arXiv research

New saddle network architectures preserve convex-concave geometry in optimization problems.

ICCNLS models complex relationships as convex and concave components.

Paper introduces $\ell$-DER for regression tasks using morphological operators and convex-concave procedure.

We define a class of L-convex-concave subsets of $\Bbb{R}P^n$, where L is a projective subspace of dimension l in $\Bbb{R}P^n$. These are sets whose sections by any (l+1)-dimensional space L' containing L are convex and concavely depend on L'. We introduce an L-duality for these sets, and prove that the L-dual to an L-…

A generalized optimistic method for saddle point problems with improved complexity.

OMWU shows last iterate convergence in convex-concave games.

We consider the convex-concave saddle point problem $\min_{x}\max_{y} f(x)+y^\top A x-g(y)$ where $f$ is smooth and convex and $g$ is smooth and strongly convex. We prove that if the coupling matrix $A$ has full column rank, the vanilla primal-dual gradient method can achieve linear convergence even if $f$ is not stron…

PURE-CD algorithm proves complexity bounds for convex-concave problems.

We study the global convergence of generative adversarial imitation learning for linear quadratic regulators, which is posed as minimax optimization. To address the challenges arising from non-convex-concave geometry, we analyze the alternating gradient algorithm and establish its Q-linear rate of convergence to a uniq…

Gradient Descent Ascent converges to von-Neumann solution in hidden zero-sum games.

In this paper we study the smooth convex-concave saddle point problem. Specifically, we analyze the last iterate convergence properties of the Extragradient (EG) algorithm. It is well known that the ergodic (averaged) iterates of EG converge at a rate of $O(1/T)$ (Nemirovski, 2004). In this paper, we show that the last…

We consider convex-concave saddle point problems with a separable structure and non-strongly convex functions. We propose an efficient stochastic block coordinate descent method using adaptive primal-dual updates, which enables flexible parallel optimization for large-scale problems. Our method shares the efficiency an…

New method finds arbitrage opportunities in fluctuating asset bands.

Optimistic method adapted for faster convex-concave min-max problems.

We study the iteration complexity of the optimistic gradient descent-ascent (OGDA) method and the extra-gradient (EG) method for finding a saddle point of a convex-concave unconstrained min-max problem. To do so, we first show that both OGDA and EG can be interpreted as approximate variants of the proximal point method…

As has been observed by Morse \cite{Mo}, any generic vector field $v$ on a compact smooth manifold $X$ with boundary gives rise to a stratification of the boundary $\d X$ by compact submanifolds $\{\d_j^\pm X(v)\}_{1 \leq j \leq \dim(X)}$, where $\textup{codim}(\d_j^\pm X(v))= j$. Our main observation is that this stra…

Riemannian algorithms converge at Euclidean rates for geodesically convex-concave problems.

Optimizes portfolios using CPT utility via convex optimization.

Paper improves algorithms for convex-concave minimax optimization problems.

We define a class of $L$-convex-concave subsets of $\mathbb{R}P^3$, where $L$ is a projective line in $\mathbb{R}P^3$. These are sets whose sections by any plane containing $L$ are convex and concavely depend on this plane. We prove a version of Arnold hypothesis for these sets, namely we prove that each such set conta…

While classic work in convex-concave min-max optimization relies on average-iterate convergence results, the emergence of nonconvex applications such as training Generative Adversarial Networks has led to renewed interest in last-iterate convergence guarantees. Proving last-iterate convergence is challenging because ma…

APAC-Net solves high-dimensional stochastic MFGs using neural networks.

Improved algorithms for convex-concave min-max optimization and monotone variational inequalities.

We consider variational inequalities coming from monotone operators, a setting that includes convex minimization and convex-concave saddle-point problems. We assume an access to potentially noisy unbiased values of the monotone operators and assess convergence through a compatible gap function which corresponds to the …

New algorithm AG-OG optimizes separable convex-concave problems efficiently.

Paper establishes lower bounds for finite-sum optimization problems using novel construction methods.

Partial label learning deals with the problem where each training instance is assigned a set of candidate labels, only one of which is correct. This paper provides the first attempt to leverage the idea of self-training for dealing with partially labeled examples. Specifically, we propose a unified formulation with pro…

The paper extends convexity results for translating solitons in higher dimensions.

We solve a complex optimization problem for Wasserstein barycenters using stochastic methods.

A new algorithm solves minimax problems without needing parameters.

Optimizes bond portfolios to avoid worst-case losses.

We consider the use of no-regret algorithms to compute equilibria for particular classes of convex-concave games. While standard regret bounds would lead to convergence rates on the order of $O(T^{-1/2})$, recent work \citep{RS13,SALS15} has established $O(1/T)$ rates by taking advantage of a particular class of optimi…

We study the online saddle point problem, an online learning problem where at each iteration a pair of actions need to be chosen without knowledge of the current and future (convex-concave) payoff functions. The objective is to minimize the gap between the cumulative payoffs and the saddle point value of the aggregate …

This paper resolves a longstanding open question pertaining to the design of near-optimal first-order algorithms for smooth and strongly-convex-strongly-concave minimax problems. Current state-of-the-art first-order algorithms find an approximate Nash equilibrium using $\tilde{O}(κ_{\mathbf x}+κ_{\mathbf y})$ or $\tild…

Sparse additive modeling is a class of effective methods for performing high-dimensional nonparametric regression. In this work we show how shape constraints such as convexity/concavity and their extensions, can be integrated into additive models. The proposed sparse difference of convex additive models (SDCAM) can est…

RO-TD learns sparse value functions efficiently.

New curvature bounds defined for Lorentzian spaces.

In reinforcement learning (RL) , one of the key components is policy evaluation, which aims to estimate the value function (i.e., expected long-term accumulated reward) of a policy. With a good policy evaluation method, the RL algorithms will estimate the value function more accurately and find a better policy. When th…

Policy evaluation is a crucial step in many reinforcement-learning procedures, which estimates a value function that predicts states' long-term value under a given policy. In this paper, we focus on policy evaluation with linear function approximation over a fixed dataset. We first transform the empirical policy evalua…

Despite the success of single-agent reinforcement learning, multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) remains challenging due to complex interactions between agents. Motivated by decentralized applications such as sensor networks, swarm robotics, and power grids, we study policy evaluation in MARL, where agents with jo…

We consider saddle point problems which objective functions are the average of $n$ strongly convex-concave individual components. Recently, researchers exploit variance reduction methods to solve such problems and achieve linear-convergence guarantees. However, these methods have a slow convergence when the condition n…

This work analyzes how overparameterization aids GANs in reaching global saddle points.

We reformulate LIPs as min-max problems for easier solution.

We present a distributionally robust formulation of a stochastic optimization problem for non-i.i.d vector autoregressive data. We use the Wasserstein distance to define robustness in the space of distributions and we show, using duality theory, that the problem is equivalent to a finite convex-concave saddle point pro…

We prove a priori interior $C^{2,α}$ estimates for solutions of fully nonlinear elliptic equations of twisted type. For example, our estimates apply to equations of the type convex + concave. These results are particularly well suited to equations arising from elliptic regularization. As application, we obtain a new pr…

We consider empirical risk minimization of linear predictors with convex loss functions. Such problems can be reformulated as convex-concave saddle point problems, and thus are well suitable for primal-dual first-order algorithms. However, primal-dual algorithms often require explicit strongly convex regularization in …

This work finds mixed equilibria in machine learning problems using measures and simultaneous gradient ascent-descent.

New algorithms solve monotone inclusions and convex-concave minimax problems.