Related papers: Learning to Accelerate by the Methods of Step-size…

Motivated by broad applications in machine learning, we study the popular accelerated stochastic gradient descent (ASGD) algorithm for solving (possibly nonconvex) optimization problems. We characterize the finite-time performance of this…

Stochastic gradient decent~(SGD) and its variants, including some accelerated variants, have become popular for training in machine learning. However, in all existing SGD and its variants, the sample size in each iteration~(epoch) of…

This paper analyzes the trajectories of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) to help understand the algorithm's convergence properties in non-convex problems. We first show that the sequence of iterates generated by SGD remains bounded and…

We consider a generic convex-concave saddle point problem with separable structure, a form that covers a wide-ranged machine learning applications. Under this problem structure, we follow the framework of primal-dual updates for saddle…

Two major momentum-based techniques that have achieved tremendous success in optimization are Polyak's heavy ball method and Nesterov's accelerated gradient. A crucial step in all momentum-based methods is the choice of the momentum…

We present a coupled system of ODEs which, when discretized with a constant time step/learning rate, recovers Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent algorithm. The same ODEs, when discretized with a decreasing learning rate, leads to novel…

In this paper, we propose a generic and simple strategy for utilizing stochastic gradient information in optimization. The technique essentially contains two consecutive steps in each iteration: 1) computing and normalizing each block…

In this contribution, we present a full overview of the continuous stochastic gradient (CSG) method, including convergence results, step size rules and algorithmic insights. We consider optimization problems in which the objective function…

In this paper, we suggest a new framework for analyzing primal subgradient methods for nonsmooth convex optimization problems. We show that the classical step-size rules, based on normalization of subgradient, or on the knowledge of optimal…

Stochastic gradient methods (SGMs) are the predominant approaches to train deep learning models. The adaptive versions (e.g., Adam and AMSGrad) have been extensively used in practice, partly because they achieve faster convergence than the…

Several variants of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) have been proposed to improve the learning effectiveness and efficiency when training deep neural networks, among which some recent influential attempts would like to adaptively control…

We contribute to the growing body of knowledge on more powerful and adaptive stepsizes for convex optimization, empowered by local curvature information. We do not go the route of fully-fledged second-order methods which require the…

We study gradient descent (GD) with a constant stepsize for $\ell_2$-regularized logistic regression with linearly separable data. Classical theory suggests small stepsizes to ensure monotonic reduction of the optimization objective,…

The history of meta-learning methods based on gradient descent is reviewed, focusing primarily on methods that adapt step-size (learning rate) meta-parameters.

Davis, Drusvyatskiy, and Jiang showed that gradient descent with an adaptive stepsize converges locally at a nearly-linear rate for smooth functions that grow at least quartically away from their minimizers. The argument is intricate,…

Much recent attention has been devoted to gradient descent algorithms where the steepest descent step size is replaced by a similar one from a previous iteration or gets updated only once every second step, thus forming a {\em faster…

When training neural networks, it has been widely observed that a large step size is essential in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for obtaining superior models. However, the effect of large step sizes on the success of SGD is not well…

In this paper, we propose and analyse a family of generalised stochastic composite mirror descent algorithms. With adaptive step sizes, the proposed algorithms converge without requiring prior knowledge of the problem. Combined with an…

The training of deep neural networks is inherently a nonconvex optimization problem, yet standard approaches such as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) require simultaneous updates to all parameters, often leading to unstable convergence and…

Block coordinate descent is a powerful algorithmic template suitable for big data optimization. This template admits a lot of variants including block gradient descent (BGD), which performs gradient descent on a selected block of variables,…