Highly Smoothness Zero-Order Methods for Solving Optimization Problems under PL Condition

In this paper, we study the black box optimization problem under the Polyak--Lojasiewicz (PL) condition, assuming that the objective function is not just smooth, but has higher smoothness. By using "kernel-based" approximation instead of the exact gradient in Stochastic Gradient Descent method, we improve the best known results of convergence in the class of gradient-free algorithms solving problem under PL condition. We generalize our results to the case where a zero-order oracle returns a function value at a point with some adversarial noise. We verify our theoretical results on the example of solving a system of nonlinear equations

New Version of Mirror Prox for Variational Inequalities with Adaptation to Inexactness

18 pages, 5 figures, X International Conference Optimization and Applications (OPTIMA-2019) dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Academician Yury G. EvtushenkoPetrovac, Montenegro, September 30 - October 4, 2019Some adaptive analogue of the Mirror Prox method for variational inequalities is proposed. In this work we consider the adaptation not only to the value of the Lipschitz constant, but also to the magnitude of the oracle error. This approach, in particular, allows us to prove a complexity near $O\left(\frac{1}{\varepsilon}\log_2\frac{1}{\varepsilon}\right)$ for variational inequalities for a special class of monotone bounded operators. This estimate is optimal for variational inequalities with monotone Lipschitz-continuous operators. However, there exists some error, which may be insignificant. The results of experiments on the comparison of the proposed approach with some known analogues are presented. Also, we discuss the results of the experiments for matrix games in the case of using non-Euclidean proximal setup

Advances in low-memory subgradient optimization

One of the main goals in the development of non-smooth optimization is to cope with high dimensional problems by decomposition, duality or Lagrangian relaxation which greatly reduces the number of variables at the cost of worsening differentiability of objective or constraints. Small or medium dimensionality of resulting non-smooth problems allows to use bundle-type algorithms to achieve higher rates of convergence and obtain higher accuracy, which of course came at the cost of additional memory requirements, typically of the order of n2, where n is the number of variables of non-smooth problem. However with the rapid development of more and more sophisticated models in industry, economy, finance, et all such memory requirements are becoming too hard to satisfy. It raised the interest in subgradient-based low-memory algorithms and later developments in this area significantly improved over their early variants still preserving O(n) memory requirements. To review these developments this chapter is devoted to the black-box subgradient algorithms with the minimal requirements for the storage of auxiliary results, which are necessary to execute these algorithms. To provide historical perspective this survey starts with the original result of N.Z. Shor which opened this field with the application to the classical transportation problem. The theoretical complexity bounds for smooth and non-smooth convex and quasi-convex optimization problems are briefly exposed in what follows to introduce to the relevant fundamentals of non-smooth optimization. Special attention in this section is given to the adaptive step-size policy which aims to attain lowest complexity bounds. Unfortunately the non-differentiability of objective function in convex optimization essentially slows down the theoretical low bounds for the rate of convergence in subgradient optimization compared to the smooth case but there are different modern techniques that allow to solve non-smooth convex optimization problems faster then dictate lower complexity bounds. In this work the particular attention is given to Nesterov smoothing technique, Nesterov Universal approach, and Legendre (saddle point) representation approach. The new results on Universal Mirror Prox algorithms represent the original parts of the survey. To demonstrate application of non-smooth convex optimization algorithms for solution of huge-scale extremal problems we consider convex optimization problems with non-smooth functional constraints and propose two adaptive Mirror Descent methods. The first method is of primal-dual variety and proved to be optimal in terms of lower oracle bounds for the class of Lipschitz-continuous convex objective and constraints. The advantages of application of this method to sparse Truss Topology Design problem are discussed in certain details. The second method can be applied for solution of convex and quasi-convex optimization problems and is optimal in a sense of complexity bounds. The conclusion part of the survey contains the important references that characterize recent developments of non-smooth convex optimization

Gradient-Type Methods For Decentralized Optimization Problems With Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz Condition Over Time-Varying Networks

This paper focuses on the decentralized optimization (minimization and saddle point) problems with objective functions that satisfy Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz condition (PL-condition). The first part of the paper is devoted to the minimization problem of the sum-type cost functions. In order to solve a such class of problems, we propose a gradient descent type method with a consensus projection procedure and the inexact gradient of the objectives. Next, in the second part, we study the saddle-point problem (SPP) with a structure of the sum, with objectives satisfying the two-sided PL-condition. To solve such SPP, we propose a generalization of the Multi-step Gradient Descent Ascent method with a consensus procedure, and inexact gradients of the objective function with respect to both variables. Finally, we present some of the numerical experiments, to show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm for the robust least squares problem

Adaptive Algorithms for Relatively Lipschitz Continuous Convex Optimization Problems

Recently there were proposed some innovative convex optimization concepts, namely, relative smoothness [1] and relative strong convexity [2,3]. These approaches have significantly expanded the class of applicability of gradient-type methods with optimal estimates of the convergence rate, which are invariant regardless of the dimensionality of the problem. Later Yu. Nesterov and H. Lu introduced some modifications of the Mirror Descent method for convex minimization problems with the corresponding analogue of the Lipschitz condition (so-called relative Lipschitz continuity). By introducing an artificial inaccuracy to the optimization model, we propose adaptive methods for minimizing a convex Lipschitz continuous function, as well as for the corresponding class of variational inequalities. We also consider an adaptive "universal" method, applicable to convex minimization problems both on the class of relatively smooth and relatively Lipschitz continuous functionals with optimal estimates of the convergence rate. The universality of the method makes it possible to justify the applicability of the obtained theoretical results to a wider class of convex optimization problems. We also present the results of numerical experiments