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We study the non-smooth optimization problems in machine learning, where both the loss function and the regularizer are non-smooth functions. Previous studies on efficient empirical loss minimization assume either a smooth loss function or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-07-29 Tianbao Yang , Mehrdad Mahdavi , Rong Jin , Shenghuo Zhu

In many real-world problems, first-order (FO) derivative evaluations are too expensive or even inaccessible. For solving these problems, zeroth-order (ZO) methods that only need function evaluations are often more efficient than FO methods…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-12-22 Zichong Li , Pin-Yu Chen , Sijia Liu , Songtao Lu , Yangyang Xu

We consider the minimization of submodular functions subject to ordering constraints. We show that this optimization problem can be cast as a convex optimization problem on a space of uni-dimensional measures, with ordering constraints…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-07-31 Francis Bach

Consider the problem of minimizing the sum of a smooth convex function and a separable nonsmooth convex function subject to linear coupling constraints. Problems of this form arise in many contemporary applications including signal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-01-29 Mingyi Hong , Tsung-Hui Chang , Xiangfeng Wang , Meisam Razaviyayn , Shiqian Ma , Zhi-Quan Luo

This paper shows that error bounds can be used as effective tools for deriving complexity results for first-order descent methods in convex minimization. In a first stage, this objective led us to revisit the interplay between error bounds…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-07-21 Jérôme Bolte , Trong Phong Nguyen , Juan Peypouquet , Bruce Suter

State-of-the-art methods in convex and non-convex optimization employ higher-order derivative information, either implicitly or explicitly. We explore the limitations of higher-order optimization and prove that even for convex optimization,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-31 Naman Agarwal , Elad Hazan

Optimizing non-convex functions is a fundamental challenge across machine learning and combinatorial optimization. We introduce and study $\gamma$-weakly $\theta$-up-concavity, a novel first-order condition that characterizes a broad class…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Mohammad Pedramfar , Vaneet Aggarwal

Previous algorithms can solve convex-concave minimax problems $\min_{x \in \mathcal{X}} \max_{y \in \mathcal{Y}} f(x,y)$ with $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon^{-2/3})$ second-order oracle calls using Newton-type methods. This result has been…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-11 Lesi Chen , Chengchang Liu , Luo Luo , Jingzhao Zhang

The unconstrained minimization of a sufficiently smooth objective function $f(x)$ is considered, for which derivatives up to order $p$, $p\geq 2$, are assumed to be available. An adaptive regularization algorithm is proposed that uses…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-31 Coralia Cartis , Nicholas I. M. Gould , Philippe L. Toint

Error bounds, which refer to inequalities that bound the distance of vectors in a test set to a given set by a residual function, have proven to be extremely useful in analyzing the convergence rates of a host of iterative methods for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-12-14 Zirui Zhou , Anthony Man-Cho So

In this paper we study convex bi-level optimization problems for which the inner level consists of minimization of the sum of smooth and nonsmooth functions. The outer level aims at minimizing a smooth and strongly convex function over the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-02-15 Shoham Sabach , Shimrit Shtern

The study of first-order optimization algorithms (FOA) typically starts with assumptions on the objective functions, most commonly smoothness and strong convexity. These metrics are used to tune the hyperparameters of FOA. We introduce a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-30 Charles Guille-Escuret , Baptiste Goujaud , Manuela Girotti , Ioannis Mitliagkas

This paper discusses several (sub)gradient methods attaining the optimal complexity for smooth problems with Lipschitz continuous gradients, nonsmooth problems with bounded variation of subgradients, weakly smooth problems with H\"older…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-05-02 Masoud Ahookhosh

Convex nonsmooth optimization problems, whose solutions live in very high dimensional spaces, have become ubiquitous. To solve them, the class of first-order algorithms known as proximal splitting algorithms is particularly adequate: they…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-27 Laurent Condat , Daichi Kitahara , Andrés Contreras , Akira Hirabayashi

Successive quadratic approximations, or second-order proximal methods, are useful for minimizing functions that are a sum of a smooth part and a convex, possibly nonsmooth part that promotes regularization. Most analyses of iteration…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-01-25 Ching-pei Lee , Stephen J. Wright

When the nonconvex problem is complicated by stochasticity, the sample complexity of stochastic first-order methods may depend linearly on the problem dimension, which is undesirable for large-scale problems. In this work, we propose…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-10-01 Yue Xie , Jiawen Bi , Hongcheng Liu

Higher-order tensor methods were recently proposed for minimizing smooth convex and nonconvex functions. Higher-order algorithms accelerate the convergence of the classical first-order methods thanks to the higher-order derivatives used in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-01-11 Ion Necoara

We study convex composite optimization problems, where the objective function is given by the sum of a prox-friendly function and a convex function whose subgradients are estimated under heavy-tailed noise. Existing work often employs…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-14 Chuan He , Zhaosong Lu

A very simple first-order algorithm is proposed for solving nonlinear optimization problems with deterministic nonlinear equality constraints. This algorithm adaptively selects steps in the plane tangent to the constraints or steps that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-11 Serge Gratton , Philippe L. Toint

Non-convex functional constrained optimization problems have gained substantial attention in machine learning and data science, addressing broad requirements that typically go beyond the often performance-centric objectives. An influential…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-29 Sang Bin Moon , Jong Gwang Kim , Ashish Chandra , Christopher Brinton , Abolfazl Hashemi