arXiv Machine Learning

Better Convergence Guarantees for Sign-Based Momentum Methods

arXiv:2507. 12091v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: This paper presents an improved analysis for sign-based methods with momentum updates.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 17

Revisiting Distributed Sign-Based Variance Reduction

The paper addresses bias introduced by aggregating local signs in distributed sign-based variance reduction methods, which hampers optimal convergence rates. By proposing an unbiased compression of recursive gradient increments to track the global gradient at the server, the authors achieve optimal convergence rates for both nonconvex stochastic and finite-sum optimization. They provide specific rate bounds for α-norms and demonstrate matching sample complexities to centralized settings for finite-sum problems.

By Wei Jiang, Zechao Li, Lijun Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Smoothed Picard Hamiltonian Monte Carlo

arXiv:2609.06906v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We develop a new low-accuracy sampler, called \emph{smoothed Picard Hamiltonian Monte Carlo}, which combines Gaussian smoothing, Picard iteration, an...

By Fan Chen, Sinho Chewi, Jianfeng Lu, Matthew S Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 11

Bilateral Trade Under Heavy-Tailed Valuations: Minimax Regret without a Variance Bound

The paper studies contextual bilateral trade with full feedback, showing that action-independent observations eliminate the usual polynomial adaptation penalty seen in heavy-tailed bandits. It presents fully parameter-free algorithms that achieve oracle minimax regret rates without knowing the moment order or scale, and derives new regret bounds for both parametric and nonparametric settings. The key technical insight is a paired squared‑loss statistic whose noise cancels, enabling model selection and yielding regret rates that interpolate between classical nonparametric and linear extremes.

By Hangyi Zhao
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

Poisson-Corrector Complexity Bounds for Moreau--Yosida Unadjusted Langevin Sampling

arXiv:2609. 12594v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study the classical Moreau--Yosida unadjusted Langevin algorithm (MYULA) for $\pi(\,\mathrm{d} x)\propto e^{-f(x)-g(x)}\,\mathrm{d} x$, where $f\in C^2(\mathbb{R}^d)$ is $m$-strongly convex with $L_f$-Lipschitz gradient and $g:\mathbb{R}^d\to\mathbb{R}$ is convex and globally $G$-Lipschitz.

By Yuchen Xin, Zhihua Zhang