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The impact of gradient noise on training deep models is widely acknowledged but not well understood. In this context, we study the distribution of gradients during training. We introduce a method, Gradient Clustering, to minimize the…
We propose a stochastic optimization method for minimizing loss functions, expressed as an expected value, that adaptively controls the batch size used in the computation of gradient approximations and the step size used to move along such…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is one of the most popular algorithms in modern machine learning. The noise encountered in these applications is different from that in many theoretical analyses of stochastic gradient algorithms. In this…
In the vanishing learning rate regime, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is now relatively well understood. In this work, we propose to study the basic properties of SGD and its variants in the non-vanishing learning rate regime. The focus…
The choice of batch-size in a stochastic optimization algorithm plays a substantial role for both optimization and generalization. Increasing the batch-size used typically improves optimization but degrades generalization. To address the…
Approximating Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) as a Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE) has allowed researchers to enjoy the benefits of studying a continuous optimization trajectory while carefully preserving the stochasticity of SGD.…
In neural networks with binary activations and or binary weights the training by gradient descent is complicated as the model has piecewise constant response. We consider stochastic binary networks, obtained by adding noises in front of…
Under mild assumptions stochastic gradient methods asymptotically achieve an optimal rate of convergence if the arithmetic mean of all iterates is returned as an approximate optimal solution. However, in the absence of stochastic noise, the…
Stochastic gradient methods enable learning probabilistic models from large amounts of data. While large step-sizes (learning rates) have shown to be best for least-squares (e.g., Gaussian noise) once combined with parameter averaging,…
Stochastic gradient descent procedures have gained popularity for parameter estimation from large data sets. However, their statistical properties are not well understood, in theory. And in practice, avoiding numerical instability requires…
Adaptive gradient optimization methods, such as Adam, are prevalent in training deep neural networks across diverse machine learning tasks due to their ability to achieve faster convergence. However, these methods often suffer from…
We propose a stepsize adaptation scheme for stochastic gradient descent. It operates directly with the loss function and rescales the gradient in order to make fixed predicted progress on the loss. We demonstrate its capabilities by…
It is known that the standard stochastic gradient descent (SGD) optimization method, as well as accelerated and adaptive SGD optimization methods such as the Adam optimizer fail to converge if the learning rates do not converge to zero (as,…
We study Stochastic Gradient Descent with AdaGrad stepsizes: a popular adaptive (self-tuning) method for first-order stochastic optimization. Despite being well studied, existing analyses of this method suffer from various shortcomings:…
Adaptive gradient methods, e.g. \textsc{Adam}, have achieved tremendous success in machine learning. Scaling the learning rate element-wisely by a certain form of second moment estimate of gradients, such methods are able to attain rapid…
We investigate high-dimensional sparse regression when both the noise and the design matrix exhibit heavy-tailed behavior. Standard algorithms typically fail in this regime, as heavy-tailed covariates distort the empirical risk geometry. We…
In this paper, we propose a stochastic search algorithm for solving general optimization problems with little structure. The algorithm iteratively finds high quality solutions by randomly sampling candidate solutions from a parameterized…
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…
This paper theoretically reanalyzes the convergence of the mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for a structured minimization problem involving a finite-sum function with its gradient being stochastically approximated, and an…
Online minimization of an unknown convex function over the interval $[0,1]$ is considered under first-order stochastic bandit feedback, which returns a random realization of the gradient of the function at each query point. Without knowing…