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We propose a randomized algorithm with quadratic convergence rate for convex optimization problems with a self-concordant, composite, strongly convex objective function. Our method is based on performing an approximate Newton step using a…
In this paper, we establish new convergence results for the quantized distributed gradient descent and suggest a novel strategy of choosing the stepsizes for the high-performance of the algorithm. Under the strongly convexity assumption on…
We study the problem of estimating low-rank matrices from linear measurements (a.k.a., matrix sensing) through nonconvex optimization. We propose an efficient stochastic variance reduced gradient descent algorithm to solve a nonconvex…
We study monotone variational inequalities that can arise as optimality conditions for constrained convex optimisation or convex-concave minimax problems and propose a novel algorithm that uses only one gradient/operator evaluation and one…
Asynchronous algorithms have attracted much attention recently due to the crucial demands on solving large-scale optimization problems. However, the accelerated versions of asynchronous algorithms are rarely studied. In this paper, we…
Variational Bayes (VB) is a critical method in machine learning and statistics, underpinning the recent success of Bayesian deep learning. The natural gradient is an essential component of efficient VB estimation, but it is prohibitively…
We consider a covariate shift problem where one has access to several different training datasets for the same learning problem and a small validation set which possibly differs from all the individual training distributions. This covariate…
In the evolutionary computation research community, the performance of most evolutionary algorithms (EAs) depends strongly on their implemented coordinate system. However, the commonly used coordinate system is fixed and not well suited for…
Second-order optimization methods such as natural gradient descent have the potential to speed up training of neural networks by correcting for the curvature of the loss function. Unfortunately, the exact natural gradient is impractical to…
Sample efficiency is a critical property when optimizing policy parameters for the controller of a robot. In this paper, we evaluate two state-of-the-art policy optimization algorithms. One is a recent deep reinforcement learning method…
It is well known that adding any skew symmetric matrix to the gradient of Langevin dynamics algorithm results in a non-reversible diffusion with improved convergence rate. This paper presents a gradient algorithm to adaptively optimize the…
When smoothing a function $f$ via convolution with some kernel, it is often desirable to adapt the amount of smoothing locally to the variation of $f$. For this purpose, the constant smoothing coefficient of regular convolutions needs to be…
We propose a stochastic conditional gradient method (CGM) for minimizing convex finite-sum objectives formed as a sum of smooth and non-smooth terms. Existing CGM variants for this template either suffer from slow convergence rates, or…
A notion of quantum natural evolution strategies is introduced, which provides a geometric synthesis of a number of known quantum/classical algorithms for performing classical black-box optimization. Recent work of Gomes et al. [2019] on…
We consider Markov Decision Problems defined over continuous state and action spaces, where an autonomous agent seeks to learn a map from its states to actions so as to maximize its long-term discounted accumulation of rewards. We address…
The stochastic gradient descent has been widely used for solving composite optimization problems in big data analyses. Many algorithms and convergence properties have been developed. The composite functions were convex primarily and…
Evolution strategy (ES) is one of the promising classes of algorithms for black-box continuous optimization. Despite its broad successes in applications, theoretical analysis on the speed of its convergence is limited on convex quadratic…
The problem of finding a solution to the linear system $Ax = b$ with certain minimization properties arises in numerous scientific and engineering areas. In the era of big data, the stochastic optimization algorithms become increasingly…
The paper introduces the first formulation of convex Q-learning for Markov decision processes with function approximation. The algorithms and theory rest on a relaxation of a dual of Manne's celebrated linear programming characterization of…
The performance of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) depends critically on how learning rates are tuned and decreased over time. We propose a method to automatically adjust multiple learning rates so as to minimize the expected error at any…