A locally-built, LLM-digested index of recent arXiv papers in quant finance, geometry/topology, and statistical ML — keyword search served straight from SQLite on this machine.
We study a mini-batch diversification scheme for stochastic gradient descent (SGD). While classical SGD relies on uniformly sampling data points to form a mini-batch, we propose a non-uniform sampling scheme based on the Determinantal Point Process (DPP). The DPP relies on a similarity measure between data points and g…
In this paper we aim to formally explain the phenomenon of fast convergence of SGD observed in modern machine learning. The key observation is that most modern learning architectures are over-parametrized and are trained to interpolate the data by driving the empirical loss (classification and regression) close to zero…
The paper analyzes time-dependent streaming data with biased gradient estimates and proposes improved stochastic optimization methods.
problem Stochastic optimization in a streaming setting with time-dependent and biased gradient estimates.
method Analysis of several first-order methods including SGD, mini-batch SGD, and time-varying mini-batch SGD, along with their Polyak-Ruppert averages.
result Time-varying mini-batch SGD methods can break long- and short-range dependence structures, and biased SGD methods can achieve comparable performance to their unbiased counterparts.
We propose a general yet simple theorem describing the convergence of SGD under the arbitrary sampling paradigm. Our theorem describes the convergence of an infinite array of variants of SGD, each of which is associated with a specific probability law governing the data selection rule used to form mini-batches. This is…
Mini-batch stochastic gradient methods (SGD) are state of the art for distributed training of deep neural networks. Drastic increases in the mini-batch sizes have lead to key efficiency and scalability gains in recent years. However, progress faces a major roadblock, as models trained with large batches often do not ge…
Mini-batch SGD with momentum is a fundamental algorithm for learning large predictive models. In this paper we develop a new analytic framework to analyze noise-averaged properties of mini-batch SGD for linear models at constant learning rates, momenta and sizes of batches. Our key idea is to consider the dynamics of t…
This work characterizes the benefits of averaging schemes widely used in conjunction with stochastic gradient descent (SGD). In particular, this work provides a sharp analysis of: (1) mini-batching, a method of averaging many samples of a stochastic gradient to both reduce the variance of the stochastic gradient estima…
The convergence speed of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) can be improved by actively selecting mini-batches. We explore sampling schemes where similar data points are less likely to be selected in the same mini-batch. In particular, we prove that such repulsive sampling schemes lowers the variance of the gradient est…
Nesterov SGD is widely used for training modern neural networks and other machine learning models. Yet, its advantages over SGD have not been theoretically clarified. Indeed, as we show in our paper, both theoretically and empirically, Nesterov SGD with any parameter selection does not in general provide acceleration o…
SGD and weight decay encourage neural networks to learn low-rank weight matrices.
problem The bias of SGD towards low-rank weight matrices in neural networks.
method The study investigates the effect of SGD and weight decay on the rank of weight matrices in neural networks, both theoretically and empirically.
result Training with SGD and weight decay induces a bias towards rank minimization in weight matrices, which becomes more pronounced with smaller batch sizes and stronger weight decay.
Neural networks learn the support of the target function through SGD's implicit regularization effect.
problem Learning the support of the target function in neural networks.
method Investigation of mini-batch SGD's ability to learn the support in the first layer of a neural network.
result Mini-batch SGD effectively learns the support in the first layer by shrinking irrelevant weights, while vanilla GD requires an explicit regularization term.
We study nonconvex finite-sum problems and analyze stochastic variance reduced gradient (SVRG) methods for them. SVRG and related methods have recently surged into prominence for convex optimization given their edge over stochastic gradient descent (SGD); but their theoretical analysis almost exclusively assumes convex…
Stochastic Gradient Descent introduces noise in training, affecting model decision boundaries.
problem Understanding the impact of noise in SGD on model decision boundaries.
method Characterized SGD and persistent SGD dynamics in a neural network model, measuring noise magnitude in both under- and over-parametrized regimes.
result Noisier algorithms lead to wider decision boundaries in constraint satisfaction problems.
SGDM accelerates faster than SGD with large batch sizes and permits broader learning rates.
problem Understanding the role of momentum in SGDM and its convergence rates.
method Analysis of SGDM convergence rates under strongly convex settings, including finite-sample rates and asymptotic normality of the averaged estimator.
result SGDM converges faster than SGD with large batch sizes and permits broader learning rates.
New bounds for KANs trained with DP-SGD, addressing correlated noise.
problem Risk bounds for Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks trained by DP-SGD with correlated noise.
method Established new optimization and population risk analysis for KANs trained with DP-SGD, addressing correlated noise.
result First optimization and population risk analysis of correlated-noise mechanisms for DP training in non-convex settings, including neural networks.
We present a generic framework for trading off fidelity and cost in computing stochastic gradients when the costs of acquiring stochastic gradients of different quality are not known a priori. We consider a mini-batch oracle that distributes a limited query budget over a number of stochastic gradients and aggregates th…
We propose a projected semi-stochastic gradient descent method with mini-batch for improving both the theoretical complexity and practical performance of the general stochastic gradient descent method (SGD). We are able to prove linear convergence under weak strong convexity assumption. This requires no strong convexit…
In this paper we focus on the problem of finding the optimal weights of the shallowest of neural networks consisting of a single Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU). These functions are of the form x→max(0,⟨w,x⟩) with w∈Rd denoting the weight vector. …
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is widely believed to perform implicit regularization when used to train deep neural networks, but the precise manner in which this occurs has thus far been elusive. We prove that SGD minimizes an average potential over the posterior distribution of weights along with an entropic regul…
Self-paced learning and hard example mining re-weight training instances to improve learning accuracy. This paper presents two improved alternatives based on lightweight estimates of sample uncertainty in stochastic gradient descent (SGD): the variance in predicted probability of the correct class across iterations of …
New research shows many batch selection methods for training work just as well as full batch training.
problem Finding optimal batch selection methods for training.
method Analysis of mini-batch Gradient Descent (GD) and Stochastic GD (SGD) with various batch selection rules.
result All mini-batch schedules, including deterministic ones, generalize optimally for smooth Lipschitz-convex/nonconvex/strongly-convex loss functions.