Related papers: Stein Variational Gradient Descent: many-particle …
We propose a simple algorithm to train stochastic neural networks to draw samples from given target distributions for probabilistic inference. Our method is based on iteratively adjusting the neural network parameters so that the output…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD), which dates back to the 1950s, is one of the most popular and effective approaches for performing stochastic optimization. Research on SGD resurged recently in machine learning for optimizing convex loss…
This paper theoretically reanalyzes the convergence of the mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for a structured minimization problem involving a finite-sum function with its gradient being stochastically approximated, and an…
Stochastic Gradient Descent with a constant learning rate (constant SGD) simulates a Markov chain with a stationary distribution. With this perspective, we derive several new results. (1) We show that constant SGD can be used as an…
There has been recent interest in developing scalable Bayesian sampling methods such as stochastic gradient MCMC (SG-MCMC) and Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) for big-data analysis. A standard SG-MCMC algorithm simulates samples…
We study an interacting particle system in $\mathbf{R}^d$ motivated by Stein variational gradient descent [Q. Liu and D. Wang, NIPS 2016], a deterministic algorithm for sampling from a given probability density with unknown normalization.…
In this book chapter, we briefly describe the main components that constitute the gradient descent method and its accelerated and stochastic variants. We aim at explaining these components from a mathematical point of view, including…
Stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) has been increasingly popular in Bayesian learning due to its ability to deal with large data. A standard SG-MCMC algorithm simulates samples from a discretized-time Markov chain to…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a key ingredient in the training of deep neural networks and yet its geometrical significance appears elusive. We study a deterministic model in which the trajectories of our dynamical systems are…
Variational particle-based Bayesian learning methods have the advantage of not being limited by the bias affecting more conventional parametric techniques. This paper proposes to leverage the flexibility of non-parametric Bayesian…
In this work, we propose a stochastic gradient descent (SGD) framework to design data-driven policy gradient descent algorithms for the linear quadratic regulator problem. Two alternative schemes are considered to estimate the policy…
In order to predict future performance of subsurface fluid reservoirs under possible operating scenarios, a dynamic, porous-medium flow simulation model must be tuned to include representative properties of the reservoir. Estimating…
Although stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a driving force behind the recent success of deep learning, our understanding of its dynamics in a high-dimensional parameter space is limited. In recent years, some researchers have used the…
Posterior distributions arising in ill-posed Bayesian inverse problems are often both analytically intractable and highly sensitive to parameters of the chosen prior family. We aim to understand the sensitivity of intractable posterior…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a powerful optimization technique that is particularly useful in online learning scenarios. Its convergence analysis is relatively well understood under the assumption that the data samples are…
The mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm is widely used in training machine learning models, in particular deep learning models. We study SGD dynamics under linear regression and two-layer linear networks, with an easy…
A new method for learning variational autoencoders (VAEs) is developed, based on Stein variational gradient descent. A key advantage of this approach is that one need not make parametric assumptions about the form of the encoder…
Motivated by broad applications in reinforcement learning and machine learning, this paper considers the popular stochastic gradient descent (SGD) when the gradients of the underlying objective function are sampled from Markov processes.…
We present a filtering framework for online joint state estimation and parameter identification in nonlinear, time-varying systems. The algorithm uses Rao-Blackwellization technique to infer joint state-parameter posteriors efficiently. In…
Particle-based variational inference methods (ParVIs) such as Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) update the particles based on the kernelized Wasserstein gradient flow for the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. However, the design of…