Related papers: A Zeroth-Order Extra-Gradient Method for Black-Box…
Constrained second-order convex optimization algorithms are the method of choice when a high accuracy solution to a problem is needed, due to their local quadratic convergence. These algorithms require the solution of a constrained…
We present a novel gradient-free algorithm to solve a convex stochastic optimization problem, such as those encountered in medicine, physics, and machine learning (e.g., adversarial multi-armed bandit problem), where the objective function…
Min-max optimization is emerging as a key framework for analyzing problems of robustness to strategically and adversarially generated data. We propose a random reshuffling-based gradient free Optimistic Gradient Descent-Ascent algorithm for…
This paper investigates how to accelerate the convergence of distributed optimization algorithms on nonconvex problems with zeroth-order information available only. We propose a zeroth-order (ZO) distributed primal-dual stochastic…
Distributed demand response is a typical distributed optimization problem that requires coordination among multiple agents to satisfy demand response requirements. However, existing distributed algorithms for this problem still face…
In this paper, we consider a distributed stochastic non-convex optimization problem, which is about minimizing a sum of $n$ local cost functions over a network with only zeroth-order information. A novel single-loop Decentralized…
We address black-box convex optimization problems, where the objective and constraint functions are not explicitly known but can be sampled within the feasible set. The challenge is thus to generate a sequence of feasible points converging…
Zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) is an important framework for stochastic optimization when gradients are unavailable or expensive to compute. A potential limitation of existing ZOO methods is the bias inherent in most gradient estimators…
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…
Gradient-based optimization is now ubiquitous across graphics, but unfortunately can not be applied to problems with undefined or zero gradients. To circumvent this issue, the loss function can be manually replaced by a ``surrogate'' that…
We consider the projected gradient algorithm for the nonconvex best subset selection problem that minimizes a given empirical loss function under an $\ell_0$-norm constraint. Through decomposing the feasible set of the given sparsity…
We propose a new framework for black-box convex optimization which is well-suited for situations where gradient computations are expensive. We derive a new method for this framework which leverages several concepts from convex optimization,…
Zeroth-order optimization methods are developed to overcome the practical hurdle of having knowledge of explicit derivatives. Instead, these schemes work with merely access to noisy functions evaluations. One of the predominant approaches…
We study mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints, in which a leader knows their own cost function, but lacks a model of the followers' response. Instead, the leader can only query this response at specific points. While this…
This paper is devoted to the theoretical and numerical investigation of an augmented Lagrangian method for the solution of optimization problems with geometric constraints. Specifically, we study situations where parts of the constraints…
In this paper, we consider the composite optimization problem, where the objective function integrates a continuously differentiable loss function with a nonsmooth regularization term. Moreover, only the function values for the…
In this work we address the problem of convex optimization in a multi-agent setting where the objective is to minimize the mean of local cost functions whose derivatives are not available (e.g. black-box models). Moreover agents can only…
Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) has proven effective for a variety of downstream tasks. However, as LLMs grow in size, the memory demands for backpropagation become increasingly prohibitive. Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization methods…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization provides a gradient-free alternative to first-order (FO) methods by estimating gradients via finite differences of function evaluations, and has recently emerged as a memory-efficient paradigm for fine-tuning…
This paper introduces a class of model-free feedback methods for solving generic constrained optimization problems where the specific mathematical forms of the objective and constraint functions are not available. The proposed methods,…