Doubly stochastic primal dual splitting algorithm with variance reduction for saddle point problems

The (structured) saddle-point problem involving the infimal convolution in real Hilbert spaces finds applicability in many applied mathematics disciplines. For this purpose, we develop a stochastic primal-dual splitting (PDS) algorithm with loopless variance-reduction (VR) for solving this generic problem. A PDS algorithm aims to overcome the well-known shortcomings of common splitting methods by solving the … Read more

A primal-dual majorization-minimization method for large-scale linear programs

We present a primal-dual majorization-minimization method for solving large-scale linear programs. A smooth barrier augmented Lagrangian (SBAL) function with strict convexity for the dual linear program is derived. The majorization-minimization approach is naturally introduced to develop the smoothness and convexity of the SBAL function. Our method only depends on a factorization of the constant matrix … Read more

Error Bound and Isocost Imply Linear Convergence of DCA-based Algorithms to D-stationarity

We consider a class of structured nonsmooth difference-of-convex minimization, which can be written as the difference of two convex functions possibly nonsmooth with the second one in the format of the maximum of a finite convex smooth functions. We propose two extrapolation proximal difference-of-convex based algorithms for potential acceleration to converge to a weak/standard d-stationary … Read more

A unified analysis of descent sequences in weakly convex optimization, including convergence rates for bundle methods

We present a framework for analyzing convergence and local rates of convergence of a class of descent algorithms, assuming the objective function is weakly convex. The framework is general, in the sense that it combines the possibility of explicit iterations (based on the gradient or a subgradient at the current iterate), implicit iterations (using a … Read more

Survey Descent: A Multipoint Generalization of Gradient Descent for Nonsmooth Optimization

For strongly convex objectives that are smooth, the classical theory of gradient descent ensures linear convergence relative to the number of gradient evaluations. An analogous nonsmooth theory is challenging. Even when the objective is smooth at every iterate, the corresponding local models are unstable and the number of cutting planes invoked by traditional remedies is … Read more

Minimization of L1 over L2 for sparse signal recovery with convergence guarantee

The ratio of the $L_1$ and $L_2$ norms, denoted by $L_1/L_2$, becomes attractive due to its scale-invariant property when approximating the $L_0$ norm to promote sparsity. In this paper, we incorporate the $L_1/L_2$ formalism into an unconstrained model in order to deal with both noiseless and noisy observations. To design an efficient algorithm, we derive … Read more

On the linear convergence of the forward-backward splitting algorithm

In this paper, we establish a linear convergence result for the forward-backward splitting algorithm in the finding a zero of the sum of two maximal monotone operators, where one of them is set-valued strongly monotone and the other is Lipschitz continuous. We show that our convergence rate is better than Douglas–Rachford splitting algorithm’s rate used … Read more

Stochastic algorithms with geometric step decay converge linearly on sharp functions

Stochastic (sub)gradient methods require step size schedule tuning to perform well in practice. Classical tuning strategies decay the step size polynomially and lead to optimal sublinear rates on (strongly) convex problems. An alternative schedule, popular in nonconvex optimization, is called geometric step decay and proceeds by halving the step size after every few epochs. In … Read more

Inexact alternating projections on nonconvex sets

Given two arbitrary closed sets in Euclidean space, a simple transversality condition guarantees that the method of alternating projections converges locally, at linear rate, to a point in the intersection. Exact projection onto nonconvex sets is typically intractable, but we show that computationally-cheap inexact projections may suffice instead. In particular, if one set is defined … Read more

Variational analysis perspective on linear convergence of some first order methods for nonsmooth convex optimization problems

We understand linear convergence of some first-order methods such as the proximal gradient method (PGM), the proximal alternating linearized minimization (PALM) algorithm and the randomized block coordinate proximal gradient method (R-BCPGM) for minimizing the sum of a smooth convex function and a nonsmooth convex function from a variational analysis perspective. We introduce a new analytic … Read more