Related papers: Smoothed Functional Algorithms for Stochastic Opti…
Many optimization problems in robotics involve the optimization of time-expensive black-box functions, such as those involving complex simulations or evaluation of real-world experiments. Furthermore, these functions are often stochastic as…
We develop the method of stochastic modified equations (SME), in which stochastic gradient algorithms are approximated in the weak sense by continuous-time stochastic differential equations. We exploit the continuous formulation together…
We present an intriguing discovery related to Random Fourier Features: in Gaussian kernel approximation, replacing the random Gaussian matrix by a properly scaled random orthogonal matrix significantly decreases kernel approximation error.…
We apply a recently developed framework for analyzing the convergence of stochastic algorithms to the general problem of large-scale nonconvex composite optimization more generally, and nonconvex likelihood maximization in particular. Our…
In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for stochastic smooth, non-convex optimization. We assume a worker-server architecture where $N$ nodes, each having $n$ (potentially infinite) number of samples, collaborate with the help of…
This paper considers the problem for finding the $(\delta,\epsilon)$-Goldstein stationary point of Lipschitz continuous objective, which is a rich function class to cover a great number of important applications. We construct a zeroth-order…
In this work, multiplicative stochasticity is applied to the learning rate of stochastic optimization algorithms, giving rise to stochastic learning-rate schemes. In-expectation theoretical convergence results of Stochastic Gradient Descent…
Huge scale machine learning problems are nowadays tackled by distributed optimization algorithms, i.e. algorithms that leverage the compute power of many devices for training. The communication overhead is a key bottleneck that hinders…
We consider the optimization problem of the form $\min_{x \in \mathbb{R}^d} f(x) \triangleq \mathbb{E}_{\xi} [F(x; \xi)]$, where the component $F(x;\xi)$ is $L$-mean-squared Lipschitz but possibly nonconvex and nonsmooth. The recently…
Driven by the need to solve increasingly complex optimization problems in signal processing and machine learning, there has been increasing interest in understanding the behavior of gradient-descent algorithms in non-convex environments.…
Stochastic gradient methods are among the most widely used algorithms for large-scale optimization and machine learning. A key technique for improving the statistical efficiency and stability of these methods is the use of averaging schemes…
This paper studies how a stochastic gradient algorithm (SG) can be controlled to hide the estimate of the local stationary point from an eavesdropper. Such problems are of significant interest in distributed optimization settings like…
In this paper, we consider a class of stochastic optimization problems over the expectation-formulated generalized Stiefel manifold (SOEGS), where the objective function $f$ is continuously differentiable. We propose a novel constraint…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a known stochastic iterative method popular for large-scale convex optimization problems due to its simple implementation and scalability. Some objectives, such as those found in complex-valued neural…
Stochastic kinetic models are ubiquitous in physics, yet inferring their parameters from experimental data remains challenging. In deterministic models, parameter inference often relies on gradients, as they can be obtained efficiently…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a prevalent optimization technique for large-scale distributed machine learning. While SGD computation can be efficiently divided between multiple machines, communication typically becomes a bottleneck…
We consider distributed smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization over networks, modeled as a connected graph. We examine the behavior of distributed gradient-based algorithms near strict saddle points. Specifically, we establish that (i)…
We study distributed stochastic gradient (D-SG) method and its accelerated variant (D-ASG) for solving decentralized strongly convex stochastic optimization problems where the objective function is distributed over several computational…
Classical stochastic gradient methods are well suited for minimizing expected-value objective functions. However, they do not apply to the minimization of a nonlinear function involving expected values or a composition of two expected-value…
State-action value functions (i.e., Q-values) are ubiquitous in reinforcement learning (RL), giving rise to popular algorithms such as SARSA and Q-learning. We propose a new notion of action value defined by a Gaussian smoothed version of…