Related papers: Escaping Saddle Points Efficiently with Occupation…
Gradient descent algorithm is the most utilized method when optimizing machine learning issues. However, there exists many local minimums and saddle points in the loss function, especially for high dimensional non-convex optimization…
Adaptive gradient algorithms perform gradient-based updates using the history of gradients and are ubiquitous in training deep neural networks. While adaptive gradient methods theory is well understood for minimization problems, the…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) still is the workhorse for many practical problems. However, it converges slow, and can be difficult to tune. It is possible to precondition SGD to accelerate its convergence remarkably. But many attempts…
In this paper, we study the problem of escaping from saddle points in smooth nonconvex optimization problems subject to a convex set $\mathcal{C}$. We propose a generic framework that yields convergence to a second-order stationary point of…
We study a class of misspecified saddle point (SP) problems, where the optimization objective depends on an unknown parameter that must be learned concurrently from data. Unlike existing studies that assume parameters are fully known or…
We analyze stochastic gradient descent for optimizing non-convex functions. In many cases for non-convex functions the goal is to find a reasonable local minimum, and the main concern is that gradient updates are trapped in saddle points.…
Off-policy algorithms, in which a behavior policy differs from the target policy and is used to gain experience for learning, have proven to be of great practical value in reinforcement learning. However, even for simple convex problems…
Neural networks are achieving state of the art and sometimes super-human performance on learning tasks across a variety of domains. Whenever these problems require learning in a continual or sequential manner, however, neural networks…
Training deep neural networks is challenging. To accelerate training and enhance performance, we propose PadamP, a novel optimization algorithm. PadamP is derived by applying the adaptive estimation of the p-th power of the second-order…
As one of the most fundamental stochastic optimization algorithms, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) has been intensively developed and extensively applied in machine learning in the past decade. There have been some modified SGD-type…
Variance-reduced gradient estimators for policy gradient methods have been one of the main focus of research in the reinforcement learning in recent years as they allow acceleration of the estimation process. We propose a variance-reduced…
The gentlest ascent dynamics (GAD) (Nonlinearity, vol. 24, no. 6, p1831, 2011) is a continuous time dynamics coupling both the position and the direction variables to efficiently locate the saddle point with a given index. These saddle…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm and its variations have been effectively used to optimize neural network models. However, with the rapid growth of big data and deep learning, SGD is no longer the most suitable choice due to its…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) has played a central role in machine learning. However, it requires a carefully hand-picked stepsize for fast convergence, which is notoriously tedious and time-consuming to tune. Over the last several…
Saddle point problems, ubiquitous in optimization, extend beyond game theory to diverse domains like power networks and reinforcement learning. This paper presents novel approaches to tackle saddle point problem, with a focus on…
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…
In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…
Stochastic gradient descent (\textsc{Sgd}) methods are the most powerful optimization tools in training machine learning and deep learning models. Moreover, acceleration (a.k.a. momentum) methods and diagonal scaling (a.k.a. adaptive…
We prove local convergence of several notable gradient descent algorithms used in machine learning, for which standard stochastic gradient descent theory does not apply directly. This includes, first, online algorithms for recurrent models…
We present two stochastic descent algorithms that apply to unconstrained optimization and are particularly efficient when the objective function is slow to evaluate and gradients are not easily obtained, as in some PDE-constrained…