The block Kaczmarz method is an iterative scheme for solving overdetermined least-squares problems. At each step, the algorithm projects the current iterate onto the solution space of a subset of the constraints. This paper describes a block Kaczmarz algorithm that uses a randomized control scheme to choose the subset at each step. This algorithm is the first block Kaczmarz method with an (expected) linear rate of convergence that can be expressed in terms of the geometric properties of the matrix and its submatrices. The analysis reveals that the algorithm is most effective when it is given a good row paving of the matrix, a partition of the rows into well-conditioned blocks. The operator theory literature provides detailed information about the existence and construction of good row pavings. Together, these results yield an efficient block Kaczmarz scheme that applies to many overdetermined least-squares problem.
The paper @cite_19 of Strohmer and Vershynin is significant because it provides the first explicit convergence proof for a randomized variant of the Kaczmarz algorithm. This work establishes that a randomized control scheme leads to an expected linear convergence rate, which can be written in terms of geometric properties of the matrix. In contrast, deterministic convergence analyses that appear in the literature often lead to expressions, e.g., [Eqn. (1.2)] XZ02:Method-Alternating , whose geometric meaning is not evident.
@cite_19
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We study randomized variants of two classical algorithms: coordinate descent for systems of linear equations and iterated projections for systems of linear inequalities. Expanding on a recent randomized iterated projection algorithm of Strohmer and Vershynin (Strohmer, T., R. Vershynin. 2009. A randomized Kaczmarz algorithm with exponential convergence. J. Fourier Anal. Appl. 15 262–278) for systems of linear equations, we show that, under appropriate probability distributions, the linear rates of convergence (in expectation) can be bounded in terms of natural linear-algebraic condition numbers for the problems. We relate these condition measures to distances to ill-posedness and discuss generalizations to convex systems under metric regularity assumptions. In this paper we show how to accelerate randomized coordinate descent methods and achieve faster convergence rates without paying per-iteration costs in asymptotic running time. In particular, we show how to generalize and efficiently implement a method proposed by Nesterov, giving faster asymptotic running times for various algorithms that use standard coordinate descent as a black box. In addition to providing a proof of convergence for this new general method, we show that it is numerically stable, efficiently implementable, and in certain regimes, asymptotically optimal. To highlight the power of this algorithm, we show how it can used to create faster linear system solvers in several regimes: - We show how this method achieves a faster asymptotic runtime than conjugate gradient for solving a broad class of symmetric positive definite systems of equations. - We improve the convergence guarantees for Kaczmarz methods, a popular technique for image reconstruction and solving over determined systems of equations, by accelerating an algorithm of Strohmer and Vershynin. - We achieve the best known running time for solving Symmetric Diagonally Dominant (SDD) system of equations in the unit-cost RAM model, obtaining a running time of O(m log3 2n (log log n)1 2 log((log n) eps)) by accelerating a recent solver by Beyond the independent interest of these solvers, we believe they highlight the versatility of the approach of this paper and we hope that they will open the door for further algorithmic improvements in the future. We obtain an improved finite-sample guarantee on the linear convergence of stochastic gradient descent for smooth and strongly convex objectives, improving from a quadratic dependence on the conditioning @math (where @math is a bound on the smoothness and @math on the strong convexity) to a linear dependence on @math . Furthermore, we show how reweighting the sampling distribution (i.e. importance sampling) is necessary in order to further improve convergence, and obtain a linear dependence in the average smoothness, dominating previous results. We also discuss importance sampling for SGD more broadly and show how it can improve convergence also in other scenarios. Our results are based on a connection we make between SGD and the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm, which allows us to transfer ideas between the separate bodies of literature studying each of the two methods. In particular, we recast the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm as an instance of SGD, and apply our results to prove its exponential convergence, but to the solution of a weighted least squares problem rather than the original least squares problem. We then present a modified Kaczmarz algorithm with partially biased sampling which does converge to the original least squares solution with the same exponential convergence rate. In this paper we show how to accelerate randomized coordinate descent methods and achieve faster convergence rates without paying per-iteration costs in asymptotic running time. In particular, we show how to generalize and efficiently implement a method proposed by Nesterov, giving faster asymptotic running times for various algorithms that use standard coordinate descent as a black box. In addition to providing a proof of convergence for this new general method, we show that it is numerically stable, efficiently implementable, and in certain regimes, asymptotically optimal. To highlight the computational power of this algorithm, we show how it can used to create faster linear system solvers in several regimes: - We show how this method achieves a faster asymptotic runtime than conjugate gradient for solving a broad class of symmetric positive definite systems of equations. - We improve the best known asymptotic convergence guarantees for Kaczmarz methods, a popular technique for image reconstruction and solving overdetermined systems of equations, by accelerating a randomized algorithm of Strohmer and Vershynin. - We achieve the best known running time for solving Symmetric Diagonally Dominant (SDD) system of equations in the unit-cost RAM model, obtaining an O(m log^ 3 2 n (log log n)^ 1 2 log (log n eps)) asymptotic running time by accelerating a recent solver by Beyond the independent interest of these solvers, we believe they highlight the versatility of the approach of this paper and we hope that they will open the door for further algorithmic improvements in the future.