Related papers: A new Gradient TD Algorithm with only One Step-siz…
We introduce a novel algorithm for gradient-based optimization of stochastic objective functions. The method may be seen as a variant of SGD with momentum equipped with an adaptive learning rate automatically adjusted by an 'energy'…
Consider $n$ agents connected over a network collaborating to minimize the average of their local cost functions combined with a common nonsmooth function. This paper introduces a unified algorithmic framework for solving such a problem…
This work presents the first finite-time analysis for the last-iterate convergence of average-reward $Q$-learning with an asynchronous implementation. A key feature of the algorithm we study is the use of adaptive stepsizes, which serve as…
We investigate the finite-time convergence properties of Temporal Difference (TD) learning with linear function approximation, a cornerstone algorithm in the field of reinforcement learning. We are interested in the so-called ``robust''…
This paper proposes a novel proximal-gradient algorithm for a decentralized optimization problem with a composite objective containing smooth and non-smooth terms. Specifically, the smooth and nonsmooth terms are dealt with by gradient and…
We consider stochastic convex optimization problems where the objective is an expectation over smooth functions. For this setting we suggest a novel gradient estimate that combines two recent mechanism that are related to notion of…
In decentralized optimization, the choice of stepsize plays a critical role in algorithm performance. A common approach is to use a shared stepsize across all agents to ensure convergence. However, selecting an optimal stepsize often…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) on a low-rank factorization is commonly employed to speed up matrix problems including matrix completion, subspace tracking, and SDP relaxation. In this paper, we exhibit a step size scheme for SGD on a…
Subspace learning and matrix factorization problems have great many applications in science and engineering, and efficient algorithms are critical as dataset sizes continue to grow. Many relevant problem formulations are non-convex, and in…
Temporal difference learning and Residual Gradient methods are the most widely used temporal difference based learning algorithms; however, it has been shown that none of their objective functions is optimal w.r.t approximating the true…
Online learning algorithms require to often recompute least squares regression estimates of parameters. We study improving the computational complexity of such algorithms by using stochastic gradient descent (SGD) type schemes in place of…
Recently, there has been growing interest in developing optimization methods for solving large-scale machine learning problems. Most of these problems boil down to the problem of minimizing an average of a finite set of smooth and strongly…
Modern supervised learning techniques, particularly those using deep nets, involve fitting high dimensional labelled data sets with functions containing very large numbers of parameters. Much of this work is empirical. Interesting phenomena…
Temporal difference (TD) learning is a fundamental algorithm for estimating value functions in reinforcement learning. Recent finite-time analyses of TD with linear function approximation quantify its theoretical convergence rate. However,…
We investigate the semi-discrete Optimal Transport (OT) problem, where a continuous source measure $\mu$ is transported to a discrete target measure $\nu$, with particular attention to the OT map approximation. In this setting, Stochastic…
This paper considers convex programs with a general (possibly non-differentiable) convex objective function and Lipschitz continuous convex inequality constraint functions. A simple algorithm is developed and achieves an $O(1/t)$…
We consider distributed optimization under communication constraints for training deep learning models. We propose a new algorithm, whose parameter updates rely on two forces: a regular gradient step, and a corrective direction dictated by…
Stochastic gradient descent is the method of choice for large scale optimization of machine learning objective functions. Yet, its performance is greatly variable and heavily depends on the choice of the stepsizes. This has motivated a…
This paper proposes a thorough theoretical analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with non-increasing step sizes. First, we show that the recursion defining SGD can be provably approximated by solutions of a time inhomogeneous…
Dual averaging and gradient descent with their stochastic variants stand as the two canonical recipe books for first-order optimization: Every modern variant can be viewed as a descendant of one or the other. In the convex regime, these…