arXiv research

We propose a general formalism of iterated random functions with semigroup property, under which exact and approximate Bayesian posterior updates can be viewed as specific instances. A convergence theory for iterated random functions is presented. As an application of the general theory we analyze convergence behaviors…

This work's purpose is to understand the dynamics of some social systems whose properties can be captured by certain iterated function systems. To achieve this intension, we start from the theory of iterated function systems, and then we study two specific economic models on random utility function and optimal stochast…

Paper improves worst-case regret bounds for RLSVI in reinforcement learning.

We study the problem of finding the maximum of a function defined on the nodes of a connected graph. The goal is to identify a node where the function obtains its maximum. We focus on local iterative algorithms, which traverse the nodes of the graph along a path, and the next iterate is chosen from the neighbors of the…

Standard ChIP-seq peak calling pipelines seek to differentiate biochemically reproducible signals of individual genomic elements from background noise. However, reproducibility alone does not imply functional regulation (e.g., enhancer activation, alternative splicing). Here we present a general-purpose, interpretable …

We propose randomized least-squares value iteration (RLSVI) -- a new reinforcement learning algorithm designed to explore and generalize efficiently via linearly parameterized value functions. We explain why versions of least-squares value iteration that use Boltzmann or epsilon-greedy exploration can be highly ineffic…

New method explains GNNs using power iteration clustering.

Strong stability of ergodic iterations proven without ergodic driving sequence.

New method reduces variance in random coordinate descent for Langevin Monte Carlo.

Improved shuffling gradient methods converge faster for nonsmooth convex optimization.

RANDPOL uses randomized networks for efficient reinforcement learning in continuous state and action MDPs.

Paper refutes conjecture on tensor power iteration convergence in overcomplete models.

We investigate the random dynamics of rational maps on the Riemann sphere and the dynamics of semigroups of rational maps on the Riemann sphere. We show that regarding random complex dynamics of polynomials, in most cases, the chaos of the averaged system disappears, due to the cooperation of the generators. We investi…

We consider the exploration-exploitation dilemma in finite-horizon reinforcement learning (RL). When the state space is large or continuous, traditional tabular approaches are unfeasible and some form of function approximation is mandatory. In this paper, we introduce an optimistically-initialized variant of the popula…

This paper improves privacy bounds for DP algorithms using $f$-DP.

The paper analyzes learning rates for non-irreducible Markov chains.

Inexact acquisition solutions in BO lead to sublinear cumulative regret.

New RL algorithm explains why deep learning works in stochastic environments.

Recursive stochastic algorithms have gained significant attention in the recent past due to data driven applications. Examples include stochastic gradient descent for solving large-scale optimization problems and empirical dynamic programming algorithms for solving Markov decision problems. These recursive stochastic a…

Enhances LMC for log-concave sampling, reducing computational cost.

New convergence rates for shuffling gradient methods without strong convexity.

New method solves constrained optimization problems efficiently.

Improved SVRG for quadratic functions achieves better performance and running times.

The Douglas Rachford algorithm is an algorithm that converges to a minimizer of a sum of two convex functions. The algorithm consists in fixed point iterations involving computations of the proximity operators of the two functions separately. The paper investigates a stochastic version of the algorithm where both funct…

A new method for LDA using randomized Kaczmarz improves accuracy for large datasets.

In this paper we propose the notion of continuous-time dynamic spectral risk-measure (DSR). Adopting a Poisson random measure setting, we define this class of dynamic coherent risk-measures in terms of certain backward stochastic differential equations. By establishing a functional limit theorem, we show that DSRs may …

In this paper we present a convergence rate analysis of inexact variants of several randomized iterative methods. Among the methods studied are: stochastic gradient descent, stochastic Newton, stochastic proximal point and stochastic subspace ascent. A common feature of these methods is that in their update rule a cert…

New algorithms solve complex minimax problems without needing derivatives.

New algorithm trains deep neural networks without global optimization.

We study the performance of a family of randomized parallel coordinate descent methods for minimizing the sum of a nonsmooth and separable convex functions. The problem class includes as a special case L1-regularized L1 regression and the minimization of the exponential loss ("AdaBoost problem"). We assume the input da…

In this paper we develop a randomized block-coordinate descent method for minimizing the sum of a smooth and a simple nonsmooth block-separable convex function and prove that it obtains an $ε$-accurate solution with probability at least $1-ρ$ in at most $O(\tfrac{n}ε \log \tfrac{1}ρ)$ iterations, where $n$ is the numbe…

Sparser Random Feature Models via IMP (ShRIMP) efficiently learns sparse models for high-dimensional data.

The paper approximates financial derivatives using neural networks and iterated integrals.

SnapBoost uses random base hypothesis classes to improve gradient boosting performance.

We address the problem of automatic generation of features for value function approximation. Bellman Error Basis Functions (BEBFs) have been shown to improve the error of policy evaluation with function approximation, with a convergence rate similar to that of value iteration. We propose a simple, fast and robust algor…

The big data trend has inspired feature-driven learning tasks, which cannot be handled by conventional machine learning models. Unstructured data produces very large binary matrices with millions of columns when converted to vector form. However, such data is often sparse, and hence can be manageable through the use of…

ParPIC clusters directed graphs using random walks and diffusion operators.

We consider the dynamics of rational semigroups (semigroups of rational maps) on the Riemann sphere. We provide proof that a random backward iteration algorithm to draw the pictures of the Julia sets, previously proven to work in the context of iteration of a rational map of degree two or more, extends to finitely gene…

This paper analyzes DONE, an online optimization algorithm that iteratively minimizes an unknown function based on costly and noisy measurements. The algorithm maintains a surrogate of the unknown function in the form of a random Fourier expansion (RFE). The surrogate is updated whenever a new measurement is available,…

Distributed learning with random features and gradient descent improves performance and reduces memory usage.

A new method solves optimization problems on the generalized Stiefel manifold using random estimates of B.

Iteratively reweighted $\ell_1$ algorithm is a popular algorithm for solving a large class of optimization problems whose objective is the sum of a Lipschitz differentiable loss function and a possibly nonconvex sparsity inducing regularizer. In this paper, motivated by the success of extrapolation techniques in accele…

Optimizes convergence rate of stochastic proximal algorithms for composite convex problems.

State-of-the-art adversarial attacks on neural networks use expensive iterative methods and numerous random restarts from different initial points. Iterative FGSM-based methods without restarts trade off performance for computational efficiency because they do not adequately explore the image space and are highly sensi…

We study the trade-offs between convergence rate and robustness to gradient errors in designing a first-order algorithm. We focus on gradient descent (GD) and accelerated gradient (AG) methods for minimizing strongly convex functions when the gradient has random errors in the form of additive white noise. With gradient…

Gradient descent with small random init mimics spectral methods for low-rank matrix recovery.

Study reveals three limiting regimes for neural network functionals.

In this work we show that randomized (block) coordinate descent methods can be accelerated by parallelization when applied to the problem of minimizing the sum of a partially separable smooth convex function and a simple separable convex function. The theoretical speedup, as compared to the serial method, and referring…