Related papers: Stochastic Approximation versus Sample Average App…
We study sample average approximations (SAA) of chance constrained programs. SAA methods typically approximate the actual distribution in the chance constraint using an empirical distribution constructed from random samples assumed to be…
Optimal transport is a foundational problem in optimization, that allows to compare probability distributions while taking into account geometric aspects. Its optimal objective value, the Wasserstein distance, provides an important loss…
We study the decentralized distributed computation of discrete approximations for the regularized Wasserstein barycenter of a finite set of continuous probability measures distributedly stored over a network. We assume there is a network of…
The optimal transport barycenter (a.k.a. Wasserstein barycenter) is a fundamental notion of averaging that extends from the Euclidean space to the Wasserstein space of probability distributions. Computation of the unregularized barycenter…
Sample average approximation (SAA) is a widely popular approach to data-driven decision-making under uncertainty. Under mild assumptions, SAA is both tractable and enjoys strong asymptotic performance guarantees. Similar guarantees,…
Stochastic Approximation (SA) is a classical algorithm that has had since the early days a huge impact on signal processing, and nowadays on machine learning, due to the necessity to deal with a large amount of data observed with…
Sample average approximation (SAA) replaces an intractable expected objective by an empirical average and is a basic device of modern stochastic optimization. We develop a rate theory for optimal values and empirical…
Stochastic approximation (SA) algorithms are widely used in system optimization problems when only noisy measurements of the system are available. This paper studies two types of SA algorithms in a multivariate Kiefer-Wolfowitz setting:…
Wasserstein barycenter, built on the theory of optimal transport, provides a powerful framework to aggregate probability distributions, and it has increasingly attracted great attention within the machine learning community. However, it…
In this paper, we study a class of stochastic optimization problems, referred to as the \emph{Conditional Stochastic Optimization} (CSO), in the form of $\min_{x \in \mathcal{X}} \EE_{\xi}f_\xi\Big({\EE_{\eta|\xi}[g_\eta(x,\xi)]}\Big)$,…
We study the regret performance of Sample Average Approximation (SAA) for data-driven newsvendor problems with general convex inventory costs. In literature, the optimality of SAA has not been fully established under both \alpha-global…
Stochastic approximation (SA) is a key method used in statistical learning. Recently, its non-asymptotic convergence analysis has been considered in many papers. However, most of the prior analyses are made under restrictive assumptions…
This paper considers the stochastic convex composite optimization problem and presents multi-cut stochastic approximation (SA) methods for solving it, whose models in expectation overestimate its objective function. The multi-cut model…
We present a novel approach for black-box VI that bypasses the difficulties of stochastic gradient ascent, including the task of selecting step-sizes. Our approach involves using a sequence of sample average approximation (SAA) problems.…
We present adaptive sequential SAA (sample average approximation) algorithms to solve large-scale two-stage stochastic linear programs. The iterative algorithm framework we propose is organized into \emph{outer} and \emph{inner} iterations…
We derive new and improved non-asymptotic deviation inequalities for the sample average approximation (SAA) of an optimization problem. Our results give strong error probability bounds that are "sub-Gaussian"~even when the randomness of the…
One key challenge for solving a general stochastic optimization problem with expectations in the objective and constraint functions using ordinary stochastic iterative methods lies in the infeasibility issue caused by the randomness over…
Many machine learning and optimization algorithms can be cast as instances of stochastic approximation (SA). The convergence rate of these algorithms is known to be slow, with the optimal mean squared error (MSE) of order $O(n^{-1})$. In…
Wasserstein Barycenter is a principled approach to represent the weighted mean of a given set of probability distributions, utilizing the geometry induced by optimal transport. In this work, we present a novel scalable algorithm to…
Chance constrained programming (CCP) refers to a type of optimization problem with uncertain constraints that are satisfied with at least a prescribed probability level. In this work, we study the sample average approximation (SAA) of…