Related papers: Enhancing finite-difference based derivative-free …
First-order optimization (FOO) algorithms are pivotal in numerous computational domains such as machine learning and signal denoising. However, their application to complex tasks like neural network training often entails significant…
Evolutionary Strategies (ES) are known to be an effective black-box optimization technique for deep neural networks when the true gradients cannot be computed, such as in Reinforcement Learning. We continue a recent line of research that…
We present an algorithm for a class of statistical inference problems. The main idea is to reformulate the inference problem as an optimization procedure, based on the generation of surrogate (auxiliary) functions. This approach is…
Offline optimization is a fundamental challenge in science and engineering, where the goal is to optimize black-box functions using only offline datasets. This setting is particularly relevant when querying the objective function is…
For deterministic optimization, line-search methods augment algorithms by providing stability and improved efficiency. We adapt a classical backtracking Armijo line-search to the stochastic optimization setting. While traditional…
Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) is broadly utilized for aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human values because of its flexibility. Despite its effectiveness, it has been observed that the capability of DPO to generate…
In recent years, surrogate models have been successfully used in likelihood-free inference to decrease the number of simulator evaluations. The current state-of-the-art performance for this task has been achieved by Bayesian Optimization…
Model-based derivative-free optimization (DFO) methods are an important class of DFO methods that are known to struggle with solving high-dimensional optimization problems. Recent research has shown that incorporating random subspaces into…
In imitation learning from observation IfO, a learning agent seeks to imitate a demonstrating agent using only observations of the demonstrated behavior without access to the control signals generated by the demonstrator. Recent methods…
We consider decentralized gradient-free optimization of minimizing Lipschitz continuous functions that satisfy neither smoothness nor convexity assumption. We propose two novel gradient-free algorithms, the Decentralized Gradient-Free…
Offline model-based optimization (MBO) seeks to discover high-performing designs using only a fixed dataset of past evaluations. Most existing methods rely on learning a surrogate model via regression and implicitly assume that good…
Optical computing systems provide high-speed and low-energy data processing but face deficiencies in computationally demanding training and simulation-to-reality gaps. We propose a gradient-based model-free optimization (G-MFO) method based…
We develop a new approximation theory for linear and quadratic interpolation models, suitable for use in convex-constrained derivative-free optimization (DFO). Most existing model-based DFO methods for constrained problems assume the…
Surrogate model-based optimization has been increasingly used in the field of engineering design. It involves creating a surrogate model with objective functions or constraints based on the data obtained from simulations or real-world…
This paper describes a simple, but effective sampling method for optimizing and learning a discrete approximation (or surrogate) of a multi-dimensional function along a one-dimensional line segment of interest. The method does not rely on…
We propose a novel family of decision-aware surrogate losses, called Perturbation Gradient (PG) losses, for the predict-then-optimize framework. The key idea is to connect the expected downstream decision loss with the directional…
This paper develops a surrogate model refinement approach for the simulation of dynamical systems and the solution of optimization problems governed by dynamical systems in which surrogates replace expensive-to-compute state- and…
Many applications in machine learning require optimizing a function whose true gradient is unknown, but where surrogate gradient information (directions that may be correlated with, but not necessarily identical to, the true gradient) is…
Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is an active field of research with an ever increasing number of contributions. Numerous methods have been proposed for the solution of RBDO, a complex problem that combines optimization and…
Inverse design optimization aims to infer system parameters from observed solutions, posing critical challenges across domains such as semiconductor manufacturing, structural engineering, materials science, and fluid dynamics. The lack of…