The Kaczmarz method is an iterative method for solving overcomplete linear systems of equations Ax=b. The randomized version of the Kaczmarz method put forth by Strohmer and Vershynin iteratively projects onto a randomly chosen solution space given by a single row of the matrix A and converges exponentially in expectation to the solution of a consistent system. In this paper we analyze two block versions of the method each with a randomized projection, that converge in expectation to the least squares solution of inconsistent systems. Our approach utilizes a paving of the matrix A to guarantee exponential convergence, and suggests that paving yields a significant improvement in performance in certain regimes. The proposed method is an extension of the block Kaczmarz method analyzed by Needell and Tropp and the Randomized Extended Kaczmarz method of Zouzias and Freris. The contribution is thus two-fold; unlike the standard Kaczmarz method, our methods converge to the least-squares solution of inconsistent systems, and by using appropriate blocks of the matrix this convergence can be significantly accelerated. Numerical experiments suggest that the proposed algorithm can indeed lead to advantages in practice.
Recently, Strohmer and Vershynin @cite_19 derived the first provable convergence rate of the Kaczmarz method, showing that when each row is selected with probability proportional to its norm the method exhibits the expected linear convergence of . This work was extended to the inconsistent case in @cite_1 , which shows linear convergence to within some fixed radius of the least squares solution. The almost-sure guarantees were recently derived by Chen and Powell @cite_37 . To break the convergence barrier, relaxation parameters can be introduced, so that each iterate is over or under projected onto each solution space. Whitney and Meany prove that if the relaxation parameters tend to zero that the iterates converge to the least squares solution @cite_33 . Further results using relaxation have also been obtained, see for example @cite_2 @cite_35 @cite_25 @cite_16 . An alternative to relaxation parameters was recently proposed by Zouzias and Freris @cite_16 as the REK method described by . Rather than alter the projection step, motivated by ideas of Popa @cite_12 they introduce a secondary step which aims to reduce the residual.
@cite_35 @cite_37 @cite_33 @cite_1 @cite_19 @cite_2 @cite_16 @cite_25 @cite_12
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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. We investigate the behavior of Kaczmarz's method with relaxation for inconsistent systems. We show that when the relaxation parameter goes to zero, the limits of the cyclic subsequences generated by the method approach a weighted least squares solution of the system. This point minimizes the sum of the squares of the Euclidean distances to the hyperplanes of the system. If the starting point is chosen properly, then the limits approach the minimum norm weighted least squares solution. The proof is given for a block-Kaczmarz method. Abstract The Kaczmarz method is an iterative method for solving overcomplete linear systems of equations A x = b . The randomized version of the Kaczmarz method put forth by Strohmer and Vershynin iteratively projects onto a randomly chosen solution space given by a single row of the matrix A and converges linearly 1 in expectation to the solution of a consistent system. In this paper we analyze two block versions of the method each with a randomized projection, designed to converge in expectation to the least squares solution, often faster than the standard variants. Our approach utilizes both a row and column-paving of the matrix A to guarantee linear convergence when the matrix has consistent row norms (called nearly standardized), and a single column-paving when the row norms are unbounded. The proposed methods are an extension of the block Kaczmarz method analyzed by Needell and Tropp and the Randomized Extended Kaczmarz method of Zouzias and Freris. The contribution is thus two-fold; unlike the standard Kaczmarz method, our results demonstrate convergence to the least squares solution of inconsistent systems (both methods in the nearly standardized case and the second method in other cases). By using appropriate blocks of the matrix this convergence can be significantly accelerated, as is demonstrated by numerical experiments. Let f be a random Boolean formula that is an instance of 3-SAT. We consider the problem of computing the least real number k such that if the ratio of the number of clauses over the number of variables of f strictly exceeds k , then f is almost certainly unsatisfiable. By a well-known and more or less straightforward argument, it can be shown that kF5.191. This upper bound was improved by to 4.758 by first providing new improved bounds for the occupancy problem. There is strong experimental evidence that the value of k is around 4.2. In this work, we define, in terms of the random formula f, a decreasing sequence of random variables such that, if the expected value of any one of them converges to zero, then f is almost certainly unsatisfiable. By letting the expected value of the first term of the sequence converge to zero, we obtain, by simple and elementary computations, an upper bound for k equal to 4.667. From the expected value of the second term of the sequence, we get the value 4.601q . In general, by letting the U This work was performed while the first author was visiting the School of Computer Science, Carleton Ž University, and was partially supported by NSERC Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council . of Canada , and by a grant from the University of Patras for sabbatical leaves. The second and third Ž authors were supported in part by grants from NSERC Natural Sciences and Engineering Research . Council of Canada . During the last stages of this research, the first and last authors were also partially Ž . supported by EU ESPRIT Long-Term Research Project ALCOM-IT Project No. 20244 . †An extended abstract of this paper was published in the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual European Ž Symposium on Algorithms, ESA’96, September 25]27, 1996, Barcelona, Spain Springer-Verlag, LNCS, . pp. 27]38 . That extended abstract was coauthored by the first three authors of the present paper. Correspondence to: L. M. Kirousis Q 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 1042-9832r98r030253-17 253