Related papers: Joint Stochastic Approximation and Its Application…

Due to its simplicity and outstanding ability to generalize, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is still the most widely used optimization method despite its slow convergence. Meanwhile, adaptive methods have attracted rising attention of…

Shrinkage estimators that possess the ability to produce sparse solutions have become increasingly important to the analysis of today's complex datasets. Examples include the LASSO, the Elastic-Net and their adaptive counterparts.…

Stochastic gradient methods are dominant in nonconvex optimization especially for deep models but have low asymptotical convergence due to the fixed smoothness. To address this problem, we propose a simple yet effective method for improving…

We study the problem of estimating from data, a sparse approximation to the inverse covariance matrix. Estimating a sparsity constrained inverse covariance matrix is a key component in Gaussian graphical model learning, but one that is…

This paper tackles the challenge of parameter calibration in stochastic models, particularly in scenarios where the likelihood function is unavailable in an analytical form. We introduce a gradient-based simulated parameter estimation…

Latent variable models have been playing a central role in psychometrics and related fields. In many modern applications, the inference based on latent variable models involves one or several of the following features: (1) the presence of…

Based on the stochastic maximum principle for the partially coupled forward-backward stochastic control system (FBSCS for short), a modified method of successive approximations (MSA for short) is established for stochastic recursive optimal…

In this paper, we consider constrained optimization problems with convex, smooth objective and constraints. We propose a new stochastic gradient algorithm, called the Stochastic Moving Ball Approximation (SMBA) method, to solve this class…

Robotic systems must be able to quickly and robustly make decisions when operating in uncertain and dynamic environments. While Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be used to compute optimal policies with little prior knowledge about the…

Classifier models are prevalent in natural language processing (NLP), often with high accuracy. Yet in real world settings, human-in-the-loop systems can foster trust in model outputs and even higher performance. Selective Prediction (SP)…

This paper proposes a new family of algorithms for training neural networks (NNs). These are based on recent developments in the field of non-convex optimization, going under the general name of successive convex approximation (SCA)…

A dynamic sampled stochastic approximated (DS-SA) extragradient method for stochastic variational inequalities (SVI) is proposed that is \emph{robust} with respect to an unknown Lipschitz constant $L$. To the best of our knowledge, it is…

We propose a remarkably general variance-reduced method suitable for solving regularized empirical risk minimization problems with either a large number of training examples, or a large model dimension, or both. In special cases, our method…

Despite the recent success of Multimodal Foundation Models (FMs), their reliance on massive paired datasets limits their applicability in low-data and rare-scenario settings where aligned data is scarce and expensive. A key bottleneck is…

In this paper, we consider multi-stage stochastic optimization problems with convex objectives and conic constraints at each stage. We present a new stochastic first-order method, namely the dynamic stochastic approximation (DSA) algorithm,…

This paper investigates the stability and convergence properties of asynchronous stochastic approximation (SA) algorithms, with a focus on extensions relevant to average-reward reinforcement learning. We first extend a stability proof…

We present a novel deep learning approach to approximate the solution of large, sparse, symmetric, positive-definite linear systems of equations. These systems arise from many problems in applied science, e.g., in numerical methods for…

The stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method is a widely used approach for solving stochastic optimization problems, but its convergence is typically slow. Existing variance reduction techniques, such as SAGA, improve convergence by…

Graph learning problems are typically approached by focusing on learning the topology of a single graph when signals from all nodes are available. However, many contemporary setups involve multiple related networks and, moreover, it is…

The classical Method of Successive Approximations (MSA) is an iterative method for solving stochastic control problems and is derived from Pontryagin's optimality principle. It is known that the MSA may fail to converge. Using careful…