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Combinatorial optimization problems are ubiquitous in industrial applications. However, finding optimal or close-to-optimal solutions can often be extremely hard. Because some of these problems can be mapped to the ground-state search of…
In the era of big data, one of the key challenges is the development of novel optimization algorithms that can accommodate vast amounts of data while at the same time satisfying constraints and limitations of the problem under study. The…
Stochastic Optimization (SO) is a classical approach for optimization under uncertainty that typically requires knowledge about the probability distribution of uncertain parameters. As the latter is often unknown, Distributionally Robust…
Dynamic heterogeneity has often been modeled by assuming that a single-particle observable, fluctuating at a molecular scale, is influenced by its coupling to environmental variables fluctuating on a second, perhaps slower, time scale.…
Local search is a fundamental method in operations research and combinatorial optimisation. It has been widely applied to a variety of challenging problems, including multi-objective optimisation where multiple, often conflicting,…
Optimization problems with continuous data appear in, e.g., robust machine learning, functional data analysis, and variational inference. Here, the target function is given as an integral over a family of (continuously) indexed target…
A recent development in Bayesian optimization is the use of local optimization strategies, which can deliver strong empirical performance on high-dimensional problems compared to traditional global strategies. The "folk wisdom" in the…
We analyze convergence rates of stochastic optimization procedures for non-smooth convex optimization problems. By combining randomized smoothing techniques with accelerated gradient methods, we obtain convergence rates of stochastic…
We consider a distributed stochastic optimization problem in networks with finite number of nodes. Each node adjusts its action to optimize the global utility of the network, which is defined as the sum of local utilities of all nodes.…
We use a rank one Gaussian perturbation to derive a smooth stochastic approximation of the maximum eigenvalue function. We then combine this smoothing result with an optimal smooth stochastic optimization algorithm to produce an efficient…
Stochastic approximation algorithm is a useful technique which has been exploited successfully in probability theory and statistics for a long time. The step sizes used in stochastic approximation are generally taken to be deterministic and…
Discrete-time stochastic systems are an essential modelling tool for many engineering systems. We consider stochastic control systems that are evolving over continuous spaces. For this class of models, methods for the formal verification…
Algorithms for continuous optimization problems have a rich history of design and innovation over the past several decades, in which mathematical analysis of their convergence and complexity properties plays a central role. Besides their…
Most decision and optimization problems encountered in practice fall into one of two categories with respect to any particular solving method or algorithm: either the problem is solved quickly (easy) or else demands an impractically long…
We present a novel approach to investigate the long-time stochastic dynamics of multi-dimensional classical systems, in contact with a heat-bath. When the potential energy landscape is rugged, the kinetics displays a decoupling of short and…
We investigate the existence and regularity of the local times of the solution to a linear system of stochastic wave equations driven by a Gaussian noise that is fractional in time and colored in space. Using Fourier analytic methods, we…
We propose an efficient probabilistic method to solve a deterministic problem -- we present a randomized optimization approach that drastically reduces the enormous computational cost of optimizing designs under many load cases for both…
In this work we introduce a novel approach, based on sampling, for finding assignments that are likely to be solutions to stochastic constraint satisfaction problems and constraint optimisation problems. Our approach reduces the size of the…
Mathematical optimization, although often leading to NP-hard models, is now capable of solving even large-scale instances within reasonable time. However, the primary focus is often placed solely on optimality. This implies that while…
In order to solve complex, long-horizon tasks, intelligent robots need to carry out high-level, abstract planning and reasoning in conjunction with motion planning. However, abstract models are typically lossy and plans or policies computed…