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We propose a variable metric framework for minimizing the sum of a self-concordant function and a possibly non-smooth convex function, endowed with an easily computable proximal operator. We theoretically establish the convergence of our…
Composite convex optimization problems which include both a nonsmooth term and a low-rank promoting term have important applications in machine learning and signal processing, such as when one wishes to recover an unknown matrix that is…
In this paper we analyze a zeroth-order proximal stochastic gradient method suitable for the minimization of weakly convex stochastic optimization problems. We consider nonsmooth and nonlinear stochastic composite problems, for which…
This paper introduces a smoothed proximal Lagrangian method for minimizing a nonconvex smooth function over a convex domain with additional explicit convex nonlinear constraints. Two key features are 1) the proposed method is single-looped,…
Min-max problems have broad applications in machine learning, including learning with non-decomposable loss and learning with robustness to data distribution. Convex-concave min-max problem is an active topic of research with efficient…
Classical theory for quasi-Newton schemes has focused on smooth deterministic unconstrained optimization while recent forays into stochastic convex optimization have largely resided in smooth, unconstrained, and strongly convex regimes.…
This paper proposes and develops inexact proximal methods for finding stationary points of the sum of a smooth function and a nonsmooth weakly convex one, where an error is present in the calculation of the proximal mapping of the nonsmooth…
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…
We consider the problem of global optimization of an unknown non-convex smooth function with zeroth-order feedback. In this setup, an algorithm is allowed to adaptively query the underlying function at different locations and receives noisy…
In this paper, we introduce a stochastic projected subgradient method for weakly convex (i.e., uniformly prox-regular) nonsmooth, nonconvex functions---a wide class of functions which includes the additive and convex composite classes. At a…
We analyze stochastic algorithms for optimizing nonconvex, nonsmooth finite-sum problems, where the nonconvex part is smooth and the nonsmooth part is convex. Surprisingly, unlike the smooth case, our knowledge of this fundamental problem…
We propose a stochastic optimization method for the minimization of the sum of three convex functions, one of which has Lipschitz continuous gradient as well as restricted strong convexity. Our approach is most suitable in the setting where…
In this paper, we consider a broad class of nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems, where one objective component is a nonsmooth weakly convex function composed with a linear operator. By integrating variable smoothing techniques…
Low-rank and nonsmooth matrix optimization problems capture many fundamental tasks in statistics and machine learning. While significant progress has been made in recent years in developing efficient methods for \textit{smooth} low-rank…
In this paper, we study a class of non-smooth non-convex problems in the form of $\min_{x}[\max_{y\in Y}\phi(x, y) - \max_{z\in Z}\psi(x, z)]$, where both $\Phi(x) = \max_{y\in Y}\phi(x, y)$ and $\Psi(x)=\max_{z\in Z}\psi(x, z)$ are weakly…
In this paper, we discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: a smooth function plus a non-smooth function. Further, the smooth part can be expressed by the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and…
The subgradient method is one of the most fundamental algorithmic schemes for nonsmooth optimization. The existing complexity and convergence results for this method are mainly derived for Lipschitz continuous objective functions. In this…
Majorization-minimization schemes are a broad class of iterative methods targeting general optimization problems, including nonconvex, nonsmooth and stochastic. These algorithms minimize successively a sequence of upper bounds of the…
In this document, we present the main properties satisfied by the Moreau envelope of weakly convex functions. The Moreau envelope has been introduced in convex optimization to regularize convex functionals while preserving their global…
This paper deals with convex nonsmooth optimization problems. We introduce a general smooth approximation framework for the original function and apply random (accelerated) coordinate descent methods for minimizing the corresponding smooth…