Related papers: Stochastic Dominance Constrained Optimization with…
This paper considers the problem of minimizing an expectation function over a closed convex set, coupled with a {\color{black} functional or expectation} constraint on either decision variables or problem parameters. We first present a new…
An optimization algorithm for a group of nonsmooth nonconvex problems inspired by two-stage stochastic programming problems is proposed. The main challenges for these problems include (1) the problems lack the popular lower-type properties…
We propose two algorithms that can find local minima faster than the state-of-the-art algorithms in both finite-sum and general stochastic nonconvex optimization. At the core of the proposed algorithms is $\text{One-epoch-SNVRG}^+$ using…
In this paper, we propose a new methodology for state constrained stochastic optimal control (SOC) problems. The solution is based on past work in solving SOC problems using forward-backward stochastic differential equations (FBSDE). Our…
In many contemporary optimization problems such as those arising in machine learning, it can be computationally challenging or even infeasible to evaluate an entire function or its derivatives. This motivates the use of stochastic…
The main focus of this paper is radius-based (supplier) clustering in the two-stage stochastic setting with recourse, where the inherent stochasticity of the model comes in the form of a budget constraint. In addition to the standard…
While first-order optimization methods such as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) are popular in machine learning (ML), they come with well-known deficiencies, including relatively-slow convergence, sensitivity to the settings of…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a simple and popular method to solve stochastic optimization problems which arise in machine learning. For strongly convex problems, its convergence rate was known to be O(\log(T)/T), by running SGD for…
The non-asymptotic analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) typically yields bounds that decompose into a bias term and a variance term. In this work, we focus on the bias component and study the extent to which SGD can match the…
We consider a class of stochastic smooth convex optimization problems under rather general assumptions on the noise in the stochastic gradient observation. As opposed to the classical problem setting in which the variance of noise is…
Conditional stochastic optimization covers a variety of applications ranging from invariant learning and causal inference to meta-learning. However, constructing unbiased gradient estimators for such problems is challenging due to the…
The paper addresses general constrained and non-linear optimization problems. For some of these notoriously hard problems, there exists a reformulation as an unconstrained, global optimization problem. We illustrate the transformation, and…
In this paper, we study a family of non-convex and possibly non-smooth inf-projection minimization problems, where the target objective function is equal to minimization of a joint function over another variable. This problem include…
Two-stage stochastic optimization is a framework for modeling uncertainty, where we have a probability distribution over possible realizations of the data, called scenarios, and decisions are taken in two stages: we make first-stage…
This paper develops stochastic optimization problems for describing and analyzing behavioral investors with Markowitz Stochastic Dominance (MSD) preferences. Specifically, we establish dominance conditions in a discrete state-space to…
This paper develops a new storage-optimal algorithm that provably solves generic semidefinite programs (SDPs) in standard form. This method is particularly effective for weakly constrained SDPs. The key idea is to formulate an approximate…
Online optimization problems arise in many resource allocation tasks, where the future demands for each resource and the associated utility functions change over time and are not known apriori, yet resources need to be allocated at every…
Classical stochastic gradient methods are well suited for minimizing expected-value objective functions. However, they do not apply to the minimization of a nonlinear function involving expected values or a composition of two expected-value…
The goal of a sequential decision making problem is to design an interactive policy that adaptively selects a group of items, each selection is based on the feedback from the past, in order to maximize the expected utility of selected…
We consider the unconstrained optimization problem whose objective function is composed of a smooth and a non-smooth conponents where the smooth component is the expectation a random function. This type of problem arises in some interesting…