Low-rank matrix recovery is a fundamental problem in machine learning with numerous applications. In practice, the problem can be solved by convex optimization namely nuclear norm minimization, or by non-convex optimization as it is well-known that for low-rank matrix problems like matrix sensing and matrix completion, all local optima of the natural non-convex objectives are also globally optimal under certain ideal assumptions. In this paper, we study new approaches for matrix sensing in a semi-random model where an adversary can add any number of arbitrary sensing matrices. More precisely, the problem is to recover a low-rank matrix $$X^\star$$ from linear measurements $$b_i = \langle A_i, X^\star \rangle$$, where an unknown subset of the sensing matrices satisfies the Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) and the rest of the $$A_i$$'s are chosen adversarially. It is known that in the semi-random model, existing non-convex objectives can have bad local optima. To fix this, we present a descent-style algorithm that provably recovers the ground-truth matrix $$X^\star$$. For the closely-related problem of semi-random matrix completion, prior work [CG18] showed that all bad local optima can be eliminated by reweighting the input data. However, the analogous approach for matrix sensing requires reweighting a set of matrices to satisfy RIP, which is a condition that is NP-hard to check. Instead, we build on the framework proposed in [KLL$^+$23] for semi-random sparse linear regression, where the algorithm in each iteration reweights the input based on the current solution, and then takes a weighted gradient step that is guaranteed to work well locally. Our analysis crucially exploits the connection between sparsity in vector problems and low-rankness in matrix problems, which may have other applications in obtaining robust algorithms for sparse and low-rank problems.
more »
« less
Semi-Random Matrix Completion via Flow-Based Adaptive Reweighting
We consider the well-studied problem of completing a rank- , -incoherent matrix from incomplete observations. We focus on this problem in the semi-random setting where each entry is independently revealed with probability at least . Whereas multiple nearly-linear time algorithms have been established in the more specialized fully-random setting where each entry is revealed with probablity exactly , the only known nearly-linear time algorithm in the semi-random setting is due to [CG18], whose sample complexity has a polynomial dependence on the inverse accuracy and condition number and thus cannot achieve high-accuracy recovery. Our main result is the first high-accuracy nearly-linear time algorithm for solving semi-random matrix completion, and an extension to the noisy observation setting. Our result builds upon the recent short-flat decomposition framework of [KLLST23a, KLLST23b] and leverages fast algorithms for flow problems on graphs to solve adaptive reweighting subproblems efficiently
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2505865
- PAR ID:
- 10631093
- Publisher / Repository:
- NeurIPS 2024 https://openreview.net/forum?id=XZp1uP0hh2
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Motivated by the study of matrix elimination orderings in combinatorial scientific computing, we utilize graph sketching and local sampling to give a data structure that provides access to approximate fill degrees of a matrix undergoing elimination in O(polylog(n)) time per elimination and query. We then study the problem of using this data structure in the minimum degree algorithm, which is a widely-used heuristic for producing elimination orderings for sparse matrices by repeatedly eliminating the vertex with (approximate) minimum fill degree. This leads to a nearly-linear time algorithm for generating approximate greedy minimum degree orderings. Despite extensive studies of algorithms for elimination orderings in combinatorial scientific computing, our result is the first rigorous incorporation of randomized tools in this setting, as well as the first nearly-linear time algorithm for producing elimination orderings with provable approximation guarantees. While our sketching data structure readily works in the oblivious adversary model, by repeatedly querying and greedily updating itself, it enters the adaptive adversarial model where the underlying sketches become prone to failure due to dependency issues with their internal randomness. We show how to use an additional sampling procedure to circumvent this problem and to create an independent access sequence. Our technique for decorrelating the interleaved queries and updates to this randomized data structure may be of independent interest.more » « less
-
Abstract—Motivated by the study of matrix elimination orderings in combinatorial scientific computing, we utilize graph sketching and local sampling to give a data structure that provides access to approximate fill degrees of a matrix undergoing elimination in polylogarithmic time per elimination and query. We then study the problem of using this data structure in the minimum degree algorithm, which is a widely- used heuristic for producing elimination orderings for sparse matrices by repeatedly eliminating the vertex with (approx- imate) minimum fill degree. This leads to a nearly-linear time algorithm for generating approximate greedy minimum degree orderings. Despite extensive studies of algorithms for elimination orderings in combinatorial scientific computing, our result is the first rigorous incorporation of randomized tools in this setting, as well as the first nearly-linear time algorithm for producing elimination orderings with provable approximation guarantees. While our sketching data structure readily works in the oblivious adversary model, by repeatedly querying and greed- ily updating itself, it enters the adaptive adversarial model where the underlying sketches become prone to failure due to dependency issues with their internal randomness. We show how to use an additional sampling procedure to circumvent this problem and to create an independent access sequence. Our technique for decorrelating interleaved queries and updates to this randomized data structure may be of independent interest.more » « less
-
We study the problem of differentially private stochastic convex optimization (DP-SCO) with heavy-tailed gradients, where we assume a kth-moment bound on the Lipschitz constants of sample functions rather than a uniform bound. We propose a new reduction-based approach that enables us to obtain the first optimal rates (up to logarithmic factors) in the heavy-tailed setting, achieving error G2⋅1n√+Gk⋅(d√nϵ)1−1k under (ϵ,δ)-approximate differential privacy, up to a mild $$\textup{polylog}(\frac{1}{\delta})$$ factor, where G22 and Gkk are the 2nd and kth moment bounds on sample Lipschitz constants, nearly-matching a lower bound of [Lowy and Razaviyayn 2023]. We further give a suite of private algorithms in the heavy-tailed setting which improve upon our basic result under additional assumptions, including an optimal algorithm under a known-Lipschitz constant assumption, a near-linear time algorithm for smooth functions, and an optimal linear time algorithm for smooth generalized linear models.more » « less
-
Constrained submodular function maximization has been used in subset selection problems such as selection of most informative sensor locations. While these models have been quite popular, the solutions obtained via this approach are unstable to perturbations in data defining the submodular functions. Robust submodular maximization has been proposed as a richer model that aims to overcome this discrepancy as well as increase the modeling scope of submodular optimization. In this work, we consider robust submodular maximization with structured combinatorial constraints and give efficient algorithms with provable guarantees. Our approach is applicable to constraints defined by single or multiple matroids, knapsack as well as distributionally robust criteria. We consider both the offline setting where the data defining the problem is known in advance as well as the online setting where the input data is revealed over time. For the offline setting, we give a nearly optimal bi-criteria approximation algorithm that relies on new extensions of the classical greedy algorithm. For the online version of the problem, we give an algorithm that returns a bi-criteria solution with sub-linear regret.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

