Related papers: Accelerated Gradient Descent Escapes Saddle Points…
In this paper, we try to uncover the second-order essence of several first-order optimization methods. For Nesterov Accelerated Gradient, we rigorously prove that the algorithm makes use of the difference between past and current gradients,…
In this paper, we generalize the well-known Nesterov's accelerated gradient (AG) method, originally designed for convex smooth optimization, to solve nonconvex and possibly stochastic optimization problems. We demonstrate that by properly…
In this paper, we propose a new adaptive stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (ASGLD) algorithmic framework and its two specialized versions, namely adaptive stochastic gradient (ASG) and adaptive gradient Langevin dynamics(AGLD), for…
We present a family of algorithms, called descent algorithms, for optimizing convex and non-convex functions. We also introduce a new first-order algorithm, called rescaled gradient descent (RGD), and show that RGD achieves a faster…
In the paper, we propose a class of faster adaptive Gradient Descent Ascent (GDA) methods for solving the nonconvex-strongly-concave minimax problems by using the unified adaptive matrices, which include almost all existing coordinate-wise…
Gradient descent (GD) and stochastic gradient descent (SGD) are the workhorses of large-scale machine learning. While classical theory focused on analyzing the performance of these methods in convex optimization problems, the most notable…
Optimizing non-convex functions is of primary importance in the vast majority of machine learning algorithms. Even though many gradient descent based algorithms have been studied, successive convex approximation based algorithms have been…
Gradient descent and its variants are widely used in machine learning. However, oracle access of gradient may not be available in many applications, limiting the direct use of gradient descent. This paper proposes a method of estimating…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a standard optimization method to minimize a training error with respect to network parameters in modern neural network learning. However, it typically suffers from proliferation of saddle points in the…
We present a unifying framework for adapting the update direction in gradient-based iterative optimization methods. As natural special cases we re-derive classical momentum and Nesterov's accelerated gradient method, lending a new intuitive…
Our main goal in this paper is to show that one can skip gradient computations for gradient descent type methods applied to certain structured convex programming (CP) problems. To this end, we first present an accelerated gradient sliding…
Large-scale non-convex optimization problems are expensive to solve due to computational and memory costs. To reduce the costs, first-order (computationally efficient) and asynchronous-parallel (memory efficient) algorithms are necessary to…
Accelerated gradient (AG) methods are breakthroughs in convex optimization, improving the convergence rate of the gradient descent method for optimization with smooth functions. However, the analysis of AG methods for non-convex…
In centralized settings, it is well known that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) avoids saddle points and converges to local minima in nonconvex problems. However, similar guarantees are lacking for distributed first-order algorithms. The…
This work proposes A$^2$GD, a novel adaptive accelerated gradient descent method for convex and composite optimization. Smoothness and convexity constants are updated via Lyapunov analysis. Inspired by stability analysis in ODE solvers, the…
We examine the behavior of accelerated gradient methods in smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization, focusing in particular on their behavior near strict saddle points. Accelerated methods are iterative methods that typically step along…
Momentum based stochastic gradient methods such as heavy ball (HB) and Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent (NAG) method are widely used in practice for training deep networks and other supervised learning models, as they often provide…
Motivated by the super-diffusivity of self-repelling random walk, which has roots in statistical physics, this paper develops a new perturbation mechanism for optimization algorithms. In this mechanism, perturbations are adapted to the…
Adaptive methods such as Adam and RMSProp are widely used in deep learning but are not well understood. In this paper, we seek a crisp, clean and precise characterization of their behavior in nonconvex settings. To this end, we first…
We propose a new method for unconstrained optimization of a smooth and strongly convex function, which attains the optimal rate of convergence of Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent. The new algorithm has a simple geometric…