相关论文: A Zeroth-Order Block Coordinate Descent Algorithm …

In this paper, we consider a distributed stochastic non-convex optimization problem, which is about minimizing a sum of $n$ local cost functions over a network with only zeroth-order information. A novel single-loop Decentralized…

Zeroth-order methods are extensively used in machine learning applications where gradients are infeasible or expensive to compute, such as black-box attacks, reinforcement learning, and language model fine-tuning. Existing optimization…

We propose and analyze a block coordinate descent proximal algorithm (BCD-prox) for simultaneous filtering and parameter estimation of ODE models. As we show on ODE systems with up to d=40 dimensions, as compared to state-of-the-art…

Unlike the white-box counterparts that are widely studied and readily accessible, adversarial examples in black-box settings are generally more Herculean on account of the difficulty of estimating gradients. Many methods achieve the task by…

We present a new method for black-box adversarial attack. Unlike previous methods that combined transfer-based and scored-based methods by using the gradient or initialization of a surrogate white-box model, this new method tries to learn a…

In this paper, we consider non-smooth stochastic convex optimization with two function evaluations per round under infinite noise variance. In the classical setting when noise has finite variance, an optimal algorithm, built upon the…

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) using standard first-order (FO) optimization often drives training toward sharp, poorly generalizing minima. Conversely, zeroth-order (ZO) methods offer stronger exploratory behavior without relying…

Macro placement is the problem of placing memory blocks on a chip canvas. It can be formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem over sequence pairs, a representation which describes the relative positions of macros. Solving this…

This paper considers the nonconvex nonsmooth problem in which the objective function is Lipschitz continuous. We focus on the stochastic setting where the algorithm can access stochastic function value evaluations with heavy-tailed noise,…

Interest in stochastic zeroth-order (SZO) methods has recently been revived in black-box optimization scenarios such as adversarial black-box attacks to deep neural networks. SZO methods only require the ability to evaluate the objective…

The cyclic block coordinate descent-type (CBCD-type) methods, which performs iterative updates for a few coordinates (a block) simultaneously throughout the procedure, have shown remarkable computational performance for solving strongly…

This paper focuses on a multi-agent zeroth-order online optimization problem in a federated learning setting for target tracking. The agents only sense their current distances to their targets and aim to maintain a minimum safe distance…

Hard-thresholding is an important type of algorithm in machine learning that is used to solve $\ell_0$ constrained optimization problems. However, the true gradient of the objective function can be difficult to access in certain scenarios,…

Algorithms with fast convergence, small number of data access, and low per-iteration complexity are particularly favorable in the big data era, due to the demand for obtaining \emph{highly accurate solutions} to problems with \emph{a large…

We propose and analyze a randomized zeroth-order approach based on approximating the exact gradient byfinite differences computed in a set of orthogonal random directions that changes with each iteration. A number ofpreviously proposed…

Zeroth-order methods have become important tools for solving problems where we have access only to function evaluations. However, the zeroth-order methods only using gradient approximations are $n$ times slower than classical first-order…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization has become increasingly popular and important in fine-tuning large language models (LLMs), especially on edge devices due to its ability to adjust the model to local data without the need for memory-intensive…

First Order Bayesian Optimization (FOBO) is a sample efficient sequential approach to find the global maxima of an expensive-to-evaluate black-box objective function by suitably querying for the function and its gradient evaluations. Such…

Bayesian optimization (BO) is one of the most powerful strategies to solve computationally expensive-to-evaluate blackbox optimization problems. However, BO methods are conventionally used for optimization problems of small dimension…

Deep neural networks provide unprecedented performance in all image classification problems, taking advantage of huge amounts of data available for training. Recent studies, however, have shown their vulnerability to adversarial attacks,…