Saddle-point optimization problems are an important class of optimization problems with applications to game theory, multi-agent reinforcement learning and machine learning. A majority of the rich literature available for saddle-point optimization has focused on the offline setting. In this paper, we study nonstationar…
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48 results for “saddle points”
FeDualEx tackles saddle point optimization in federated learning with composite objectives.
problem Saddle point optimization with constraints and non-smooth regularization in federated learning.
method Federated Dual Extrapolation (FeDualEx) algorithm for saddle point optimization and composite objectives.
result FeDualEx effectively solves saddle point optimization problems with composite objectives in federated learning.
Nonconvex optimization algorithms with random initialization have attracted increasing attention recently. It has been showed that many first-order methods always avoid saddle points with random starting points. In this paper, we answer a question: can the nonconvex heavy-ball algorithms with random initialization avoi…
A new method helps escape saddle points in non-convex optimization.
problem Escaping saddle points in non-convex optimization problems.
method CNC-SCSG method using a separate SGD step to help escape from strict saddle points.
result The method converges to a second-order stationary point with a rate of .
Gradient descent can take exponentially long to escape saddle points in 2D.
problem Worst-case inefficiency of gradient descent in non-convex optimization.
method Analysis of gradient descent's performance on 2D functions.
result Gradient descent can take exponentially long to escape saddle points.
New methods help escape strict saddle points in nonsmooth optimization.
problem Escaping strict saddle points in nonsmooth optimization.
method An inexact stochastically perturbed gradient method applied to the Moreau envelope.
result A variety of algorithms for nonsmooth optimization can efficiently escape strict saddle points of the Moreau envelope.
New insights into matrix factorization show strict saddles have bounded eigenvalues.
problem Understanding the nature of critical points in matrix factorization.
method Analyzing orbits of critical points under the general linear group and identifying canonical points.
result Minimum eigenvalue of strict saddles is not uniformly bounded below zero.
A new algorithm trains deep neural networks by adding neurons greedily.
problem Training deep neural networks efficiently and effectively.
method Neuron Pursuit (NP) algorithm, which alternates between neuron addition and loss minimization.
result The algorithm can train deep neural networks efficiently and effectively.
New method solves saddle-point problems faster than existing methods.
problem Large-scale saddle-point problems in optimization.
method Sequential subspace optimization with proximal regularization.
result Significantly better convergence compared to first-order methods.
Gradient-based optimization methods are the most popular choice for finding local optima for classical minimization and saddle point problems. Here, we highlight a systemic issue of gradient dynamics that arise for saddle point problems, namely the presence of undesired stable stationary points that are no local optima…
This paper extends Newton's method to distributed learning, avoiding saddle points and handling Byzantine workers.
problem Avoiding saddle points in distributed non-convex optimization, especially in the presence of Byzantine workers.
method Extends cubic-regularized Newton method to distributed framework, addressing communication bottlenecks and Byzantine attacks.
result The method achieves improved iteration complexity compared to first-order methods, with a 25% improvement in experiments.
PWGF escapes saddle points in nonconvex optimization.
problem Escaping saddle points in nonconvex optimization.
method PWGF uses noisy perturbations via Gaussian process to escape saddle points.
result PWGF achieves second-order optimality for nonconvex objectives.
DLNs dynamics change with variance, leading to saddle-to-saddle training phases.
problem Understanding the dynamics of DLNs with varying initialization variance.
method Analyzing the phase transition of DLNs' dynamics as variance changes.
result Gradient descent visits a sequence of saddles, reaching a sparse global minimum.
Last iterate of Extragradient algorithm converges slower than averaged iterates in saddle point problems.
problem Smooth convex-concave saddle point problems
method Analysis of Extragradient (EG) algorithm convergence rates
result The last iterate of EG converges at a rate of O(1/√T), compared to O(1/T) for averaged iterates
Last-Iterate Convergence of Saddle-Point Optimizers via High-Resolution Differential Equationsmath.OC
New ODE models show saddle-point optimization methods converge differently, with last-iterate convergence for OGDA.
problem Analyzing convergence properties of saddle-point optimization methods.
method High-Resolution Differential Equations (HRDEs) to design differential equation models for saddle-point optimization methods.
result HRDEs reveal last-iterate convergence for Optimistic Gradient Descent Ascent (OGDA) in bilinear games.
Houdini finds high-dimensional saddle points under few constraints.
problem Escaping from saddle points in high-dimensional spaces with constraints.
method Gradient descent methods under logarithmic inequality constraints.
result Polynomial time algorithms for escaping saddle points under constraints.
Extends saddle-point method for large-time volatility smiles.
problem Analyzing large-time volatility smiles in financial models.
method Saddle-point approach to derive large-time model-implied volatility smiles.
result Provides theoretical foundation and wide class of arbitrage-free parametrizations.
Deep ReLU networks escape from the origin via saddle points with a low-rank bias.
problem Understanding the dynamics of gradient descent in deep ReLU networks.
method Analysis of escape directions and singular values of weight matrices.
result The first singular value of the -th layer weight matrix is at least larger than any other singular value.
Paper defines saddle points in asymmetric Dynkin games using martingale theory.
problem Tackles saddle point conditions in asymmetric Dynkin games with partial information.
method Uses martingale theory to identify super and submartingales related to equilibrium payoffs.
result Characterizes saddle point strategies in terms of equilibrium payoffs' dynamics and Doob-Meyer decompositions.
Algorithm classifies saddle-focus singularities in Hamiltonian systems.
problem Classifying nondegenerate saddle-focus singularities in integrable Hamiltonian systems.
method Developed an algorithm based on semi-local equivalence to represent singularities as almost direct products.
result Obtained complete lists of saddle-focus singularities of complexities 1, 2, and 3.
New algorithm solves saddle point problems in Banach spaces.
problem Solving saddle point problems in real reflexive Banach spaces.
method Stochastic Bregman Primal-Dual Splitting Algorithm with relative smoothness and strong convexity assumptions.
result Almost sure convergence to saddle points under various conditions.
Classifies Morse flows on 3-sphere with specific saddle connections.
problem Classifying Morse-Smale flows on a 3-sphere with specific saddle connections.
method Used generalized Heegaard diagrams (Pr-diagrams) to classify flows.
result Found all possible, up to homeomorphism, ways to embed two circles in a 2-sphere with no more than 10 points of transversal intersection.
Directional Convergence Near Small Initializations and Saddles in Two-Homogeneous Neural Networkscs.LG
The paper studies neural networks' convergence near origin and saddle points.
problem Directional convergence of neural networks near small initializations and saddle points.
method Gradient flow dynamics analysis of two-homogeneous neural networks.
result Neural networks' weights approximately converge in direction to KKT points for small initializations.
GenFlow optimizes faster, avoiding saddle points in fixed time.
problem Designing efficient optimization algorithms for convex and non-convex functions.
method Introduces GenFlow and momentum variants with fixed-time convergence guarantees.
result GenFlow and momentum variants converge to optimal solutions in fixed time for PL functions and evade saddle points uniformly.
WSFN overcomes saddle points for non-convex functionals in Wasserstein space.
problem Minimizing non-convex functionals over the Wasserstein space with saddle point avoidance.
method WSFN is a second-order method that preconditions the Wasserstein gradient to avoid saddle points.
result WSFN escapes saddle regions and reaches a global minimizer in polynomial time.
Study precise rates of horizontal gap shrinkage on generic translation surfaces.
problem Understanding precise decay rates of horizontal gaps in translation surfaces.
method Analyzing saddle connections and their angles on translation surfaces.
result Obtained precise decay rates for the difference in angle between almost horizontal saddle connections.
We study robust distributed learning that involves minimizing a non-convex loss function with saddle points. We consider the Byzantine setting where some worker machines have abnormal or even arbitrary and adversarial behavior. In this setting, the Byzantine machines may create fake local minima near a saddle point tha…
Although gradient descent (GD) almost always escapes saddle points asymptotically [Lee et al., 2016], this paper shows that even with fairly natural random initialization schemes and non-pathological functions, GD can be significantly slowed down by saddle points, taking exponential time to escape. On the other hand, g…
Loss functions with a large number of saddle points are one of the major obstacles for training modern machine learning models efficiently. First-order methods such as gradient descent are usually the methods of choice for training machine learning models. However, these methods converge to saddle points for certain ch…
DEO uses gradient information to escape saddle points in neural networks.
problem Training deep neural networks struggles with flat regions and saddle points.
method Dimer-Enhanced Optimization (DEO) uses gradient information to estimate curvature and escape saddle points.
result DEO improves training efficiency and performance compared to standard first-order methods.
This paper analyzes saddle points and minimax points in non-convex smooth games.
problem Understanding local optimal points in non-convex smooth games.
method Comprehensive analysis of local minimax points, including their optimality conditions and stability.
result Local saddle points are uniformly local minimax points under mild continuity assumptions.
Local search heuristics for non-convex optimizations are popular in applied machine learning. However, in general it is hard to guarantee that such algorithms even converge to a local minimum, due to the existence of complicated saddle point structures in high dimensions. Many functions have degenerate saddle points su…
New algorithm helps escape saddle points in optimization problems.
problem Optimizing smooth non-convex functions to avoid saddle points.
method Perturbed Saddle-escape Descent (PSD) algorithm with explicit constants.
result PSD finds approximate second-order stationary points efficiently.
Equivalence of convex optimization, saddle-point problems, and variational inequalities is a well-established concept. The variational inequality (VI) is a static problem which is studied under dynamical settings using a framework called the projected dynamical system, whose stationary points coincide with the static s…
Study proves existence and properties of shrinkers in area-preserving curve-shortening flow.
problem Existence and properties of shrinkers in area-preserving curve-shortening flow.
method Using known results on λ-curves, we prove existence of non-circular shrinkers and deduce a saddle-point property.
result Existence and properties of shrinkers in area-preserving curve-shortening flow, including a saddle-point property.
Simple gradient descent algorithm escapes saddle points efficiently.
problem Escaping saddle points in nonconvex optimization.
method Gradient-based algorithm with polynomial iterations.
result Outputs ε-approximate second-order stationary points efficiently.
In this paper we consider solving saddle point problems using two variants of Gradient Descent-Ascent algorithms, Extra-gradient (EG) and Optimistic Gradient Descent Ascent (OGDA) methods. We show that both of these algorithms admit a unified analysis as approximations of the classical proximal point method for solving…
This paper shows that a perturbed form of gradient descent converges to a second-order stationary point in a number iterations which depends only poly-logarithmically on dimension (i.e., it is almost "dimension-free"). The convergence rate of this procedure matches the well-known convergence rate of gradient descent to…
New method simplifies optimization landscapes by transforming saddle points.
problem Saddle points hinder non-convex optimization in machine learning.
method Variable elimination algorithms, like VarPro, are compared to reveal geometric insights.
result Variable elimination reshapes critical point structure, creating local maxima from saddle points.
Nonconvex optimization problems such as the ones in training deep neural networks suffer from a phenomenon called saddle point proliferation. This means that there are a vast number of high error saddle points present in the loss function. Second order methods have been tremendously successful and widely adopted in the…
We establish that first-order methods avoid saddle points for almost all initializations. Our results apply to a wide variety of first-order methods, including gradient descent, block coordinate descent, mirror descent and variants thereof. The connecting thread is that such algorithms can be studied from a dynamical s…
A distributed optimization method solves saddle point problems with strong concavity and convexity.
problem Solving saddle point problems with distributed and heterogeneous data.
method GT-GDA, a distributed first-order method using gradient tracking and consensus over coupling matrices.
result GT-GDA converges linearly to the unique saddle point solution under specific conditions.
New method stabilizes saddle-point optimization with unbounded gradients.
problem Stochastic saddle-point optimization faces instability due to large gradients.
method Proposes a regularization technique to stabilize iterates.
result Yields meaningful performance guarantees even with unbounded gradients.
We consider saddle point problems which objective functions are the average of strongly convex-concave individual components. Recently, researchers exploit variance reduction methods to solve such problems and achieve linear-convergence guarantees. However, these methods have a slow convergence when the condition n…
We analyze stochastic gradient descent for optimizing non-convex functions. In many cases for non-convex functions the goal is to find a reasonable local minimum, and the main concern is that gradient updates are trapped in saddle points. In this paper we identify strict saddle property for non-convex problem that allo…
Study describes Morse flows on a torus with up to six singular points.
problem Understanding the structure of Morse flows on a torus with a hole.
method Used separatrix diagrams to describe topological structures and saddle-node bifurcations.
result Identified all possible topological structures of Morse flows with at most six singular points.
We extend the Frank-Wolfe (FW) optimization algorithm to solve constrained smooth convex-concave saddle point (SP) problems. Remarkably, the method only requires access to linear minimization oracles. Leveraging recent advances in FW optimization, we provide the first proof of convergence of a FW-type saddle point solv…
On the modes of convergence of Stochastic Optimistic Mirror Descent (OMD) for saddle point problemsmath.OC
In this article, we study the convergence of Mirror Descent (MD) and Optimistic Mirror Descent (OMD) for saddle point problems satisfying the notion of coherence as proposed in Mertikopoulos et al. We prove convergence of OMD with exact gradients for coherent saddle point problems, and show that monotone convergence on…