This paper introduces the class of weakly quasar-convex functions, a notion that simultaneously generalizes weak convexity (and hence convexity) and quasar-convexity. We establish the theoretical foundation for this new class by developing its basic calculus, deriving characterizations, and systematically investigating its closure and structural properties. Building on these tools, we analyze the proximal point algorithm … Read more
The boosted Frank-Wolfe algorithm accelerates the classical Frank-Wolfe algorithm by better aligning the update direction with the negative gradient. Its analysis, however, has been limited to deterministic convex problems, with step sizes that require either line search or knowledge of the Lipschitz constant of the gradient. We develop a novel step size strategy that does … Read more
The tractability of optimization problems depends critically on structural properties of the objective function. Convexity guarantees global optimality of local solutions and enables polynomial-time algorithms under mild assumptions, but many problems arising in modern applications—particularly in machine learning—are inherently nonconvex. Remarkably, a large class of such problems remains amenable to efficient optimization due to additional … Read more