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This work presents a unified framework that combines global approximations with locally built models to handle challenging nonconvex and nonsmooth composite optimization problems, including cases involving extended real-valued functions. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-19 Welington de Oliveira , Johannes O. Royset

We devise a deterministic algorithm to efficiently sample high-quality solutions of certain spin-glass systems that encode hard optimization problems. We employ tensor networks to represent the Gibbs distribution of all possible…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-09-07 Marek M. Rams , Masoud Mohseni , Daniel Eppens , Konrad Jałowiecki , Bartłomiej Gardas

Identifying heterogeneous structures in glasses --- such as localized soft spots --- and understanding structure-dynamics relations in these systems remain major scientific challenges. Here we derive an exact expression for the local…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-08-16 Jacques Zylberg , Edan Lerner , Yohai Bar-Sinai , Eran Bouchbinder

Existing methods for nonlinear robust control often use scenario-based approaches to formulate the control problem as large nonlinear optimization problems. The optimization problems are challenging to solve due to their size, especially if…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-10-19 Marta Zagorowska , Paola Falugi , Edward O'Dwyer , Eric C. Kerrigan

Loss functions with non-isolated minima have emerged in several machine learning problems, creating a gap between theory and practice. In this paper, we formulate a new type of local convexity condition that is suitable to describe the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-31 Taehee Ko , Xiantao Li

In this paper, a local-global model reduction method is presented to solve stochastic optimal control problems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). If the optimal control problems involve uncertainty, we need to use a few…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2018-07-04 Lingling Ma , Qiuqi Li , Lijian Jiang

Time-dependent partial differential equations (PDEs) for classic physical systems are established based on the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, which are ubiquitous in scientific and engineering applications. These PDEs are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-14 Jiangce Chen , Wenzhuo Xu , Zeda Xu , Noelia Grande Gutiérrez , Sneha Prabha Narra , Christopher McComb

Optimization problems are ubiquitous in our societies and are present in almost every segment of the economy. Most of these optimization problems are NP-hard and computationally demanding, often requiring approximate solutions for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-06-23 James Kotary , Ferdinando Fioretto , Pascal Van Hentenryck

Hidden convex optimization is such a class of nonconvex optimization problems that can be globally solved in polynomial time via equivalent convex programming reformulations. In this paper, we focus on checking local optimality in hidden…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-08 Mengmeng Song , Yong Xia , Hongying Liu

Stochastic gradient methods are dominant in nonconvex optimization especially for deep models but have low asymptotical convergence due to the fixed smoothness. To address this problem, we propose a simple yet effective method for improving…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-25 Jun Li , Hongfu Liu , Bineng Zhong , Yue Wu , Yun Fu

The question of what can be computed, and how efficiently, are at the core of computer science. Not surprisingly, in distributed systems and networking research, an equally fundamental question is what can be computed in a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-04-01 Fabian Kuhn , Thomas Moscibroda , Roger Wattenhofer

Stochastic local search algorithms are frequently used to numerically solve hard combinatorial optimization or decision problems. We give numerical and approximate analytical descriptions of the dynamics of such algorithms applied to random…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-11-10 Wolfgang Barthel , Alexander K. Hartmann , Martin Weigt

Local search algorithms for combinatorial search problems frequently encounter a sequence of states in which it is impossible to improve the value of the objective function; moves through these regions, called plateau moves, dominate the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-11-17 J. Frank , P. Cheeseman , J. Stutz

We present a complete classification of the distributed computational complexity of local optimization problems in directed cycles for both the deterministic and the randomized LOCAL model. We show that for any local optimization problem…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-03-06 Thomas Boudier , Fabian Kuhn , Augusto Modanese , Ronja Stimpert , Jukka Suomela

In critical systems, the effect of a localized perturbation affects points that are arbitrarily far from the perturbation location. In this paper, we study the effect of localized perturbations on the solution of the random dimer problem in…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2021-04-19 Sergio Caracciolo , Riccardo Fabbricatore , Marco Gherardi , Raffaele Marino , Giorgio Parisi , Gabriele Sicuro

We review various characterizations of uniform convexity and smoothness on norm balls in finite-dimensional spaces and connect results stemming from the geometry of Banach spaces with \textit{scaling inequalities} used in analysing the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-02-19 Thomas Kerdreux , Alexandre d'Aspremont , Sebastian Pokutta

Spin glasses occupy a unique place in condensed matter: they freeze collectively while remaining struc-turally disordered, and they exhibit slow, history-dependent dynamics that reflect an exceptionally rug-ged free-energy landscape. This…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2025-12-25 Naeimeh Tahriri , Vahid Mahdikhah , Jahanfar Abouie , Daryoosh Vashaee

A simple geometrical characterization of configuration space neighborhoods of local energy minima in spin glass landscapes is found by exhaustive search. Combined with previous Monte Carlo investigations of thermal domain growth, it allows…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2015-06-25 Paolo Sibani

An overview of some methods of statistical physics applied to the analysis of algorithms for optimization problems (satisfiability of Boolean constraints, vertex cover of graphs, decoding, ...) with distributions of random inputs is…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Simona Cocco , Remi Monasson , Andrea Montanari , Guilhem Semerjian

Due to an extremely rugged structure of the free energy landscape, the determination of spin-glass ground states is among the hardest known optimization problems, found to be NP-hard in the most general case. Owing to the specific structure…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2011-11-10 Martin Weigel