Related papers: Nonlinear-Gain Distributed Zeroth-Order Optimizati…

Zeroth-order optimization is the process of minimizing an objective $f(x)$, given oracle access to evaluations at adaptively chosen inputs $x$. In this paper, we present two simple yet powerful GradientLess Descent (GLD) algorithms that do…

This paper proposes a distributed optimization algorithm with a convergence time that can be assigned in advance according to task requirements. To this end, a sliding manifold is introduced to achieve the sum of local gradients approaching…

Zeroth-Order (ZO) optimization is pivotal for scenarios where backpropagation is unavailable, such as memory-constrained on-device learning and black-box optimization. However, existing methods face a stark trade-off: they are either…

We consider optimal signalling and control of discrete-time nonlinear partially observable stochastic systems in state space form. In the first part of the paper, we characterize the operational {\it control-coding capacity}, $C_{FB}$ in…

The paper provides results for the application of boundary feedback control with Zero-Order-Hold (ZOH) to 1-D linear, first-order, hyperbolic systems with non-local terms on bounded domains. It is shown that the emulation design based on…

In this paper, we propose a method of distributed stochastic gradient descent (SGD), with low communication load and computational complexity, and still fast convergence. To reduce the communication load, at each iteration of the algorithm,…

While many distributed optimization algorithms have been proposed for solving smooth or convex problems over the networks, few of them can handle non-convex and non-smooth problems. Based on a proximal primal-dual approach, this paper…

Most non-convex optimization theory is built around gradient dynamics, leaving global convergence largely unexplored. The dominant paradigm focuses on stationarity, certifying only that the gradient norm vanishes, which is often a weak…

Gradient-based optimization is the foundation of deep learning and reinforcement learning. Even when the mechanism being optimized is unknown or not differentiable, optimization using high-variance or biased gradient estimates is still…

In this paper we study stochastic quasi-Newton methods for nonconvex stochastic optimization, where we assume that noisy information about the gradients of the objective function is available via a stochastic first-order oracle (SFO). We…

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) with first-order methods like back-propagation is computationally intensive. Zeroth-Order (ZO) optimisation uses function evaluations instead of gradients, reducing memory usage, but suffers from…

This work proposes novel techniques for the efficient numerical simulation of parameterized, unsteady partial differential equations. Projection-based reduced order models (ROMs) such as the reduced basis method employ a (Petrov-)Galerkin…

In this paper we present an inexact zeroth-order method suitable for the solution nonsmooth and nonconvex stochastic composite optimization problems, in which the objective is split into a real-valued Lipschitz continuous stochastic…

We present the first distributed optimization algorithm with lazy communication for collaborative geometric estimation, the backbone of modern collaborative simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and structure-from-motion (SfM)…

Distributed aggregative optimization is a recently emerged framework in which the agents of a network want to minimize the sum of local objective functions, each one depending on the agent decision variable (e.g., the local position of a…

We propose Zeroth-Order Random Matrix Search for Learning from Demonstrations (ZORMS-LfD). ZORMS-LfD enables the costs, constraints, and dynamics of constrained optimal control problems, in both continuous and discrete time, to be learned…

Distributed learning and adaptation have received significant interest and found wide-ranging applications in machine learning and signal processing. While various approaches, such as shared-memory optimization, multi-task learning, and…

This paper proposes a distributed stochastic algorithm with variance reduction for general smooth non-convex finite-sum optimization, which has wide applications in signal processing and machine learning communities. In distributed setting,…

In this paper, we propose and analyze algorithms for zeroth-order optimization of non-convex composite objectives, focusing on reducing the complexity dependence on dimensionality. This is achieved by exploiting the low dimensional…

In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the sum of nonconvex and possibly nonsmooth functions over a connected multi-agent network, where the agents have partial knowledge about the global cost function and can only access the…