Related papers: Beyond Bounded Variance: Variance-Reduced Normaliz…

This paper studies non-smooth problems of convex stochastic optimization. Using the smoothing technique based on the replacement of the function value at the considered point by the averaged function value over a ball (in $l_1$-norm or…

We consider decentralized gradient-free optimization of minimizing Lipschitz continuous functions that satisfy neither smoothness nor convexity assumption. We propose two novel gradient-free algorithms, the Decentralized Gradient-Free…

A stochastic-gradient-based interior-point algorithm for minimizing a continuously differentiable objective function (that may be nonconvex) subject to bound constraints is presented, analyzed, and demonstrated through experimental results.…

Stochastic optimization algorithms with variance reduction have proven successful for minimizing large finite sums of functions. Unfortunately, these techniques are unable to deal with stochastic perturbations of input data, induced for…

To improve the off-sample generalization of classical procedures minimizing the empirical risk under potentially heavy-tailed data, new robust learning algorithms have been proposed in recent years, with generalized median-of-means…

In this paper, we proposed a new technique, {\em variance controlled stochastic gradient} (VCSG), to improve the performance of the stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) algorithm. To avoid over-reducing the variance of gradient by…

Gradient clipping is a standard training technique used in deep learning applications such as large-scale language modeling to mitigate exploding gradients. Recent experimental studies have demonstrated a fairly special behavior in the…

We present two easy-to-implement gradient-free/zeroth-order methods to optimize a stochastic non-smooth function accessible only via a black-box. The methods are built upon efficient first-order methods in the heavy-tailed case, i.e., when…

This paper proposes a novel technique called "successive stochastic smoothing" that optimizes nonsmooth and discontinuous functions while considering various constraints. Our methodology enables local and global optimization, making it a…

We consider non-smooth saddle point optimization problems. To solve these problems, we propose a zeroth-order method under bounded or Lipschitz continuous noise, possible adversarial. In contrast to the state-of-the-art algorithms, our…

We consider randomized block coordinate stochastic mirror descent (RBSMD) methods for solving high-dimensional stochastic optimization problems with strongly convex objective functions. Our goal is to develop RBSMD schemes that achieve a…

We study finite-sum non-convex optimization $\min_{x\in\mathbb{R}^d} F(x) \;=\; \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n f_i(x)$ and analyze a variance-reduced cubic Newton method based on EMA-smoothed SARAH estimators for both gradient and Hessian…

Nonsmooth nonconvex optimization problems broadly emerge in machine learning and business decision making, whereas two core challenges impede the development of efficient solution methods with finite-time convergence guarantee: the lack of…

Zeroth-order optimization aims to minimize an objective function using only function evaluations, and is therefore fundamental in black-box optimization, hyperparameter tuning, bandit learning, and adversarial machine learning. While…

In this paper we address the convergence of stochastic approximation when the functions to be minimized are not convex and nonsmooth. We show that the "mean-limit" approach to the convergence which leads, for smooth problems, to the ODE…

We establish novel generalization bounds for learning algorithms that converge to global minima. We do so by deriving black-box stability results that only depend on the convergence of a learning algorithm and the geometry around the…

In this paper, we study a stochastic strongly convex optimization problem and propose three classes of variable sample-size stochastic first-order methods including the standard stochastic gradient descent method, its accelerated variant,…

We study the trade-offs between convergence rate and robustness to gradient errors in designing a first-order algorithm. We focus on gradient descent (GD) and accelerated gradient (AG) methods for minimizing strongly convex functions when…

We consider the problem of minimizing a strongly convex smooth function where the gradients are subject to additive worst-case deterministic errors that are square-summable. We study the trade-offs between the convergence rate and…

Decentralized nonconvex optimization has received increasing attention in recent years in machine learning due to its advantages in system robustness, data privacy, and implementation simplicity. However, three fundamental challenges in…