New lower bounds for bilevel optimization with first-order oracles.
problem Complexity of bilevel optimization with first-order oracles.
method Development of hard instances and proof of lower bounds.
result Nontrivial lower bounds for first-order zero-respecting algorithms.
We note that known methods achieving the optimal oracle complexity for first order convex optimization require quadratic memory, and ask whether this is necessary, and more broadly seek to characterize the minimax number of first order queries required to optimize a convex Lipschitz function subject to a memory constra…
New methods solve optimization problems with heavy-tailed noise, improving upon existing complexity bounds.
problem Optimization problems with heavy-tailed noise and weakly average smoothness.
method Normalized stochastic first-order methods with Polyak, multi-extrapolated, and recursive momentum.
result First-order oracle complexity results for finding approximate stochastic stationary points under heavy-tailed noise.
Piecewise polynomial interpolation-based gradient descent reduces oracle complexity for smooth loss functions.
problem Optimizing empirical risk minimization loss functions
method Piecewise polynomial interpolation-based gradient descent
result Oracle complexity is reduced for smooth loss functions
SGD's performance improves with critical batch size, minimizing SFO complexity.
problem Optimizing SGD's performance with batch size and learning rate.
method Analysis of SGD using constant and decaying learning rates, focusing on batch size effects.
result SGD with critical batch size minimizes SFO complexity.
New method accelerates steepest descent for convex optimization.
problem Achieving acceleration for general ℓp smooth functions. method Primal-dual iterate sequences with differing norms, implicitly determined interpolation parameter.
result Improves iteration complexity to O(d1−p2) for ℓp norm smooth problems. New methods solve complex optimization problems without strong convexity assumptions.
problem Complex bilevel optimization problems with minimax lower-level structures.
method Penalty-based first-order methods for bilevel minimax optimization.
result Achieves ε-KKT point with improved oracle complexity. Study on gradient complexity of private optimization with private oracles.
problem Analyzing the efficiency of differentially private optimization algorithms.
method Lower bounds on the number of first-order oracle queries for private optimization.
result Lower bounds on the number of queries for private optimization algorithms, showing a dimension-dependent runtime penalty.
Novel methods for accelerating optimization in complex bilevel and minimax problems.
problem Optimization challenges in bilevel and minimax problems, especially when strong convexity assumptions are not met.
method Accelerated fully first-order methods for Bilevel Optimization (BLO) and Minimax Optimization (NCSC).
result State-of-the-art complexity for finding approximate second-order stationary points in BLO and NCSC.
Quadratic memory is essential for optimal convex optimization queries.
problem Optimal query complexity for convex optimization and feasibility problems.
method Lower bounds on query complexity for convex optimization and feasibility problems.
result Center-of-mass algorithms are Pareto-optimal for both convex optimization and feasibility problems.
Paper develops a TR-SSQP method for noisy optimization with heavy-tailed noise.
problem Optimization problems with stochastic objectives and heavy-tailed noise.
method Trust-Region Stochastic Sequential Quadratic Programming (TR-SSQP) method.
result Achieves high-probability first-order and second-order stationarity bounds for heavy-tailed noise.
SARAH and SPIDER are two recently developed stochastic variance-reduced algorithms, and SPIDER has been shown to achieve a near-optimal first-order oracle complexity in smooth nonconvex optimization. However, SPIDER uses an accuracy-dependent stepsize that slows down the convergence in practice, and cannot handle objec…
A new method reduces the complexity of decentralized optimization.
problem Decentralized stochastic non-convex optimization over a network.
method GT-HSGD, a hybrid variance-reduced method.
result Achieves an oracle complexity of O(n^(-1)ε^(-3)) for small ε.
Lower bounds found for nonconvex-strongly-concave min-max optimization problems.
problem Finding stationary points in nonconvex-strongly-concave min-max optimization.
method Provided lower bounds for first-order oracle complexity.
result Lower bounds of Ω(√κε⁻²) for deterministic oracles and Ω(√κε⁻² + κ¹/₃ε⁻⁴) for stochastic oracles.
New algorithms ensure reproducibility and optimal convergence in convex optimization.
problem Trade-off between reproducibility and convergence rate in convex optimization.
method Regularization-based algorithms for smooth convex minimization and minimax optimization.
result Achieves optimal reproducibility and near-optimal gradient complexity for various oracle settings.
Develops accelerated methods for optimization using low-dimensional projected-gradient information.
problem Optimization with low-dimensional projected-gradient information and Nesterov acceleration.
method Randomized-subspace Nesterov accelerated gradient methods for smooth convex and strongly convex optimization.
result Established accelerated oracle-complexity guarantees and unified basis for comparing sketch families.
New algorithm solves complex optimization problems without needing projections.
problem Optimizing nested functions under convex constraints with noisy evaluations.
method Projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization.
result The algorithm achieves ε-stationary solutions with complexity bounds independent of ε and T. Method solves complex optimization problems with high probability bounds.
problem Nonlinear equality constrained stochastic optimization problems.
method Step-search sequential quadratic programming method.
result High-probability bound on iteration complexity for first-order stationarity.
Improved method reduces projection calls for nonsmooth convex optimization.
problem Optimizing nonsmooth convex functions with convex constraints.
method MOPES and MOLES methods combining Moreau-Yosida smoothing and accelerated first-order schemes.
result Achieves ε-suboptimality with significantly fewer projection calls. Optimized method tackles convex optimization with heavy-tailed noise.
problem Convex optimization problems with noisy gradients.
method Vanilla stochastic proximal subgradient method without gradient clipping or normalization.
result Achieves optimal complexity for various convex optimization types under heavy-tailed noise.
This paper analyzes bias-variance trade-off for clipped SFOMs, improving complexity guarantees for heavy-tailed noise.
problem Improving complexity guarantees for stochastic optimization methods with heavy-tailed noise.
method Novel analysis of bias-variance trade-off in gradient clipping for clipped SFOMs.
result Improved complexity guarantees for clipped SFOMs across various tail indices, including infinite mean noise.
This paper studies the lower bound complexity for the optimization problem whose objective function is the average of n individual smooth convex functions. We consider the algorithm which gets access to gradient and proximal oracle for each individual component. For the strongly-convex case, we prove such an algorith…
New method finds stationary points in bilevel optimization problems.
problem Solving nonconvex-strongly-convex bilevel optimization problems.
method Restarted Accelerated HyperGradient Descent (RAHGD) method.
result Achieves best-known theoretical guarantees for finding stationary points in bilevel optimization.
New algorithm solves complex minimax problems efficiently.
problem Minimizing and maximizing bilinearly coupled smooth functions.
method Lifted Primal-Dual (LPD) method that optimally handles both smooth and bilinear terms.
result First optimal algorithm achieving the lower complexity bound for the problem.
New algorithms solve complex multi-level optimization problems with improved efficiency.
problem Smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization problems.
method Two algorithms using moving-average and linearized stochastic estimates.
result Achieved sample complexities of O(1/ε^4) and O(1/ε^6).
Unified approach for first-order methods with Markovian noise in stochastic optimization and variational inequalities.
problem Stochastic optimization problems with Markovian noise.
method Unified theoretical analysis of first-order gradient methods using randomized batching and multilevel Monte Carlo.
result Optimal (linear) dependence on the mixing time of the noise sequence, eliminating previous limiting assumptions.
We consider first order gradient methods for effectively optimizing a composite objective in the form of a sum of smooth and, potentially, non-smooth functions. We present accelerated and adaptive gradient methods, called FLAG and FLARE, which can offer the best of both worlds. They can achieve the optimal convergence …
A faster ADMM method for nonconvex optimization with improved complexity.
problem Nonconvex optimization problems in machine learning.
method SPIDER-ADMM, a stochastic ADMM method using a new differential estimator.
result Achieves optimal IFO complexity of O(n+n1/2ε−1) for finding an ε-approximate stationary point. Paper tackles private optimization for non-smooth objectives efficiently.
problem Private stochastic convex optimization for non-smooth objectives.
method Noisy mirror descent algorithm.
result Achieves optimal rates in statistical complexity and number of queries.
Paper establishes lower bounds for finite-sum optimization problems using novel construction methods.
problem Lower complexity bounds for finite-sum optimization problems with various component functions.
method Developed novel approach to construct hard instances and analyzed PIFO algorithms.
result Established lower complexity bounds for convex-concave and nonconvex-strongly-concave objectives.
Lower bounds for higher-order methods in non-convex optimization.
problem Proving lower bounds for higher-order methods in smooth non-convex finite-sum optimization.
method Analyzing deterministic and randomized algorithms, proposing a new smoothness assumption.
result Proves optimal lower bounds for simulating pth-order regularized methods on the whole function.
A new algorithm for solving constrained convex optimization problems efficiently.
problem Constrained convex optimization problems requiring high accuracy solutions.
method Second-Order Conditional Gradient Sliding (SOCGS) algorithm, using projection-free methods to solve quadratic subproblems inexactly.
result Converges quadratically in primal gap after a finite number of linearly convergent iterations.
This paper investigates the computational complexity of sparse label propagation which has been proposed recently for processing network structured data. Sparse label propagation amounts to a convex optimization problem and might be considered as an extension of basis pursuit from sparse vectors to network structured d…
Improved stochastic approximation method reduces residual error.
problem Reducing residual error in stochastic approximation algorithms.
method Fixed-schedule one-quarter barrier and bias-corrected acceleration.
result Achieves T−1/2+o(1) residual reduction with O(1) primitive samples. New algorithm solves structured nonconvex-nonconcave min-max problems.
problem Min-max optimization challenges in deep learning.
method Generalized extragradient algorithm for structured nonconvex-nonconcave problems.
result Algorithm converges to stationary points in Euclidean and ℓp spaces. We propose a reduction for non-convex optimization that can (1) turn an stationary-point finding algorithm into an local-minimum finding one, and (2) replace the Hessian-vector product computations with only gradient computations. It works both in the stochastic and the deterministic settings, without hurting the algor…
Finite-sum optimization problems are ubiquitous in machine learning, and are commonly solved using first-order methods which rely on gradient computations. Recently, there has been growing interest in \emph{second-order} methods, which rely on both gradients and Hessians. In principle, second-order methods can require …
DESTRESS optimizes decentralized nonconvex optimization with optimal IFO complexity and efficient communication.
problem Decentralized nonconvex finite-sum optimization in multi-agent systems.
method DESTRESS uses stochastic recursive gradient updates, gradient tracking, and careful hyper-parameter choices to achieve optimal IFO complexity with efficient communication.
result DESTRESS matches the optimal IFO complexity of centralized algorithms while maintaining communication efficiency.
New algorithms solve convex optimization problems with limited memory.
problem Solving convex optimization problems with constrained memory.
method Recursive cutting-plane algorithms dividing variables into blocks.
result Achieves optimal memory usage and oracle complexity in certain regimes.
Stochastic convex optimization problems with expectation constraints (SOECs) are encountered in statistics and machine learning, business, and engineering. In data-rich environments, the SOEC objective and constraints contain expectations defined with respect to large datasets. Therefore, efficient algorithms for solvi…
Paper tackles dynamic pricing in a geometrically decaying environment, achieving better occupancy with lower rates.
problem Minimizing expected loss in a dynamically changing environment with decisions dependent on the data distribution.
method Introduces algorithms for information and loss function settings, using repeated decision deployment to allow mixing of the environment.
result Iteration complexity matches first and zero order stochastic gradient methods up to logarithmic factors.
A method for finding most influential sets reduces a complex problem to a sequence of simpler top-k problems.
problem Identifying most influential subsets in complex models.
method Reduces the problem to a sequence of top-k problems using Dinkelbach's method. result The method returns a globally optimal set for the univariate ratio objective, including partial linear models.
Paper shows faster convergence to local-minimizers in over-parametrized models under interpolation-like conditions.
problem Escaping saddle-points in over-parametrized models.
method Stochastic and deterministic optimization algorithms under interpolation-like conditions.
result Oracle complexity of PSGD and SCRN algorithms to reach ε-local-minimizer matches or improves upon deterministic rates. We focus on the problem of minimizing a convex function f over a convex set S given T queries to a stochastic first order oracle. We argue that the complexity of convex minimization is only determined by the rate of growth of the function around its minimizer xf,S∗, as quantified by a Tsybakov-like noise co…
New methods boost first-order optimization with faster rates.
problem Designing efficient first-order methods for convex problems.
method Shifted objective function with interpolation condition.
result New schemes achieve faster convergence rates.
Consider the stochastic composition optimization problem where the objective is a composition of two expected-value functions. We propose a new stochastic first-order method, namely the accelerated stochastic compositional proximal gradient (ASC-PG) method, which updates based on queries to the sampling oracle using tw…
Improved complexity for smooth nonconvex optimization using quasi-Newton methods.
problem Finding ε-first-order stationary points of smooth functions with gradient information only.
method Two-level online learning approach involving quasi-Newton methods.
result Gradient complexity improved to O(d^(1/4)ε^(-13/8)) for d = O(ε^(-1/2)).
In this work we introduce a conditional accelerated lazy stochastic gradient descent algorithm with optimal number of calls to a stochastic first-order oracle and convergence rate O(ε21) improving over the projection-free, Online Frank-Wolfe based stochastic gradient descent of Hazan an…