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We study the complexity of finding the global solution to stochastic nonconvex optimization when the objective function satisfies global Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz (KL) inequality and the queries from stochastic gradient oracles satisfy mild…
We give nearly matching upper and lower bounds on the oracle complexity of finding $\epsilon$-stationary points ($\| \nabla F(x) \| \leq\epsilon$) in stochastic convex optimization. We jointly analyze the oracle complexity in both the local…
We analyze nonlinearly preconditioned gradient methods for solving smooth minimization problems. We introduce a generalized smoothness property, based on the notion of abstract convexity, that is broader than Lipschitz smoothness and…
This paper studies first-order algorithms for solving fully composite optimization problems over convex and compact sets. We leverage the structure of the objective by handling its differentiable and non-differentiable components…
The convergence of stochastic gradient descent is highly dependent on the step-size, especially on non-convex problems such as neural network training. Step decay step-size schedules (constant and then cut) are widely used in practice…
Online and stochastic gradient methods have emerged as potent tools in large scale optimization with both smooth convex and nonsmooth convex problems from the classes $C^{1,1}(\reals^p)$ and $C^{1,0}(\reals^p)$ respectively. However to our…
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…
In this work, we consider constrained stochastic optimization problems under hidden convexity, i.e., those that admit a convex reformulation via non-linear (but invertible) map $c(\cdot)$. A number of non-convex problems ranging from…
We analyze stochastic algorithms for optimizing nonconvex, nonsmooth finite-sum problems, where the nonconvex part is smooth and the nonsmooth part is convex. Surprisingly, unlike the smooth case, our knowledge of this fundamental problem…
We consider the problem of global optimization of an unknown non-convex smooth function with zeroth-order feedback. In this setup, an algorithm is allowed to adaptively query the underlying function at different locations and receives noisy…
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…
We present two stochastic descent algorithms that apply to unconstrained optimization and are particularly efficient when the objective function is slow to evaluate and gradients are not easily obtained, as in some PDE-constrained…
We develop universal gradient methods for Stochastic Convex Optimization (SCO). Our algorithms automatically adapt not only to the oracle's noise but also to the H\"older smoothness of the objective function without a priori knowledge of…
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…
Stochastic optimization has found wide applications in minimizing objective functions in machine learning, which motivates a lot of theoretical studies to understand its practical success. Most of existing studies focus on the convergence…
In this work, we develop new optimization algorithms that use approximate second-order information combined with the gradient regularization technique to achieve fast global convergence rates for both convex and non-convex objectives. The…
Many large-scale constrained optimization problems can be formulated as bilevel distributed optimization tasks over undirected networks, where agents collaborate to minimize a global cost function while adhering to constraints, relying only…
We study the generalization performance of $\text{full-batch}$ optimization algorithms for stochastic convex optimization: these are first-order methods that only access the exact gradient of the empirical risk (rather than gradients with…
Large-scale nonconvex optimization problems are ubiquitous in modern machine learning, and among practitioners interested in solving them, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) reigns supreme. We revisit the analysis of SGD in the nonconvex…
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…