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Related papers: Optimal Zeroth-Order Bilevel Optimization

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Stochastic optimization problems with unknown decision-dependent distributions have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to its importance in applications. Since the gradient of the objective function is inaccessible as a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-30 Yuya Hikima , Akiko Takeda

This work presents the first projection-free algorithm to solve stochastic bi-level optimization problems, where the objective function depends on the solution of another stochastic optimization problem. The proposed $\textbf{S}$tochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-08 Zeeshan Akhtar , Amrit Singh Bedi , Srujan Teja Thomdapu , Ketan Rajawat

An algorithm is proposed for solving optimization problems arising in neural network training for supervised learning. The unique feature of the algorithm is the use of an auxiliary loss, in addition to the original loss employed for model…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-11 Yunlang Zhu , Lingjun Guo , Zahra Khatti , Xiaoyi Qu , Chia-Yuan Wu , Lara Zebiane , Frank E. Curtis

In this work we derive a second-order approach to bilevel optimization, a type of mathematical programming in which the solution to a parameterized optimization problem (the "lower" problem) is itself to be optimized (in the "upper"…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-06 Robert Dyro , Edward Schmerling , Nikos Arechiga , Marco Pavone

In this paper, we consider two distinct challenges in the resolution of nonsmooth stochastic optimization. Of these, the first pertains to the pronounced dependence of dimension in Gaussian smoothing-enabled zeroth-order schemes, impeding…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-20 Mingrui Wang , Prakash Chakraborty , Uday V. Shanbhag

This paper addresses stochastic optimization of Lipschitz-continuous, nonsmooth and nonconvex objectives over compact convex sets, where only noisy function evaluations are available. While gradient-free methods have been developed for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Anik Kumar Paul , Shalabh Bhatnagar

We consider stochastic zeroth-order optimization over Riemannian submanifolds embedded in Euclidean space, where the task is to solve Riemannian optimization problem with only noisy objective function evaluations. Towards this, our main…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-01-06 Jiaxiang Li , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Shiqian Ma

In this paper, we study a class of bilevel optimization problems, also known as simple bilevel optimization, where we minimize a smooth objective function over the optimal solution set of another convex constrained optimization problem.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-25 Ruichen Jiang , Nazanin Abolfazli , Aryan Mokhtari , Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani

Online bilevel optimization (OBO) is a powerful framework for machine learning problems where both outer and inner objectives evolve over time, requiring dynamic updates. Current OBO approaches rely on deterministic \textit{window-smoothed}…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-20 Parvin Nazari , Bojian Hou , Davoud Ataee Tarzanagh , Li Shen , George Michailidis

Finding the optimal hyperparameters of a model can be cast as a bilevel optimization problem, typically solved using zero-order techniques. In this work we study first-order methods when the inner optimization problem is convex but…

An algorithm is proposed for solving optimization problems with stochastic objective and deterministic equality and inequality constraints. This algorithm is objective-function-free in the sense that it only uses the objective's gradient…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-01 S. Gratton , Ph. L. Toint

Bilevel optimization, a hierarchical mathematical framework where one optimization problem is nested within another, has emerged as a powerful tool for modeling complex decision-making processes in various fields such as economics,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-25 Omer Ekmekcioglu , Nursen Aydin , Juergen Branke

We consider an unconstrained problem of minimizing a smooth convex function which is only available through noisy observations of its values, the noise consisting of two parts. Similar to stochastic optimization problems, the first part is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-09-22 Eduard Gorbunov , Pavel Dvurechensky , Alexander Gasnikov

Bilevel optimization reveals the inner structure of otherwise oblique optimization problems, such as hyperparameter tuning, neural architecture search, and meta-learning. A common goal in bilevel optimization is to minimize a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-29 Lesi Chen , Jing Xu , Jingzhao Zhang

This paper considers the nonconvex nonsmooth problem in which the objective function is Lipschitz continuous. We focus on the stochastic setting where the algorithm can access stochastic function value evaluations with heavy-tailed noise,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Zhuanghua Liu , Luo Luo

Derivative-free optimization has become an important technique used in machine learning for optimizing black-box models. To conduct updates without explicitly computing gradient, most current approaches iteratively sample a random search…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-08-03 Liu Liu , Minhao Cheng , Cho-Jui Hsieh , Dacheng Tao

We present a derivative-based algorithm for nonlinearly constrained optimization problems that is tolerant of inaccuracies in the data. The algorithm solves a semi-smooth set of nonlinear equations that are equivalent to the first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-09-21 Jason E. Hicken , Pengfei Meng , Alp Dener

We provide a framework and algorithm for tuning the hyperparameters of the Graphical Lasso via a bilevel optimization problem solved with a first-order method. In particular, we derive the Jacobian of the Graphical Lasso solution with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-14 Can Pouliquen , Paulo Gonçalves , Mathurin Massias , Titouan Vayer

High-dimensional simulation optimization is notoriously challenging. We propose a new sampling algorithm that converges to a global optimal solution and suffers minimally from the curse of dimensionality. The algorithm consists of two…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-07-21 Liang Ding , Rui Tuo , Xiaowei Zhang

We analyse a general class of bilevel problems, in which the upper-level problem consists in the minimization of a smooth objective function and the lower-level problem is to find the fixed point of a smooth contraction map. This type of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-11-17 Riccardo Grazzi , Massimiliano Pontil , Saverio Salzo