and also…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-17 Radu Ioan Bot , Axel Böhm

We introduce a new approach to develop stochastic optimization algorithms for a class of stochastic composite and possibly nonconvex optimization problems. The main idea is to combine two stochastic estimators to create a new hybrid one. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-05-05 Quoc Tran-Dinh , Nhan H. Pham , Dzung T. Phan , Lam M. Nguyen

We present new algorithms for optimizing non-smooth, non-convex stochastic objectives based on a novel analysis technique. This improves the current best-known complexity for finding a $(\delta,\epsilon)$-stationary point from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Ashok Cutkosky , Harsh Mehta , Francesco Orabona

We study structured convex optimization problems, with additive objective $r:=p + q$, where $r$ is ($\mu$-strongly) convex, $q$ is $L_q$-smooth and convex, and $p$ is $L_p$-smooth, possibly nonconvex. For such a class of problems, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-31 Dmitry Kovalev , Aleksandr Beznosikov , Ekaterina Borodich , Alexander Gasnikov , Gesualdo Scutari

In this paper, we consider a stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem with the cost function being distributed over $n$ agents having access only to zeroth-order (ZO) information of the cost. This problem has various machine…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-11 Xinlei Yi , Shengjun Zhang , Tao Yang , Karl H. Johansson

In this paper, we consider a non-convex loss-minimization problem of learning Supervised PageRank models, which can account for some properties not considered by classical approaches such as the classical PageRank model. We propose…

In this paper we propose a variant of the random coordinate descent method for solving linearly constrained convex optimization problems with composite objective functions. If the smooth part of the objective function has Lipschitz…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-02-14 Ion Necoara , Andrei Patrascu

Zero-order (ZO) optimization is a powerful tool for dealing with realistic constraints. On the other hand, the gradient-tracking (GT) technique proved to be an efficient method for distributed optimization aiming to achieve consensus.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-10 Elissa Mhanna , Mohamad Assaad

We consider a distributed convex optimization problem in a network which is time-varying and not always strongly connected. The local cost function of each node is affected by some stochastic process. All nodes of the network collaborate to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-27 Wenjie Li , Mohamad Assaad

The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-07-28 Elad Hazan , Kfir Y. Levy , Shai Shalev-Shwartz

This work studies constrained stochastic optimization problems where the objective and constraint functions are convex and expressed as compositions of stochastic functions. The problem arises in the context of fair classification, fair…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-13 Srujan Teja Thomdapu , Harshvardhan , Ketan Rajawat

We consider derivative-free algorithms for stochastic and non-stochastic convex optimization problems that use only function values rather than gradients. Focusing on non-asymptotic bounds on convergence rates, we show that if pairs of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-08-21 John C. Duchi , Michael I. Jordan , Martin J. Wainwright , Andre Wibisono

We study diffusion and consensus based optimization of a sum of unknown convex objective functions over distributed networks. The only access to these functions is through stochastic gradient oracles, each of which is only available at a…

Numerical Analysis · Computer Science 2015-09-01 N. Denizcan Vanli , Muhammed O. Sayin , Suleyman S. Kozat

We develop and analyze an asynchronous algorithm for distributed convex optimization when the objective writes a sum of smooth functions, local to each worker, and a non-smooth function. Unlike many existing methods, our distributed…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-13 Konstantin Mishchenko , Franck Iutzeler , Jérôme Malick

Gradient-based minimax optimal algorithms have greatly promoted the development of continuous optimization and machine learning. One seminal work due to Yurii Nesterov [Nes83a] established $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{L/\mu})$ gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-07 Yuanshi Liu , Hanzhen Zhao , Yang Xu , Pengyun Yue , Cong Fang