Related papers: On a probabilistic global optimizer derived from t…
As a popular channel pruning method for convolutional neural networks (CNNs), network slimming (NS) has a three-stage process: (1) it trains a CNN with $\ell_1$ regularization applied to the scaling factors of the batch normalization…
Bayesian optimization has recently emerged as a popular method for the sample-efficient optimization of expensive black-box functions. However, the application to high-dimensional problems with several thousand observations remains…
Global optimization problems whose objective function is expensive to evaluate can be solved effectively by recursively fitting a surrogate function to function samples and minimizing an acquisition function to generate new samples. The…
We propose an algorithm to approximate solutions of global optimization problems in Sobolev spaces that follows the spirit of Consensus-based algorithms in finite dimensions. The main ingredient are Gaussian processes. In fact, we exploit…
We consider the problem of minimizing an objective function that is the sum of a convex function and a group sparsity-inducing regularizer. Problems that integrate such regularizers arise in modern machine learning applications, often for…
We construct a zeroth-order gradient estimator for a smooth function defined on the probability simplex. The proposed estimator queries the simplex only. We prove that projected gradient descent and the exponential weights algorithm, when…
We introduce a class of stochastic algorithms for minimizing weakly convex functions over proximally smooth sets. As their main building blocks, the algorithms use simplified models of the objective function and the constraint set, along…
Submodular set-functions have many applications in combinatorial optimization, as they can be minimized and approximately maximized in polynomial time. A key element in many of the algorithms and analyses is the possibility of extending the…
Computing derivatives is a crucial subroutine in computer science and related fields as it provides a local characterization of a function's steepest directions of ascent or descent. In this work, we recognize that derivatives are often not…
Composite optimization problems, where a smooth loss is combined with a nonsmooth regularizer, are common in machine learning and inverse problems. In this work, we study a proximal extension of NAG-GS, a semi-implicit accelerated method…
We consider semidefinite programs (SDPs) of size n with equality constraints. In order to overcome scalability issues, Burer and Monteiro proposed a factorized approach based on optimizing over a matrix Y of size $n$ by $k$ such that $X =…
We introduce a stochastic global optimization method based on random walks on Grassmannian manifolds. To minimize a continuous objective $\ell:\mathbb{R}^d\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$, the method repeatedly samples random $k$-dimensional linear…
Submodular function minimization is a fundamental optimization problem that arises in several applications in machine learning and computer vision. The problem is known to be solvable in polynomial time, but general purpose algorithms have…
We consider the problem of minimizing the sum of a smooth function $h$ with a bounded Hessian, and a nonsmooth function. We assume that the latter function is a composition of a proper closed function $P$ and a surjective linear map $\cal…
We study the Frank-Wolfe algorithm for constrained optimization problems with relatively smooth objectives. Building upon our previous work, we propose a fully adaptive variant of the Frank-Wolfe method that dynamically adjusts the step…
Adaptive cubic regularization methods have emerged as a credible alternative to linesearch and trust-region for smooth nonconvex optimization, with optimal complexity amongst second-order methods. Here we consider a general/new class of…
In this paper we consider distributed optimization problems in which the cost function is separable, i.e., a sum of possibly non-smooth functions all sharing a common variable, and can be split into a strongly convex term and a convex one.…
This paper proposes and develops new Newton-type methods to solve structured nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems with justifying their fast local and global convergence by means of advanced tools of variational analysis and…
We propose a new method called the Metropolis-adjusted Mirror Langevin algorithm for approximate sampling from distributions whose support is a compact and convex set. This algorithm adds an accept-reject filter to the Markov chain induced…
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…