Related papers: Replica Exchange for Non-Convex Optimization

Sampling from a high-dimensional distribution is a fundamental task in statistics, engineering, and the sciences. A canonical approach is the Langevin Algorithm, i.e., the Markov chain for the discretized Langevin Diffusion. This is the…

In this paper, we study convex optimization problems where agents of a network cooperatively minimize the global objective function which consists of multiple local objective functions. Different from most of the existing works, the local…

Online gradient descent (OGD) is well known to be doubly optimal under strong convexity or monotonicity assumptions: (1) in the single-agent setting, it achieves an optimal regret of $\Theta(\log T)$ for strongly convex cost functions; and…

While classic work in convex-concave min-max optimization relies on average-iterate convergence results, the emergence of nonconvex applications such as training Generative Adversarial Networks has led to renewed interest in last-iterate…

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a fundamental algorithm in machine learning, representing the optimization backbone for training several classic models, from regression to neural networks. Given the recent practical focus on…

This paper investigates distributed online convex optimization in the presence of an aggregative variable without any global/central coordinators over a multi-agent network, where each individual agent is only able to access partial…

Minimax problems of the form $\min_x \max_y \Psi(x,y)$ have attracted increased interest largely due to advances in machine learning, in particular generative adversarial networks. These are typically trained using variants of stochastic…

We analyse the privacy leakage of noisy stochastic gradient descent by modeling R\'enyi divergence dynamics with Langevin diffusions. Inspired by recent work on non-stochastic algorithms, we derive similar desirable properties in the…

Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) is an important alternative to the Langevin-type algorithms for sampling from probability distributions of the form $\pi(x) \propto \exp(-V(x))$. In the existing theory of Langevin-type algorithms…

We introduce a novel algorithm for gradient-based optimization of stochastic objective functions. The method may be seen as a variant of SGD with momentum equipped with an adaptive learning rate automatically adjusted by an 'energy'…

We study the generalization performance of gradient methods in the fundamental stochastic convex optimization setting, focusing on its dimension dependence. First, for full-batch gradient descent (GD) we give a construction of a learning…

In distributed machine learning, efficient training across multiple agents with different data distributions poses significant challenges. Even with a centralized coordinator, current algorithms that achieve optimal communication complexity…

We consider linear prediction with a convex Lipschitz loss, or more generally, stochastic convex optimization problems of generalized linear form, i.e.~where each instantaneous loss is a scalar convex function of a linear function. We show…

This paper considers the analysis of continuous time gradient-based optimization algorithms through the lens of nonlinear contraction theory. It demonstrates that in the case of a time-invariant objective, most elementary results on…

Sampling is a fundamental and arguably very important task with numerous applications in Machine Learning. One approach to sample from a high dimensional distribution $e^{-f}$ for some function $f$ is the Langevin Algorithm (LA). Recently,…

Several recent empirical studies demonstrate that important machine learning tasks, e.g., training deep neural networks, exhibit low-rank structure, where the loss function varies significantly in only a few directions of the input space.…

The paper considers the problem of network-based computation of global minima in smooth nonconvex optimization problems. It is known that distributed gradient-descent-type algorithms can achieve convergence to the set of global minima by…

Sampling from a log-concave distribution function is one core problem that has wide applications in Bayesian statistics and machine learning. While most gradient free methods have slow convergence rate, the Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) that…

There is a recent surge of interest in nonconvex reformulations via low-rank factorization for stochastic convex semidefinite optimization problem in the purpose of efficiency and scalability. Compared with the original convex formulations,…

This work explores a novel perspective on solving nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems by leveraging sampling based methods. Instead of treating the objective function purely through traditional (often deterministic) optimization…