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Distributed Algorithms for Optimization in Networks

Angelia Nedich – Professor, Arizona State University

Thu, 4-Nov-2021 / 4:00pm / Packard 101

Abstract

We will overview the distributed optimization algorithms starting with the basic underlying idea illustrated on a prototype problem in machine learning. In particular, we will focus on convex minimization problem where the objective function is given as the sum of convex functions, each of which is known by an agent in a network. The agents communicate over the network with a task to jointly determine a minimum of the sum of their objective functions. The communication network can vary over time, which is modeled through a sequence of graphs over a static set of nodes (representing the agents in a system). In this setting, the distributed first-order methods will be discussed that make use of an agreement protocol, which is a mechanism replacing the role of a coordinator. We will discuss some refinements of the basic method and conclude with more recent developments of fast methods that can match the performance of centralized methods.

Bio

Angelia Nedich has a Ph.D. from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, in Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Physics (1994), and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, in Electrical and Computer Science Engineering (2002). She has worked as a senior engineer in BAE Systems North America, Advanced Information Technology Division at Burlington, MA. Currently, she is a faculty member of the school of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University at Tempe. Prior to joining Arizona State University, she has been a Willard Scholar faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a recipient (jointly with her co-authors) of the Best Paper Award at the Winter Simulation Conference 2013 and the Best Paper Award at the International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks (WiOpt) 2015. Her general research interest is in optimization, large-scale complex systems dynamics, variational inequalities, and games.