Related papers: Function-free Optimization via Comparison Oracles
Ou et al. (2022) introduce the problem of learning set functions from data generated by a so-called optimal subset oracle. Their approach approximates the underlying utility function with an energy-based model, whose parameters are…
We present a stochastic descent algorithm for unconstrained optimization that is particularly efficient when the objective function is slow to evaluate and gradients are not easily obtained, as in some PDE-constrained optimization and…
Linear fixed point equations in Hilbert spaces arise in a variety of settings, including reinforcement learning, and computational methods for solving differential and integral equations. We study methods that use a collection of random…
This paper presents a directional proximal point method (DPPM) to derive the minimum of any C1-smooth function f. The proposed method requires a function persistent a local convex segment along the descent direction at any non-critical…
Structured optimization problems are ubiquitous in fields like data science and engineering. The goal in structured optimization is using a prescribed set of points, called atoms, to build up a solution that minimizes or maximizes a given…
Robust optimization (RO) is a powerful paradigm for decision making under uncertainty. Existing algorithms for solving RO, including the reformulation approach and the cutting-plane method, do not scale well, hindering the application of RO…
We propose a family of recursive cutting-plane algorithms to solve feasibility problems with constrained memory, which can also be used for first-order convex optimization. Precisely, in order to find a point within a ball of radius…
In this paper, we consider derivative free optimization problems, where the objective function is smooth but is computed with some amount of noise, the function evaluations are expensive and no derivative information is available. We are…
This paper studies first-order algorithms for solving fully composite optimization problems over convex and compact sets. We leverage the structure of the objective by handling its differentiable and non-differentiable components…
In this work, we study first-order algorithms for solving Bilevel Optimization (BO) where the objective functions are smooth but possibly nonconvex in both levels and the variables are restricted to closed convex sets. As a first step, we…
In data-driven optimization, solution feasibility is often ensured through a "safe" reformulation of the uncertain constraints, such that an obtained data-driven solution is guaranteed to be feasible for the oracle formulation with high…
Many computer vision problems are formulated as the optimization of a cost function. This approach faces two main challenges: (i) designing a cost function with a local optimum at an acceptable solution, and (ii) developing an efficient…
We consider the problem of minimizing a composite convex function with two different access methods: an oracle, for which we can evaluate the value and gradient, and a structured function, which we access only by solving a convex…
In this work, we consider bilevel optimization when the lower-level problem is strongly convex. Recent works show that with a Hessian-vector product (HVP) oracle, one can provably find an $\epsilon$-stationary point within…
This paper develops and analyzes an accelerated proximal descent method for finding stationary points of nonconvex composite optimization problems. The objective function is of the form $f+h$ where $h$ is a proper closed convex function,…
Profile likelihood provides a general framework to infer on a scalar parameter of a statistical model. A confidence interval is obtained by numerically finding the two abscissas where the profile log-likelihood curve intersects an…
Derivative Free Optimization is known to be an efficient and robust method to tackle the black-box optimization problem. When it comes to noisy functions, classical comparison-based algorithms are slower than gradient-based algorithms. For…
Differentiable optimization layers enable learning systems to make decisions by solving embedded optimization problems. However, computing gradients via implicit differentiation requires solving a linear system with Hessian terms, which is…
This paper considers non-smooth optimization problems where we seek to minimize the pointwise maximum of a continuously parameterized family of functions. Since the objective function is given as the solution to a maximization problem,…
In this paper, we study the fundamental open question of finding the optimal high-order algorithm for solving smooth convex minimization problems. Arjevani et al. (2019) established the lower bound $\Omega\left(\epsilon^{-2/(3p+1)}\right)$…