Related papers: Efficient globalization of heavy-ball type methods…

Guided policy search algorithms can be used to optimize complex nonlinear policies, such as deep neural networks, without directly computing policy gradients in the high-dimensional parameter space. Instead, these methods use supervised…

Tackling simulation optimization problems with non-convex objective functions remains a fundamental challenge in operations research. In this paper, we propose a class of random search algorithms, called Regular Tree Search, which…

In this paper, we revisit the convergence of the Heavy-ball method, and present improved convergence complexity results in the convex setting. We provide the first non-ergodic O(1/k) rate result of the Heavy-ball algorithm with constant…

In this paper we propose a generalized condition for a sharp minimum, somewhat similar to the inexact oracle proposed recently by Devolder-Glineur-Nesterov. The proposed approach makes it possible to extend the class of applicability of…

Min-max optimization arises in many domains such as game theory, adversarial machine learning, etc. For these problems, gradient-based methods are well understood and enjoy strong guarantees. However, in the absence of convexity or…

We consider minimizing an objective function subject to constraints defined by the intersection of lower-level sets of convex functions. We study two cases: (i) strongly convex and Lipschitz-smooth objective function and (ii) convex but…

Projected-search methods for bound-constrained optimization are based on performing a search along a piecewise-linear continuous path obtained by projecting a search direction onto the feasible region. A benefit of these methods is that…

The paper proposes and justifies a new algorithm of the proximal Newton type to solve a broad class of nonsmooth composite convex optimization problems without strong convexity assumptions. Based on advanced notions and techniques of…

The stochastic proximal gradient method is a powerful generalization of the widely used stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method and has found numerous applications in Machine Learning. However, it is notoriously known that this method…

In this work, we analyze the convergence of Polyak's heavy ball method in both continuous and discrete time for non-convex $C^4$-objective functions satisfying the Polyak-Lojasiewicz inequality. Under this weak assumption, we recover the…

Min-max optimization problems involving nonconvex-nonconcave objectives have found important applications in adversarial training and other multi-agent learning settings. Yet, no known gradient descent-based method is guaranteed to converge…

Recent applications that arise in machine learning have surged significant interest in solving min-max saddle point games. This problem has been extensively studied in the convex-concave regime for which a global equilibrium solution can be…

This article considers nonconvex global optimization problems subject to uncertainties described by continuous random variables. Such problems arise in chemical process design, renewable energy systems, stochastic model predictive control,…

Many optimization algorithms converge to stationary points. When the underlying problem is nonconvex, they may get trapped at local minimizers and occasionally stagnate near saddle points. We propose the Run-and-Inspect Method, which adds…

Convergence guarantees for optimization over bounded-rank matrices are delicate to obtain because the feasible set is a non-smooth and non-convex algebraic variety. Existing techniques include projected gradient descent, fixed-rank…

This paper proposes and justifies two globally convergent Newton-type methods to solve unconstrained and constrained problems of nonsmooth optimization by using tools of variational analysis and generalized differentiation. Both methods are…

Techniques involving factorization are found in a wide range of applications and have enjoyed significant empirical success in many fields. However, common to a vast majority of these problems is the significant disadvantage that the…

Our work focuses on stochastic gradient methods for optimizing a smooth non-convex loss function with a non-smooth non-convex regularizer. Research on this class of problem is quite limited, and until recently no non-asymptotic convergence…

Adaptive regularized framework using cubics has emerged as an alternative to line-search and trust-region algorithms for smooth nonconvex optimization, with an optimal complexity amongst second-order methods. In this paper, we propose and…

Nonconvex optimization is central in solving many machine learning problems, in which block-wise structure is commonly encountered. In this work, we propose cyclic block coordinate methods for nonconvex optimization problems with…