Related papers: A simple and practical adaptive trust-region metho…
We develop and analyze a method for stochastic simulation optimization based on Gaussian process models within a trust-region framework. We focus on settings where the variance of the objective function is large, making accurate estimation…
We introduce a notion of inexact model of a convex objective function, which allows for errors both in the function and in its gradient. For this situation, a gradient method with an adaptive adjustment of some parameters of the model is…
GRPO-style reinforcement learning (RL)-based LLM fine-tuning algorithms have recently gained popularity. Relying on heuristic trust-region approximations, however, they can lead to brittle optimization behavior, as global importance-ratio…
We present a new family of min-max optimization algorithms that automatically exploit the geometry of the gradient data observed at earlier iterations to perform more informative extra-gradient steps in later ones. Thanks to this adaptation…
Due to its applications in many different places in machine learning and other connected engineering applications, the problem of minimization of a smooth function that satisfies the Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz condition receives much attention…
Computing approximate Karush--Kuhn--Tucker (KKT) points for constrained nonconvex programs is a fundamental problem in mathematical programming. Interior-point trust-region (IPTR) methods are particularly attractive for such problems…
We propose and analyze several stochastic gradient algorithms for finding stationary points or local minimum in nonconvex, possibly with nonsmooth regularizer, finite-sum and online optimization problems. First, we propose a simple proximal…
An adaptive regularization algorithm for unconstrained nonconvex optimization is presented in which the objective function is never evaluated, but only derivatives are used. This algorithm belongs to the class of adaptive regularization…
Composite optimization offers a powerful modeling tool for a variety of applications and is often numerically solved by means of proximal gradient methods. In this paper, we consider fully nonconvex composite problems under only local…
We design an algorithm which finds an $\epsilon$-approximate stationary point (with $\|\nabla F(x)\|\le \epsilon$) using $O(\epsilon^{-3})$ stochastic gradient and Hessian-vector products, matching guarantees that were previously available…
The low-rank adaptation (LoRA) algorithm for fine-tuning large models has grown popular in recent years due to its remarkable performance and low computational requirements. LoRA trains two ``adapter" matrices that form a low-rank…
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…
We propose a stochastic variance-reduced cubic regularized Newton method for non-convex optimization. At the core of our algorithm is a novel semi-stochastic gradient along with a semi-stochastic Hessian, which are specifically designed for…
This paper presents an extension of stochastic gradient descent for the minimization of Lipschitz continuous loss functions. Our motivation is for use in non-smooth non-convex stochastic optimization problems, which are frequently…
This paper presents an algorithmic framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems using only stochastic function evaluations. We employ central finite-difference based gradient estimation methods to approximate the…
We propose a new practical adaptive refinement strategy for $hp$-finite element approximations of elliptic problems. Following recent theoretical developments in polynomial-degree-robust a posteriori error analysis, we solve two types of…
In this paper, we study Newton-conjugate gradient (Newton-CG) methods for minimizing a nonconvex function $f$ whose Hessian is $(H_f,\nu)$-H\"older continuous with modulus $H_f>0$ and exponent $\nu\in(0,1]$. Recently proposed Newton-CG…
Trust region policy optimization (TRPO) is a popular and empirically successful policy search algorithm in Reinforcement Learning (RL) in which a surrogate problem, that restricts consecutive policies to be 'close' to one another, is…
This paper presents a stochastic block-coordinate proximal Newton method for minimizing the sum of a blockwise Lipschitz-continuously differentiable function and a separable nonsmooth convex function. At each iteration, the method randomly…
Preconditioning is a crucial operation in gradient-based numerical optimisation. It helps decrease the local condition number of a function by appropriately transforming its gradient. For a convex function, where the gradient can be…