Related papers: On the Connectedness of Sublevel Sets in Invex Opt…
This paper considers the optimization-based traffic allocation problem among multiple end points in connectionless networks. The network utility function is modeled as a non-concave function, since it is the best description of the quality…
Statistical decision problems lie at the heart of statistical machine learning. The simplest problems are binary and multiclass classification and class probability estimation. Central to their definition is the choice of loss function,…
Peak estimation of hybrid systems aims to upper bound extreme values of a state function along trajectories, where this state function could be different in each subsystem. This finite-dimensional but nonconvex problem may be lifted into an…
A popular approach to the MAP inference problem in graphical models is to minimize an upper bound obtained from a dual linear programming or Lagrangian relaxation by (block-)coordinate descent. This is also known as convex/convergent…
We study the problem of minimizing a convex function on a nonempty, finite subset of the integer lattice when the function cannot be evaluated at noninteger points. We propose a new underestimator that does not require access to…
Deciding whether saddle points exist or are approximable for nonconvex-nonconcave problems is usually intractable. This paper takes a step towards understanding a broad class of nonconvex-nonconcave minimax problems that do remain…
We consider the problem of maximizing a convex function over a closed convex set in a real Hilbert space. For linear functions, we show that a single orthogonal projection suffices to obtain an approximate solution. For continuous convex…
In this paper we develop a higher-order method for solving composite (non)convex minimization problems with smooth (non)convex functional constraints. At each iteration our method approximates the smooth part of the objective function and…
We propose techniques for approximating bilevel optimization problems with non-smooth lower level problems that can have a non-unique solution. To this end, we substitute the expression of a minimizer of the lower level minimization problem…
We consider the problem of minimizing convex combinations of the first two eigenvalues of the Dirichlet-Laplacian among open sets of $R^N$ of fixed measure. We show that, by purely elementary arguments, based on the minimality condition, it…
In this paper, we present difference of convex algorithms for solving bilevel programs in which the upper level objective functions are difference of convex functions, and the lower level programs are fully convex. This nontrivial class of…
The classical Lojasiewicz inequality and its extensions for partial differential equation problems (Simon) and to o-minimal structures (Kurdyka) have a considerable impact on the analysis of gradient-like methods and related problems:…
We investigate the local topological structure, stationary point sets in parametric optimization genericly may have. Our main result states that, up to stratified isomorphism, any such structure is already present in the small subclass of…
This paper introduces a new subtraction operation for convex sets, which defines their difference as a collection of inclusion-minimal convex sets with appropriate definitions of linear operations on them. With these operations the set of…
We consider the task of minimizing the sum of convex functions stored in a decentralized manner across the nodes of a communication network. This problem is relatively well-studied in the scenario when the objective functions are smooth, or…
In this paper, we derive a new linear convergence rate for the gradient method with fixed step lengths for non-convex smooth optimization problems satisfying the Polyak-Lojasiewicz (PL) inequality. We establish that the PL inequality is a…
The aim of this paper is to present an original approach that takes advantage from the geometric features of strictly convex functions to tackle the problem of finding the minimum from another perspective. The general idea is that near the…
The Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz (P{\L}) inequality extends the favorable optimization properties of strongly convex functions to a broader class of functions. In this paper, we prove a theorem (also obtained by Criscitiello, Rebjock and Boumal in…
A key idea in convex optimization theory is to use well-structured affine functions to approximate general functions, leading to impactful developments in conjugate functions and convex duality theory. This raises the question: what are the…
In the present paper, conditions under which the images of uniformly convex sets through $C^{1,1}$ regular mappings between Banach spaces remain convex are established. These conditions are expressed by a certain quantitative relation…