Том 64, № 4 (2024)

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is one of the many iterative optimization methods that are widely used in solving machine learning problems. These methods display valuable properties and attract researchers and industrial machine learning engineers with their simplicity. However, one of the weaknesses of this type of methods is the necessity to tune learning rate (step-size) for every loss function and dataset combination to solve an optimization problem and get an efficient performance in a given time budget. Stochastic Gradient Descent with Polyak Step-size (SPS) is a method that offers an update rule that alleviates the need of fine-tuning the learning rate of an optimizer. In this paper, we propose an extension of SPS that employs preconditioning techniques, such as Hutchinson’s method, Adam, and AdaGrad, to improve its performance on badly scaled and/or ill-conditioned datasets.

In 1976–1977, Polyak published in the journal Avtomatica i Telemekhanika (Automation and Remote Control) two remarkable papers on how to study the properties of estimates of iterative pseudogradient algorithms. The first paper published in 1976 considered the general case based on the stochastic Lyapunov function, and the second one considered the linear case. The assumptions formulated in these papers and the estimates obtained in them can still be considered the state-of-the art. In the current paper, Polyak’s approach is applied to the study of the properties of estimates of a (randomized) stochastic approximation search algorithm for the case of unknown-but-bounded noise in observations. The obtained asymptotic estimates were already known earlier, and exact estimates for a finite number of observations are published for the first time.

Iterative learning control (ILC) algorithms appeared in connection with the problems of increasing the accuracy of performing repetitive operations by robots. They use information from previous repetitions to adjust the control signal on the current repetition. Most often, information from the previous repetition only is used. ILC algorithms that use information from several previous iterations are called higher-order algorithms. Recently, interest in these algorithms has increased in the literature in connection with robotic additive manufacturing problems. However, in addition to the fact that these algorithms have been little studied, there are conflicting estimates regarding their properties. This paper proposes new higher-order ILC algorithms for linear discrete and differential systems. The idea of these algorithms is based on an analogy with multi-step methods in optimization theory, in particular, with the heavy ball method. An example is given that confirms the possibility to accelerate convergence of the learning error when using such algorithms.

The study of nonlinear problems related to heat transfer in a substance is of great practical important. Earlier, this paper’s authors proposed an effective algorithm for determining the volumetric heat capacity and thermal conductivity of a substance based on experimental observations of the dynamics of the temperature field in the object. In this paper, the problem of simultaneous identification of temperature-dependent volumetric heat capacity and thermal conductivity of the substance under study from the heat flux at the boundary of the domain is investigated. The consideration is based on the first boundary value problem for a one-dimensional unsteady heat equation. The coefficient inverse problem under consideration is reduced to a variational problem, which is solved by gradient methods based on the application of fast automatic differentiation. The uniqueness of the solution of the inverse problem is investigated.

The history of the alternating projection method for finding a common point of several convex sets in Euclidean space goes back to the well-known Kaczmarz algorithm for solving systems of linear equations, which was devised in the 1930s and later found wide applications in image processing and computed tomography. An important role in the study of this method was played by I.I. Eremin’s, L.M. Bregman’s, and B.T. Polyak’s works, which appeared nearly simultaneously and contained general results concerning the convergence of alternating projections to a point in the intersection of sets, assuming that this intersection is nonempty. In this paper, we consider a modification of the convex set intersection problem that is related to the theory of multi-agent systems and is called the constrained consensus problem. Each convex set in this problem is associated with a certain agent and, generally speaking, is inaccessible to the other agents. A group of agents is interested in finding a common point of these sets, that is, a point satisfying all the constraints. Distributed analogues of the alternating projection method proposed for solving this problem lead to a rather complicated nonlinear system of equations, the convergence of which is usually proved using special Lyapunov functions. A brief survey of these methods is given, and their relation to the theorem ensuring consensus in a system of averaging inequalities recently proved by the first author is shown (this theorem develops convergence results for the usual method of iterative averaging as applied to the consensus problem).