Related papers: Stochastic Quasi-Newton Methods for Nonconvex Stoc…

This paper considers stochastic first-order algorithms for convex-concave minimax problems of the form $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y}f(\bf x, \bf y)$, where $f$ can be presented by the average of $n$ individual components which are $L$-average…

We establish the O($\frac{1}{k}$) convergence rate for distributed stochastic gradient methods that operate over strongly convex costs and random networks. The considered class of methods is standard each node performs a weighted average of…

Nonsmooth nonconvex optimization problems broadly emerge in machine learning and business decision making, whereas two core challenges impede the development of efficient solution methods with finite-time convergence guarantee: the lack of…

We design a stochastic algorithm to train any smooth neural network to $\varepsilon$-approximate local minima, using $O(\varepsilon^{-3.25})$ backpropagations. The best result was essentially $O(\varepsilon^{-4})$ by SGD. More broadly, it…

One of the beauties of the projected gradient descent method lies in its rather simple mechanism and yet stable behavior with inexact, stochastic gradients, which has led to its wide-spread use in many machine learning applications.…

In this paper, we propose a unified view of gradient-based algorithms for stochastic convex composite optimization by extending the concept of estimate sequence introduced by Nesterov. More precisely, we interpret a large class of…

In this paper, we study the performance of a large family of SGD variants in the smooth nonconvex regime. To this end, we propose a generic and flexible assumption capable of accurate modeling of the second moment of the stochastic…

Zero-order (ZO) optimization is a powerful tool for dealing with realistic constraints. On the other hand, the gradient-tracking (GT) technique proved to be an efficient method for distributed optimization aiming to achieve consensus.…

This work presents the convergence rate analysis of stochastic variants of the broad class of direct-search methods of directional type. It introduces an algorithm designed to optimize differentiable objective functions $f$ whose values can…

A very popular approach for solving stochastic optimization problems is the stochastic gradient descent method (SGD). Although the SGD iteration is computationally cheap and the practical performance of this method may be satisfactory under…

The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…

We study convex composite optimization problems, where the objective function is given by the sum of a prox-friendly function and a convex function whose subgradients are estimated under heavy-tailed noise. Existing work often employs…

We study nonconvex finite-sum problems and analyze stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) methods for them. SVRG and related methods have recently surged into prominence for convex optimization given their edge over stochastic gradient…

We propose two algorithms that can find local minima faster than the state-of-the-art algorithms in both finite-sum and general stochastic nonconvex optimization. At the core of the proposed algorithms is $\text{One-epoch-SNVRG}^+$ using…

In this paper, we introduce an unbiased gradient simulation algorithms for solving convex optimization problem with stochastic function compositions. We show that the unbiased gradient generated from the algorithm has finite variance and…

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…

This paper considers a distributed stochastic strongly convex optimization, where agents connected over a network aim to cooperatively minimize the average of all agents' local cost functions. Due to the stochasticity of gradient estimation…

In this paper we consider stochastic weakly convex composite problems, however without the existence of a stochastic subgradient oracle. We present a derivative free algorithm that uses a two point approximation for computing a gradient…

We present an algorithm for minimizing a sum of functions that combines the computational efficiency of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with the second order curvature information leveraged by quasi-Newton methods. We unify these…

Non-convex optimization problems are ubiquitous in machine learning, especially in Deep Learning. While such complex problems can often be successfully optimized in practice by using stochastic gradient descent (SGD), theoretical analysis…