Related papers: Rod Flow: A Continuous-Time Model for Gradient Des…

We analyze the behavior of randomized coordinate gradient descent for nonconvex optimization, proving that under standard assumptions, the iterates almost surely escape strict saddle points. By formulating the method as a nonlinear random…

Motivated by recent applications in min-max optimization, we employ tools from nonlinear control theory in order to analyze a class of "historical" gradient-based methods, for which the next step lies in the span of the previously observed…

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is central to deep learning, yet the dynamical origin of its preference for flatter, more generalizable solutions remains unclear. Here, by analyzing SGD learning dynamics, we identify a nonequilibrium…

Stochastic gradient descent is an optimisation method that combines classical gradient descent with random subsampling within the target functional. In this work, we introduce the stochastic gradient process as a continuous-time…

Gradient regularization (GR) is a method that penalizes the gradient norm of the training loss during training. While some studies have reported that GR can improve generalization performance, little attention has been paid to it from the…

Adaptive gradient methods have attracted much attention of machine learning communities due to the high efficiency. However their acceleration effect in practice, especially in neural network training, is hard to analyze, theoretically. The…

Regularization is a widely recognized technique in mathematical optimization. It can be used to smooth out objective functions, refine the feasible solution set, or prevent overfitting in machine learning models. Due to its simplicity and…

We consider non-differentiable dynamic optimization problems such as those arising in robotics and subspace tracking. Given the computational constraints and the time-varying nature of the problem, a low-complexity algorithm is desirable,…

Bilevel optimization is a fundamental tool in hierarchical decision-making and has been widely applied to machine learning tasks such as hyperparameter tuning, meta-learning, and continual learning. While significant progress has been made…

We consider the problem of approximating a function by an element of a nonlinear manifold which admits a differentiable parametrization, typical examples being neural networks with differentiable activation functions or tensor networks.…

The optimal power flow (OPF) problem can be rapidly and reliably solved by employing responsive online solvers based on neural networks. The dynamic nature of renewable energy generation and the variability of power grid conditions…

In this paper, we give a sharp analysis for Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and prove that SGD is able to efficiently escape from saddle points and find an $(\epsilon, O(\epsilon^{0.5}))$-approximate second-order stationary point in…

In this paper, we study the implicit regularization of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) through the lens of {\em dynamical stability} (Wu et al., 2018). We start by revising existing stability analyses of SGD, showing how the Frobenius…

Learn to Optimize (L2O) trains deep neural network-based solvers for optimization, achieving success in accelerating convex problems and improving non-convex solutions. However, L2O lacks rigorous theoretical backing for its own training…

We present a new paradigm for Neural ODE algorithms, called ODEtoODE, where time-dependent parameters of the main flow evolve according to a matrix flow on the orthogonal group O(d). This nested system of two flows, where the parameter-flow…

The gradient flow is the evolution of fields and physical quantities along a dimensionful parameter~$t$, the flow time. We give a simple argument that relates this gradient flow and the Wilsonian renormalization group (RG) flow. We then…

The simplicity of gradient descent (GD) made it the default method for training ever-deeper and complex neural networks. Both loss functions and architectures are often explicitly tuned to be amenable to this basic local optimization. In…

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 consider a general stochastic optimization problem which is often at the core of supervised learning, such as deep learning and linear classification. We consider a standard stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method with a…

Orthogonal Gradient Descent (OGD) has emerged as a powerful method for continual learning. However, its Euclidean projections do not leverage the underlying information-geometric structure of the problem, which can lead to suboptimal…