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Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is central to simulation optimization, stochastic programming, and online M-estimation, where sampling effort is a decision variable. We study the mini-batch gradient noise as a sampling-design object.…
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and its momentum variants (Polyak Heavy-Ball and Nesterov) for tracking time-varying optima under strong convexity and smoothness. Our…
We study high-probability convergence in online learning, in the presence of heavy-tailed noise. To combat the heavy tails, a general framework of nonlinear SGD methods is considered, subsuming several popular nonlinearities like sign,…
Recent studies have demonstrated that noise in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is closely related to generalization: A larger SGD noise, if not too large, results in better generalization. Since the covariance of the SGD noise is…
We derive a simple and model-independent formula for the change in the generalization gap due to a gradient descent update. We then compare the change in the test error for stochastic gradient descent to the change in test error from an…
Understanding the limitations of gradient methods, and stochastic gradient descent (SGD) in particular, is a central challenge in learning theory. To that end, a commonly used tool is the Statistical Queries (SQ) framework, which studies…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and adaptive gradient methods, such as Adam and RMSProp, have been widely used in training deep neural networks. We empirically show that while the difference between the standard generalization performance…
We analyze the training dynamics for deep linear networks using a new metric - layer imbalance - which defines the flatness of a solution. We demonstrate that different regularization methods, such as weight decay or noise data…
The convergence of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) using convex loss functions has been widely studied. However, vanilla SGD methods using convex losses cannot perform well with noisy labels, which adversely affect the update of the…
We study the generalization properties of the popular stochastic optimization method known as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for optimizing general non-convex loss functions. Our main contribution is providing upper bounds on the…
Stochastic optimization via Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a fundamental problem in statistics and optimization. This paper revisits Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) for strongly convex objectives, establishing tight, uniform-in-time…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is almost ubiquitously used for training non-convex optimization tasks. Recently, a hypothesis proposed by Keskar et al. [2017] that large batch methods tend to converge to sharp minimizers has received…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and its momentum variants form the backbone of deep learning optimization, yet the underlying dynamics of their gradient behavior remain insufficiently understood. In this work, we reinterpret gradient…
In this paper, we introduce a new approach to proving the convergence of the Stochastic Approximation (SA) and the Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) algorithms. The new approach is based on a concept called GSLLN (Generalized Strong Law of…
Neural networks trained with stochastic gradient descent exhibit an inductive bias towards simpler decision boundaries, typically converging to a narrow family of functions, and often fail to capture more complex features. This phenomenon…
A central issue in machine learning is how to train models on sensitive user data. Industry has widely adopted a simple algorithm: Stochastic Gradient Descent with noise (a.k.a. Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics). However, foundational…
In distributed training of machine learning models, gradient descent with local iterative steps, commonly known as Local (Stochastic) Gradient Descent (Local-(S)GD) or Federated averaging (FedAvg), is a very popular method to mitigate…
The gradient noise (GN) in the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm is often considered to be Gaussian in the large data regime by assuming that the classical central limit theorem (CLT) kicks in. This assumption is often made for…
The stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method and its variants are algorithms of choice for many Deep Learning tasks. These methods operate in a small-batch regime wherein a fraction of the training data, say $32$-$512$ data points, is…
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…