Past exam of the optimisation for data science course of the University of Oxford / 2023 / 3 / a / Solution

Fix $x$ and put $g={\nabla }_{\mathcal{B}}f(x)$, the block coordinate gradient. For $t\ge 0$, define the one-variable function $q(t)=f(x-tg)$. By the chain rule,The last equality holds because the coordinates of $g$ outside $\mathcal{B}$ are zero. The fundamental theorem of calculus and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality therefore giveFor $\alpha \ge 0$, the supplied condition (6), applied at the fixed starting point $x$ with parameter $t$, bounds the integrand by $L_{\mathcal{B}}t\Vert g{\Vert }^2$. Integration yieldsThis argument needs only the given directional Lipschitz continuity and continuous differentiability; convexity is not needed for this part. If the block coordinate gradient is zero, the inequality is equality.