Much recent interest has focused on the design of optimization algorithms from the discretization of an associated optimization flow, i.e., a system of differential equations (ODEs) whose trajectories solve an associated optimization problem. Such a design approach poses an important problem: how to find a principled methodology to design and discretize appropriate ODEs. This paper aims to provide a solution to this problem through the use of contraction theory. We first introduce general mathematical results that explain how contraction theory guarantees the stability of the implicit and explicit Euler integration methods. Then, we propose a novel system of ODEs, namely the Accelerated-Contracting-Nesterov flow, and use contraction theory to establish it is an optimization flow with exponential convergence rate, from which the linear convergence rate of its associated optimization algorithm is immediately established. Remarkably, a simple explicit Euler discretization of this flow corresponds to the Nesterov acceleration method. Finally, we present how our approach leads to performance guarantees in the design of optimization algorithms for time-varying optimization problems.
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We introduce and analyze various Regularized Combined Field Integral Equations (CFIER) formulations of time-harmonic Navier equations in media with piece-wise constant material properties. These formulations can be derived systematically starting from suitable coercive approximations of Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators (DtN), and we present a periodic pseudodifferential calculus framework within which the well posedness of CIER formulations can be established. We also use the DtN approximations to derive and analyze Optimized Schwarz (OS) methods for the solution of elastodynamics transmission problems. The pseudodifferential calculus we develop in this paper relies on careful singularity splittings of the kernels of Navier boundary integral operators which is also the basis of high-order Nystr\"om quadratures for their discretizations. Based on these high-order discretizations we investigate the rate of convergence of iterative solvers applied to CFIER and OS formulations of scattering and transmission problems. We present a variety of numerical results that illustrate that the CFIER methodology leads to important computational savings over the classical CFIE one, whenever iterative solvers are used for the solution of the ensuing discretized boundary integral equations. Finally, we show that the OS methods are competitive in the high-frequency high-contrast regime.
The monotone variational inequality is a central problem in mathematical programming that unifies and generalizes many important settings such as smooth convex optimization, two-player zero-sum games, convex-concave saddle point problems, etc. The extragradient method by Korpelevich [1976] is one of the most popular methods for solving monotone variational inequalities. Despite its long history and intensive attention from the optimization and machine learning community, the following major problem remains open. What is the last-iterate convergence rate of the extragradient method for monotone and Lipschitz variational inequalities with constraints? We resolve this open problem by showing a tight $O\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}\right)$ last-iterate convergence rate for arbitrary convex feasible sets, which matches the lower bound by Golowich et al. [2020]. Our rate is measured in terms of the standard gap function. The technical core of our result is the monotonicity of a new performance measure -- the tangent residual, which can be viewed as an adaptation of the norm of the operator that takes the local constraints into account. To establish the monotonicity, we develop a new approach that combines the power of the sum-of-squares programming with the low dimensionality of the update rule of the extragradient method. We believe our approach has many additional applications in the analysis of iterative methods.
We employ kernel-based approaches that use samples from a probability distribution to approximate a Kolmogorov operator on a manifold. The self-tuning variable-bandwidth kernel method [Berry & Harlim, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal., 40(1):68--96, 2016] computes a large, sparse matrix that approximates the differential operator. Here, we use the eigendecomposition of the discretization to (i) invert the operator, solving a differential equation, and (ii) represent gradient vector fields on the manifold. These methods only require samples from the underlying distribution and, therefore, can be applied in high dimensions or on geometrically complex manifolds when spatial discretizations are not available. We also employ an efficient $k$-$d$ tree algorithm to compute the sparse kernel matrix, which is a computational bottleneck.
In this paper we get error bounds for fully discrete approximations of infinite horizon problems via the dynamic programming approach. It is well known that considering a time discretization with a positive step size $h$ an error bound of size $h$ can be proved for the difference between the value function (viscosity solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation corresponding to the infinite horizon) and the value function of the discrete time problem. However, including also a spatial discretization based on elements of size $k$ an error bound of size $O(k/h)$ can be found in the literature for the error between the value functions of the continuous problem and the fully discrete problem. In this paper we revise the error bound of the fully discrete method and prove, under similar assumptions to those of the time discrete case, that the error of the fully discrete case is in fact $O(h+k)$ which gives first order in time and space for the method. This error bound matches the numerical experiments of many papers in the literature in which the behaviour $1/h$ from the bound $O(k/h)$ have not been observed.
Computing a maximum independent set (MaxIS) is a fundamental NP-hard problem in graph theory, which has important applications in a wide spectrum of fields. Since graphs in many applications are changing frequently over time, the problem of maintaining a MaxIS over dynamic graphs has attracted increasing attention over the past few years. Due to the intractability of maintaining an exact MaxIS, this paper aims to develop efficient algorithms that can maintain an approximate MaxIS with an accuracy guarantee theoretically. In particular, we propose a framework that maintains a $(\frac{\Delta}{2} + 1)$-approximate MaxIS over dynamic graphs and prove that it achieves a constant approximation ratio in many real-world networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first non-trivial approximability result for the dynamic MaxIS problem. Following the framework, we implement an efficient linear-time dynamic algorithm and a more effective dynamic algorithm with near-linear expected time complexity. Our thorough experiments over real and synthetic graphs demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms, especially when the graph is highly dynamic.
We provide a decision theoretic analysis of bandit experiments. The setting corresponds to a dynamic programming problem, but solving this directly is typically infeasible. Working within the framework of diffusion asymptotics, we define suitable notions of asymptotic Bayes and minimax risk for bandit experiments. For normally distributed rewards, the minimal Bayes risk can be characterized as the solution to a nonlinear second-order partial differential equation (PDE). Using a limit of experiments approach, we show that this PDE characterization also holds asymptotically under both parametric and non-parametric distribution of the rewards. The approach further describes the state variables it is asymptotically sufficient to restrict attention to, and therefore suggests a practical strategy for dimension reduction. The upshot is that we can approximate the dynamic programming problem defining the bandit experiment with a PDE which can be efficiently solved using sparse matrix routines. We derive the optimal Bayes and minimax policies from the numerical solutions to these equations. The proposed policies substantially dominate existing methods such as Thompson sampling. The framework also allows for substantial generalizations to the bandit problem such as time discounting and pure exploration motives.
This paper addresses the numerical solution of nonlinear eigenvector problems such as the Gross-Pitaevskii and Kohn-Sham equation arising in computational physics and chemistry. These problems characterize critical points of energy minimization problems on the infinite-dimensional Stiefel manifold. To efficiently compute minimizers, we propose a novel Riemannian gradient descent method induced by an energy-adaptive metric. Quantified convergence of the methods is established under suitable assumptions on the underlying problem. A non-monotone line search and the inexact evaluation of Riemannian gradients substantially improve the overall efficiency of the method. Numerical experiments illustrate the performance of the method and demonstrates its competitiveness with well-established schemes.
We study the acceleration of the Local Polynomial Interpolation-based Gradient Descent method (LPI-GD) recently proposed for the approximate solution of empirical risk minimization problems (ERM). We focus on loss functions that are strongly convex and smooth with condition number $\sigma$. We additionally assume the loss function is $\eta$-H\"older continuous with respect to the data. The oracle complexity of LPI-GD is $\tilde{O}\left(\sigma m^d \log(1/\varepsilon)\right)$ for a desired accuracy $\varepsilon$, where $d$ is the dimension of the parameter space, and $m$ is the cardinality of an approximation grid. The factor $m^d$ can be shown to scale as $O((1/\varepsilon)^{d/2\eta})$. LPI-GD has been shown to have better oracle complexity than gradient descent (GD) and stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for certain parameter regimes. We propose two accelerated methods for the ERM problem based on LPI-GD and show an oracle complexity of $\tilde{O}\left(\sqrt{\sigma} m^d \log(1/\varepsilon)\right)$. Moreover, we provide the first empirical study on local polynomial interpolation-based gradient methods and corroborate that LPI-GD has better performance than GD and SGD in some scenarios, and the proposed methods achieve acceleration.
One of the most important problems in system identification and statistics is how to estimate the unknown parameters of a given model. Optimization methods and specialized procedures, such as Empirical Minimization (EM) can be used in case the likelihood function can be computed. For situations where one can only simulate from a parametric model, but the likelihood is difficult or impossible to evaluate, a technique known as the Two-Stage (TS) Approach can be applied to obtain reliable parametric estimates. Unfortunately, there is currently a lack of theoretical justification for TS. In this paper, we propose a statistical decision-theoretical derivation of TS, which leads to Bayesian and Minimax estimators. We also show how to apply the TS approach on models for independent and identically distributed samples, by computing quantiles of the data as a first step, and using a linear function as the second stage. The proposed method is illustrated via numerical simulations.
When and why can a neural network be successfully trained? This article provides an overview of optimization algorithms and theory for training neural networks. First, we discuss the issue of gradient explosion/vanishing and the more general issue of undesirable spectrum, and then discuss practical solutions including careful initialization and normalization methods. Second, we review generic optimization methods used in training neural networks, such as SGD, adaptive gradient methods and distributed methods, and theoretical results for these algorithms. Third, we review existing research on the global issues of neural network training, including results on bad local minima, mode connectivity, lottery ticket hypothesis and infinite-width analysis.
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