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In this work, we consider convex optimization problems with smooth objective function and nonsmooth functional constraints. We propose a new stochastic gradient algorithm, called Stochastic Halfspace Approximation Method (SHAM), to solve…
Due to the non-smoothness of optimization problems in Machine Learning, generalized smoothness assumptions have been gaining a lot of attention in recent years. One of the most popular assumptions of this type is $(L_0,L_1)$-smoothness…
We consider the problem of minimizing a convex objective which is the sum of a smooth part, with Lipschitz continuous gradient, and a nonsmooth part. Inspired by various applications, we focus on the case when the nonsmooth part is a…
Decentralized optimization has become a fundamental tool for large-scale learning systems; however, most existing methods rely on the classical Lipschitz smoothness assumption, which is often violated in problems with rapidly varying…
This article introduces a novel family of optimization algorithms - Anisotropic Gaussian Smoothing Gradient Descent (AGS-GD), AGS-Stochastic Gradient Descent (AGS-SGD), and AGS-Adam - that employ anisotropic Gaussian smoothing to enhance…
In this work, we develop first-order (Hessian-free) and zero-order (derivative-free) implementations of the Cubically regularized Newton method for solving general non-convex optimization problems. For that, we employ finite difference…
This paper considers stochastic optimization problems for a large class of objective functions, including convex and continuous submodular. Stochastic proximal gradient methods have been widely used to solve such problems; however, their…
Optimization problems that include regularization functions in their objectives are regularly solved in many applications. When one seeks second-order methods for such problems, it may be desirable to exploit specific properties of some of…
We analyze convergence rates of stochastic optimization procedures for non-smooth convex optimization problems. By combining randomized smoothing techniques with accelerated gradient methods, we obtain convergence rates of stochastic…
We propose a novel algorithm that extends the methods of ball smoothing and Gaussian smoothing for noisy derivative-free optimization by accounting for the heterogeneous curvature of the objective function. The algorithm dynamically adapts…
In this paper, we propose a proximal gradient method and an accelerated proximal gradient method for solving composite optimization problems, where the objective function is the sum of a smooth and a convex, possibly nonsmooth, function. We…
Zeroth-order optimization is the process of minimizing an objective $f(x)$, given oracle access to evaluations at adaptively chosen inputs $x$. In this paper, we present two simple yet powerful GradientLess Descent (GLD) algorithms that do…
This work studies minimization problems with zero-order noisy oracle information under the assumption that the objective function is highly smooth and possibly satisfies additional properties. We consider two kinds of zero-order projected…
We consider the task of decentralized minimization of the sum of smooth strongly convex functions stored across the nodes of a network. For this problem, lower bounds on the number of gradient computations and the number of communication…
In this paper, we address stochastic optimization problems involving a composition of a non-smooth outer function and a smooth inner function, a formulation frequently encountered in machine learning and operations research. To deal with…
Under mild assumptions stochastic gradient methods asymptotically achieve an optimal rate of convergence if the arithmetic mean of all iterates is returned as an approximate optimal solution. However, in the absence of stochastic noise, the…
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…
We consider variants of trust-region and cubic regularization methods for non-convex optimization, in which the Hessian matrix is approximated. Under mild conditions on the inexact Hessian, and using approximate solution of the…
Gradient-based algorithms are one of the methods of choice for the optimisation of Markov Decision Processes. In this article we will present a novel approximate Newton algorithm for the optimisation of such models. The algorithm has…
In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the average of a large number of nonsmooth and convex functions. Such problems often arise in typical machine learning problems as empirical risk minimization, but are computationally…