## On a Frank-Wolfe Approach for Abs-smooth Functions

We propose an algorithm which appears to be the first bridge between the fields of conditional gradient methods and abs-smooth optimization. Our nonsmooth nonconvex problem setting is motivated by machine learning, since the broad class of abs-smooth functions includes, for instance, the squared $l_2$-error of a neural network with ReLU or hinge loss activation. To … Read more

## On the Optimization Landscape of Burer-Monteiro Factorization: When do Global Solutions Correspond to Ground Truth?

In low-rank matrix recovery, the goal is to recover a low-rank matrix, given a limited number of linear and possibly noisy measurements. Low-rank matrix recovery is typically solved via a nonconvex method called Burer-Monteiro factorization (BM). If the rank of the ground truth is known, BM is free of sub-optimal local solutions, and its true solutions … Read more

## Minimizing the difference of convex and weakly convex functions via bundle method

We consider optimization problems with objective and constraint being the difference of convex and weakly convex functions. This framework covers a vast family of nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization problems, particularly those involving Difference-of-Convex (DC) functions with known DC decomposition, functions whose gradient is Lipschitz continuous, as well as problems that comprise certain classes of composite … Read more

## A Levenberg-Marquardt Method for Nonsmooth Regularized Least Squares

 We develop a Levenberg-Marquardt method for minimizing the sum of a smooth nonlinear least-squares term $$f(x) = \frac{1}{2} \|F(x)\|_2^2$$ and a nonsmooth term $$h$$. Both $$f$$ and $$h$$ may be nonconvex. Steps are computed by minimizing the sum of a regularized linear least-squares model and a model of $$h$$ using a first-order method such … Read more

## The cost of nonconvexity in deterministic nonsmooth optimization

 We study the impact of nonconvexity on the complexity of nonsmooth optimization, emphasizing objectives such as piecewise linear functions, which may not be weakly convex. We focus on a dimension-independent analysis, slightly modifying a black-box algorithm of Zhang et al. that approximates an $\epsilon$-stationary point of any directionally differentiable Lipschitz objective using $O(\epsilon^{-4})$ calls … Read more

## The projective exact penalty method for general constrained optimization

A new projective exact penalty function method is proposed for the equivalent reduction of constrained optimization problems to nonsmooth unconstrained ones. In the method, the original objective function is extended to infeasible points by summing its value at the projection of an infeasible point on the feasible set with the distance to the projection. The … Read more

## AN-SPS: Adaptive Sample Size Nonmonotone Line Search Spectral Projected Subgradient Method for Convex Constrained Optimization Problems

In this paper, we focus on the nonconvex-strongly-convex bilevel optimization problem (BLO). In this BLO, the objective function of the upper-level problem is nonconvex and possibly nonsmooth, and the lower-level problem is smooth and strongly convex with respect to the underlying variable $y$. We show that the feasible region of BLO is a Riemannian manifold. … Read more
This work characterizes the effect of depth on the optimization landscape of linear regression, showing that, despite their nonconvexity, deeper models have more desirable optimization landscape. We consider a robust and over-parameterized setting, where a subset of measurements are grossly corrupted with noise and the true linear model is captured via an $N$-layer linear neural … Read more