Related papers: A Gradually Reinforced Sample-Average-Approximatio…
In this paper, a novel method to adaptively approximate the solution to stochastic differential equations, which is based on compressive sampling and sparse recovery, is introduced. The proposed method consider the problem of sparse…
We propose dynamic sampled stochastic approximation (SA) methods for stochastic optimization with a heavy-tailed distribution (with finite 2nd moment). The objective is the sum of a smooth convex function with a convex regularizer.…
Decision-makers often encounter uncertainty, and the distribution of uncertain parameters plays a crucial role in making reliable decisions. However, complete information is rarely available. The sample average approximation (SAA) approach…
In semi-supervised learning, unlabeled samples can be utilized through augmentation and consistency regularization. However, we observed certain samples, even undergoing strong augmentation, are still correctly classified with high…
Stochastic approximation Monte Carlo (SAMC) has recently been proposed by Liang, Liu and Carroll [J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 102 (2007) 305--320] as a general simulation and optimization algorithm. In this paper, we propose to improve its…
We propose a homotopy sampling procedure, loosely based on importance sampling. Starting from a known probability distribution, the homotopy procedure generates the unknown normalization of a target distribution. In the context of…
Bayesian methods and their implementations by means of sophisticated Monte Carlo techniques, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and particle filters, have become very popular in signal processing over the last years. However, in many…
The homotopy analysis method known from its successful applications to obtain quasi-analytical approximations of solutions of ordinary and partial differential equations is applied to stochastic differential equations with Gaussian…
This paper presents comparison of several stochastic optimization algorithms developed by authors in their previous works for the solution of some problems arising in Civil Engineering. The introduced optimization methods are: the integer…
Despite the development of numerous adaptive optimizers, tuning the learning rate of stochastic gradient methods remains a major roadblock to obtaining good practical performance in machine learning. Rather than changing the learning rate…
We develop the method of stochastic modified equations (SME), in which stochastic gradient algorithms are approximated in the weak sense by continuous-time stochastic differential equations. We exploit the continuous formulation together…
The progressive hedging algorithm (PHA) is a cornerstone among algorithms for large-scale stochastic programming problems. However, its traditional implementation is hindered by some limitations, including the requirement to solve all…
Stochastic approximation (SA) is a powerful and scalable computational method for iteratively estimating the solution of optimization problems in the presence of randomness, particularly well-suited for large-scale and streaming data…
One key challenge for solving a general stochastic optimization problem with expectations in the objective and constraint functions using ordinary stochastic iterative methods lies in the infeasibility issue caused by the randomness over…
Stochastic variance reduced methods have shown strong performance in solving finite-sum problems. However, these methods usually require the users to manually tune the step-size, which is time-consuming or even infeasible for some…
Chance constrained programming (CCP) refers to a type of optimization problem with uncertain constraints that are satisfied with at least a prescribed probability level. In this work, we study the sample average approximation (SAA) of…
Meta-analyses require an effect-size estimate and its corresponding sampling variance from primary studies. In some cases, estimators for the sampling variance of a given effect size statistic may not exist, necessitating the derivation of…
Stochastic approximation (SA) is a key method used in statistical learning. Recently, its non-asymptotic convergence analysis has been considered in many papers. However, most of the prior analyses are made under restrictive assumptions…
We introduce a method to improve the tractability of the well-known Sample Average Approximation (SAA) without compromising important theoretical properties, such as convergence in probability and the consistency of an independent and…
The stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA) is widely used to perform exact forward simulation of discrete stochastic processes in biology. However, the computational cost, driven by sequential event-by-event sampling across large ensembles,…