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We present a novel class of projected gradient (PG) methods for minimizing a smooth but not necessarily convex function over a convex compact set. We first provide a novel analysis of the constant-stepsize PG method, achieving the…
It is well-known that given a bounded, smooth nonconvex function, standard gradient-based methods can find $\epsilon$-stationary points (where the gradient norm is less than $\epsilon$) in $\mathcal{O}(1/\epsilon^2)$ iterations. However,…
Adam is a popular variant of stochastic gradient descent for finding a local minimizer of a function. In the constant stepsize regime, assuming that the objective function is differentiable and non-convex, we establish the convergence in…
In this paper, we focus on the problem of minimizing the sum of a nonconvex differentiable function and a DC (Difference of Convex functions) function, where the differentiable function is not restricted to the global Lipschitz gradient…
This paper presents an algorithmic study and complexity analysis for solving distributionally robust multistage convex optimization (DR-MCO). We generalize the usual consecutive dual dynamic programming (DDP) algorithm to DR-MCO and propose…
Selecting an effective step-size is a fundamental challenge in first-order optimization, especially for problems with non-Euclidean geometries. This paper presents a novel adaptive step-size strategy for optimization algorithms that rely on…
In this article we show how ideas, methods and results from optimal transportation can be used to study various aspects of the stationary measuresof Iterated Function Systems equipped with a probability distribution. We recover a classical…
We study gradient descent (GD) with a constant stepsize for $\ell_2$-regularized logistic regression with linearly separable data. Classical theory suggests small stepsizes to ensure monotonic reduction of the optimization objective,…
The (global) Lipschitz smoothness condition is crucial in establishing the convergence theory for most optimization methods. Unfortunately, most machine learning and signal processing problems are not Lipschitz smooth. This motivates us to…
An algorithm is proposed, analyzed, and tested for minimizing locally Lipschitz objective functions that may be nonconvex and/or nonsmooth. The algorithm, which is built upon the gradient-sampling methodology, is designed specifically for…
Motivated by recent increased interest in optimization algorithms for non-convex optimization in application to training deep neural networks and other optimization problems in data analysis, we give an overview of recent theoretical…
This work investigates stepsize-based acceleration of gradient descent with {\em anytime} convergence guarantees. For smooth (non-strongly) convex optimization, we propose a stepsize schedule that allows gradient descent to achieve…
We study local complexity measures for stochastic convex optimization problems, providing a local minimax theory analogous to that of H\'{a}jek and Le Cam for classical statistical problems. We give complementary optimality results,…
The paper presents a new descent algorithm for locally Lipschitz continuous functions $f:X\to\mathbb{R}$. The selection of a descent direction at some iteration point $x$ combines an approximation of the set-valued gradient of $f$ on a…
Large sectors of the recent optimization literature focused in the last decade on the development of optimal stochastic first order schemes for constrained convex models under progressively relaxed assumptions. Stochastic proximal point is…
In centralized settings, it is well known that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) avoids saddle points and converges to local minima in nonconvex problems. However, similar guarantees are lacking for distributed first-order algorithms. The…
Majorization-minimization algorithms consist of successively minimizing a sequence of upper bounds of the objective function so that along the iterations the objective function decreases. Such a simple principle allows to solve a large…
In this paper we propose stochastic gradient-free methods and accelerated methods with momentum for solving stochastic optimization problems. All these methods rely on stochastic directions rather than stochastic gradients. We analyze the…
Our work focuses on stochastic gradient methods for optimizing a smooth non-convex loss function with a non-smooth non-convex regularizer. Research on this class of problem is quite limited, and until recently no non-asymptotic convergence…
Recent years have seen a flurry of activities in designing provably efficient nonconvex procedures for solving statistical estimation problems. Due to the highly nonconvex nature of the empirical loss, state-of-the-art procedures often…