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Non-linear least squares solvers are used across a broad range of offline and real-time model fitting problems. Most improvements of the basic Gauss-Newton algorithm tackle convergence guarantees or leverage the sparsity of the underlying…
Low-rank matrix estimation is a canonical problem that finds numerous applications in signal processing, machine learning and imaging science. A popular approach in practice is to factorize the matrix into two compact low-rank factors, and…
This paper investigates the problems large-scale distributed composite convex optimization, with motivations from a broad range of applications, including multi-agent systems, federated learning, smart grids, wireless sensor networks,…
Stochastic gradient methods have been a popular and powerful choice of optimization methods, aimed at minimizing functions. Their advantage lies in the fact that that one approximates the gradient as opposed to using the full Jacobian…
A number of optimization approaches have been proposed for optimizing nonconvex objectives (e.g. deep learning models), such as batch gradient descent, stochastic gradient descent and stochastic variance reduced gradient descent. Theory…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a workhorse algorithm for solving large-scale optimization problems in data science and machine learning. Understanding the convergence of SGD is hence of fundamental importance. In this work we examine…
The subgradient method is a classical and foundational approach in non-smooth convex optimization; its simplicity, robustness, and role as a conceptual and algorithmic starting point have made it the backbone of many significant…
This paper considers stochastic convex optimization problems with smooth functional constraints arising in constrained estimation and robust signal recovery. We operate in the high-dimensional and highly-constrained setting, where oracle…
A framework based on iterative coordinate minimization (CM) is developed for stochastic convex optimization. Given that exact coordinate minimization is impossible due to the unknown stochastic nature of the objective function, the crux of…
This paper presents an algorithmic framework for the minimization of strictly convex quadratic functions. The framework is flexible and generic. At every iteration the search direction is a linear combination of the negative gradient, as…
We propose a stochastic optimization method for the minimization of the sum of three convex functions, one of which has Lipschitz continuous gradient as well as restricted strong convexity. Our approach is most suitable in the setting where…
Using gradient descent (GD) with fixed or decaying step-size is a standard practice in unconstrained optimization problems. However, when the loss function is only locally convex, such a step-size schedule artificially slows GD down as it…
The proximal gradient algorithm for minimizing the sum of a smooth and a nonsmooth convex function often converges linearly even without strong convexity. One common reason is that a multiple of the step length at each iteration may…
In this paper we aim to formally explain the phenomenon of fast convergence of SGD observed in modern machine learning. The key observation is that most modern learning architectures are over-parametrized and are trained to interpolate the…
(Mini-batch) Stochastic Gradient Descent is a popular optimization method which has been applied to many machine learning applications. But a rather high variance introduced by the stochastic gradient in each step may slow down the…
We propose a descent subgradient algorithm for minimizing a real function, assumed to be locally Lipschitz, but not necessarily smooth or convex. To find an effective descent direction, the Goldstein subdifferential is approximated through…
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…
We analyze stochastic gradient algorithms for optimizing nonconvex, nonsmooth finite-sum problems. In particular, the objective function is given by the summation of a differentiable (possibly nonconvex) component, together with a possibly…
The article discusses distributed gradient-descent algorithms for computing local and global minima in nonconvex optimization. For local optimization, we focus on distributed stochastic gradient descent (D-SGD)--a simple network-based…
This paper presents a stochastic block-coordinate proximal Newton method for minimizing the sum of a blockwise Lipschitz-continuously differentiable function and a separable nonsmooth convex function. At each iteration, the method randomly…