相关论文: A companion for the Kiefer--Wolfowitz--Blum stocha…

We explore computational aspects of maximum likelihood estimation of the mixture proportions of a nonparametric finite mixture model -- a convex optimization problem with old roots in statistics and a key member of the modern data analysis…

(Neal and Hinton, 1998) recast maximum likelihood estimation of any given latent variable model as the minimization of a free energy functional $F$, and the EM algorithm as coordinate descent applied to $F$. Here, we explore alternative…

Majorization-minimization schemes are a broad class of iterative methods targeting general optimization problems, including nonconvex, nonsmooth and stochastic. These algorithms minimize successively a sequence of upper bounds of the…

This paper considers the problem of minimizing a convex expectation function over a closed convex set, coupled with a set of inequality convex expectation constraints. We present a new stochastic approximation type algorithm, namely the…

We study stochastic approximation algorithms with Markovian noise and constant step-size $\alpha$. We develop a method based on infinitesimal generator comparisons to study the bias of the algorithm, which is the expected difference between…

Langevin simulation provides an effective way to study collisional effects in beams by reducing the six-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation to a group of stochastic ordinary differential equations. These resulting equations usually have…

This paper studies multi-level stochastic approximation algorithms. Our aim is to extend the scope of the multilevel Monte Carlo method recently introduced by Giles (Giles 2008) to the framework of stochastic optimization by means of…

The Robbins-Monro stochastic approximation algorithm is a foundation of many algorithmic frameworks for reinforcement learning (RL), and often an efficient approach to solving (or approximating the solution to) complex optimal control…

Latent variable models have been playing a central role in psychometrics and related fields. In many modern applications, the inference based on latent variable models involves one or several of the following features: (1) the presence of…

We consider the classical problem of sequential resource allocation where a decision maker must repeatedly divide a budget between several resources, each with diminishing returns. This can be recast as a specific stochastic optimization…

The non-smooth finite-sum minimization is a fundamental problem in machine learning. This paper develops a distributed stochastic proximal-gradient algorithm with random reshuffling to solve the finite-sum minimization over time-varying…

Memory is a key computational bottleneck when solving large-scale convex optimization problems such as semidefinite programs (SDPs). In this paper, we focus on the regime in which storing an $n\times n$ matrix decision variable is…

Consider a probability measure supported by a regular geodesic ball in a manifold. For any p larger than or equal to 1 we define a stochastic algorithm which converges almost surely to the p-mean of the measure. Assuming furthermore that…

We examine a wide class of stochastic approximation algorithms for solving (stochastic) nonlinear problems on Riemannian manifolds. Such algorithms arise naturally in the study of Riemannian optimization, game theory and optimal transport,…

Algorithms often carry out equally many computations for "easy" and "hard" problem instances. In particular, algorithms for finding nearest neighbors typically have the same running time regardless of the particular problem instance. In…

The theory of stochastic approximations form the theoretical foundation for studying convergence properties of many popular recursive learning algorithms in statistics, machine learning and statistical physics. Large deviations for…

We propose a new simple and explicit numerical scheme for time-homogeneous stochastic differential equations. The scheme is based on sampling increments at each time step from a skew-symmetric probability distribution, with the level of…

A stochastic conjugate gradient method for approximation of a function is proposed. The proposed method avoids computing and storing the covariance matrix in the normal equations for the least squares solution. In addition, the method…

We propose a two-stage procedure for estimating the location $\bolds{\mu}$ and size M of the maximum of a smooth d-variate regression function f. In the first stage, a preliminary estimator of $\bolds{\mu}$ obtained from a standard…

We present a message-passing based parallel version of the Space Saving algorithm designed to solve the $k$--majority problem. The algorithm determines in parallel frequent items, i.e., those whose frequency is greater than a given…