# spark-commits mailing list archives

##### Site index · List index
Message view
Top
From r...@apache.org
Subject git commit: Merge pull request #566 from martinjaggi/copy-MLlib-d.
Date Sun, 09 Feb 2014 23:27:56 GMT
Updated Branches:
refs/heads/master afc8f3cb9 -> 2182aa3c5

Merge pull request #566 from martinjaggi/copy-MLlib-d.

new MLlib documentation for optimization, regression and classification

new documentation with tex formulas, hopefully improving usability and reproducibility of the offered MLlib methods.
also did some minor changes in the code for consistency. scala tests pass.

this is the rebased branch, i deleted the old PR

jira:
https://spark-project.atlassian.net/browse/MLLIB-19

Author: Martin Jaggi <m.jaggi@gmail.com>

Closes #566 and squashes the following commits:

5f0f31e [Martin Jaggi] line wrap at 100 chars
4e094fb [Martin Jaggi] better description of GradientDescent
1d6965d [Martin Jaggi] remove broken url
ea569c3 [Martin Jaggi] telling what updater actually does
964732b [Martin Jaggi] lambda R() in documentation
a6c6228 [Martin Jaggi] better comments in SGD code for regression
b32224a [Martin Jaggi] new optimization documentation
d5dfef7 [Martin Jaggi] new classification and regression documentation
b07ead6 [Martin Jaggi] correct scaling for MSE loss
ba6158c [Martin Jaggi] use d for the number of features
bab2ed2 [Martin Jaggi] renaming LeastSquaresGradient

Project: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/repo
Commit: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/commit/2182aa3c
Tree: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/tree/2182aa3c
Diff: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/diff/2182aa3c

Commit: 2182aa3c55737a90e0ff200eede7146b440801a3
Parents: afc8f3c
Author: Martin Jaggi <m.jaggi@gmail.com>
Authored: Sun Feb 9 15:19:50 2014 -0800
Committer: Reynold Xin <rxin@apache.org>
Committed: Sun Feb 9 15:19:50 2014 -0800

----------------------------------------------------------------------
docs/_layouts/global.html                       |   5 +
docs/mllib-classification-regression.md         | 294 ++++++++++++++++---
docs/mllib-optimization.md                      | 164 +++++++++--
.../spark/mllib/optimization/Gradient.scala     |  23 +-
.../mllib/optimization/GradientDescent.scala    |  42 ++-
.../spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala      |  61 ++--
.../apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala   |  31 +-
.../mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala     |  30 +-
.../mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala      |  17 +-
9 files changed, 535 insertions(+), 132 deletions(-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/docs/_layouts/global.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/docs/_layouts/global.html b/docs/_layouts/global.html
index b65686c..7114e1f 100755
--- a/docs/_layouts/global.html
+++ b/docs/_layouts/global.html
@@ -196,6 +196,11 @@

</body>
<!-- MathJax Section -->
+    <script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
+	  MathJax.Hub.Config({
+	    TeX: { equationNumbers: { autoNumber: "AMS" } }
+	  });
+	</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML"></script>
<script>

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/docs/mllib-classification-regression.md
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/docs/mllib-classification-regression.md b/docs/mllib-classification-regression.md
index edb9338..18a3e8e 100644
--- a/docs/mllib-classification-regression.md
+++ b/docs/mllib-classification-regression.md
@@ -7,45 +7,256 @@ title: MLlib - Classification and Regression
{:toc}

-# Binary Classification
-
-Binary classification is a supervised learning problem in which we want to
-classify entities into one of two distinct categories or labels, e.g.,
-predicting whether or not emails are spam.  This problem involves executing a
-learning *Algorithm* on a set of *labeled* examples, i.e., a set of entities
-represented via (numerical) features along with underlying category labels.
-The algorithm returns a trained *Model* that can predict the label for new
-entities for which the underlying label is unknown.
-
-MLlib currently supports two standard model families for binary classification,
-namely [Linear Support Vector Machines
-(SVMs)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine) and [Logistic
-Regression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_regression), along with [L1
-and L2 regularized](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(mathematics))
-variants of each model family.  The training algorithms all leverage an
-underlying gradient descent primitive (described
-[below](#gradient-descent-primitive)), and take as input a regularization
-parameter (*regParam*) along with various parameters associated with gradient
-descent (*stepSize*, *numIterations*, *miniBatchFraction*).
+
+
+# Supervised Machine Learning
+Supervised machine learning is the setting where we are given a set of training data examples
+$\{\x_i\}$, each example $\x_i$ coming with a corresponding label $y_i$.
+Given the training data $\{(\x_i,y_i)\}$, we want to learn a function to predict these labels.
+The two most well known classes of methods are
+[classification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_classification), and
+[regression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis).
+In classification, the label is a category (e.g. whether or not emails are spam), whereas in
+regression, the label is real value, and we want our prediction to be as close to the true value
+as possible.
+
+Supervised Learning involves executing a learning *Algorithm* on a set of *labeled* training
+examples. The algorithm returns a trained *Model* (such as for example a linear function) that
+can predict the label for new data examples for which the label is unknown.
+
+
+## Mathematical Formulation
+Many standard *machine learning* methods can be formulated as a convex optimization problem, i.e.
+the task of finding a minimizer of a convex function $f$ that depends on a variable vector
+$\wv$ (called weights in the code), which has $d$ entries.
+Formally, we can write this as the optimization problem $\min_{\wv \in\R^d} \; f(\wv)$, where
+the objective function is of the form
+$$+ f(\wv) := + \lambda\, R(\wv) + + \frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) + \label{eq:regPrimal} + \ . +$$
+Here the vectors $\x_i\in\R^d$ are the training data examples, for $1\le i\le n$, and
+$y_i\in\R$ are their corresponding labels, which we want to predict.
+
+The objective function $f$ has two parts:
+The *loss-function* measures the error of the model on the training data. The loss-function
+$L(\wv;.)$ must be a convex function in $\wv$.
+The purpose of the [regularizer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(mathematics)) is to
+encourage simple models, by punishing the complexity of the model $\wv$, in order to e.g. avoid
+over-fitting.
+Usually, the regularizer $R(.)$ is chosen as either the standard (Euclidean) L2-norm, $R(\wv) +:= \frac{1}{2}\|\wv\|^2$, or the L1-norm, $R(\wv) := \|\wv\|_1$, see
+[below](#using-different-regularizers) for more details.
+
+The fixed regularization parameter $\lambda\ge0$ (regParam in the code) defines the trade-off
+between the two goals of small loss and small model complexity.
+
+
+## Binary Classification
+
+**Input:** Datapoints $\x_i\in\R^{d}$, labels $y_i\in\{+1,-1\}$, for $1\le i\le n$.
+
+**Distributed Datasets.**
+For all currently implemented optimization methods for classification, the data must be
+distributed between the worker machines *by examples*. Every machine holds a consecutive block of
+the $n$ example/label pairs $(\x_i,y_i)$.
+In other words, the input distributed dataset
+([RDD](scala-programming-guide.html#resilient-distributed-datasets-rdds)) must be the set of
+vectors $\x_i\in\R^d$.
+
+### Support Vector Machine
+The linear [Support Vector Machine (SVM)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine)
+has become a standard choice for classification tasks.
+Here the loss function in formulation $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$ is given by the hinge-loss
+$+L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := \max \{0, 1-y_i \wv^T \x_i \} \ . +$
+
+By default, SVMs are trained with an L2 regularization, which gives rise to the large-margin
+interpretation if these classifiers. We also support alternative L1 regularization. In this case,
+the primal optimization problem becomes an [LP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming).
+
+### Logistic Regression
+Despite its name, [Logistic Regression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_regression) is a
+binary classification method, again when the labels are given by binary values
+$y_i\in\{+1,-1\}$. The logistic loss function in formulation $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$ is
+defined as
+$+L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := \log(1+\exp( -y_i \wv^T \x_i)) \ . +$
+
+
+## Linear Regression (Least Squares, Lasso and Ridge Regression)
+
+**Input:** Data matrix $A\in\R^{n\times d}$, right hand side vector $\y\in\R^n$.
+
+**Distributed Datasets.**
+For all currently implemented optimization methods for regression, the data matrix
+$A\in\R^{n\times d}$ must be distributed between the worker machines *by rows* of $A$. In
+other words, the input distributed dataset
+([RDD](scala-programming-guide.html#resilient-distributed-datasets-rdds)) must be the set of the
+$n$ rows $A_{i:}$ of $A$.
+
+Least Squares Regression refers to the setting where we try to fit a vector $\y\in\R^n$ by
+linear combination of our observed data $A\in\R^{n\times d}$, which is given as a matrix.
+
+It comes in 3 flavors:
+
+### Least Squares
+Plain old [least squares](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_squares) linear regression is the
+problem of minimizing
+  $f_{\text{LS}}(\wv) := \frac1n \|A\wv-\y\|_2^2 \ .$
+
+### Lasso
+The popular [Lasso](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso_(statistics)#Lasso_method) (alternatively
+also known as  $L_1$-regularized least squares regression) is given by
+  $f_{\text{Lasso}}(\wv) := \frac1n \|A\wv-\y\|_2^2 + \lambda \|\wv\|_1 \ .$
+
+### Ridge Regression
+[Ridge regression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_regression) uses the same loss function but
+with a L2 regularizer term:
+  $f_{\text{Ridge}}(\wv) := \frac1n \|A\wv-\y\|_2^2 + \frac{\lambda}{2}\|\wv\|^2 \ .$
+
+**Loss Function.**
+For all 3, the loss function (i.e. the measure of model fit) is given by the squared deviations
+from the right hand side $\y$.
+$+\frac1n \|A\wv-\y\|_2^2 += \frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n (A_{i:} \wv - y_i )^2 += \frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) +$
+This is also known as the [mean squared error](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_squared_error).
+In our generic problem formulation $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$, this means the loss function is
+$L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := (A_{i:} \wv - y_i )^2$, each depending only on a single row $A_{i:}$ of
+the data matrix $A$.
+
+
+## Using Different Regularizers
+
+As we have mentioned above, the purpose of *regularizer* in $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$ is to
+encourage simple models, by punishing the complexity of the model $\wv$, in order to e.g. avoid
+over-fitting.
+All machine learning methods for classification and regression that we have mentioned above are
+of interest for different types of regularization, the 3 most common ones being
+
+* **L2-Regularization.**
+$R(\wv) := \frac{1}{2}\|\wv\|^2$.
+This regularizer is most commonly used for SVMs, logistic regression and ridge regression.
+
+* **L1-Regularization.**
+$R(\wv) := \|\wv\|_1$. The L1 norm $\|\wv\|_1$ is the sum of the absolut values of the
+entries of a vector $\wv$.
+This regularizer is most commonly used for sparse methods, and feature selection, such as the
+Lasso.
+
+* **Non-Regularized.**
+$R(\wv):=0$.
+Of course we can also train the models without any regularization, or equivalently by setting the
+regularization parameter $\lambda:=0$.
+
+The optimization problems of the form $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$ with convex regularizers such as
+the 3 mentioned here can be conveniently optimized with gradient descent type methods (such as
+SGD) which is implemented in MLlib currently, and explained in the next section.
+
+
+# Optimization Methods Working on the Primal Formulation
+
+**Stochastic subGradient Descent (SGD).**
+For optimization objectives $f$ written as a sum, *stochastic subgradient descent (SGD)* can be
+an efficient choice of optimization method, as we describe in the <a
+href="mllib-optimization.html">optimization section</a> in more detail.
+Because all methods considered here fit into the optimization formulation
+$\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$, this is especially natural, because the loss is written as an average
+of the individual losses coming from each datapoint.
+
+Picking one datapoint $i\in[1..n]$ uniformly at random, we obtain a stochastic subgradient of
+$\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$, with respect to $\wv$ as follows:
+$+f'_{\wv,i} := L'_{\wv,i} + \lambda\, R'_\wv \ , +$
+where $L'_{\wv,i} \in \R^d$ is a subgradient of the part of the loss function determined by the
+$i$-th datapoint, that is $L'_{\wv,i} \in \frac{\partial}{\partial \wv} L(\wv;\x_i,y_i)$.
+Furthermore, $R'_\wv$ is a subgradient of the regularizer $R(\wv)$, i.e. $R'_\wv \in +\frac{\partial}{\partial \wv} R(\wv)$. The term $R'_\wv$ does not depend on which random
+datapoint is picked.
+
+
+
+The following table summarizes the gradients (or subgradients) of all loss functions and
+regularizers that we currently support:
+
+<table class="table">
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>SVM Hinge Loss</td><td>$L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := \max \{0, 1-y_i \wv^T \x_i \}$</td>
+      <td>$L'_{\wv,i} = \begin{cases}-y_i \x_i & \text{if$y_i \wv^T \x_i <1$}, \\ 0 & +\text{otherwise}.\end{cases}$</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Logistic Loss</td><td>$L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := \log(1+\exp( -y_i \wv^T \x_i))$</td>
+      <td>$L'_{\wv,i} = -y_i \x_i \left(1-\frac1{1+\exp(-y_i \wv^T \x_i)} \right)$</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Least Squares Loss</td><td>$L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) := (A_{i:} \wv - y_i)^2$</td>
+      <td>$L'_{\wv,i} = 2 A_{i:}^T (A_{i:} \wv - y_i)$</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Non-Regularized</td><td>$R(\wv) := 0$</td><td>$R'_\wv = \0$</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>L2 Regularizer</td><td>$R(\wv) := \frac{1}{2}\|\wv\|^2$</td><td>$R'_\wv = \wv$</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>L1 Regularizer</td><td>$R(\wv) := \|\wv\|_1$</td><td>$R'_\wv = \mathop{sign}(\wv)$</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
+</table>
+
+Here $\mathop{sign}(\wv)$ is the vector consisting of the signs ($\pm1$) of all the entries
+of $\wv$.
+Also, note that $A_{i:} \in \R^d$ is a row-vector, but the gradient is a column vector.
+
+
+
+## Implementation in MLlib
+
+For both classification and regression, MLlib implements a simple distributed version of
+stochastic subgradient descent (SGD), building on the underlying gradient descent primitive (as
+described in the
+<a href="mllib-optimization.html">optimization section</a>).
+All provided algorithms take as input a regularization parameter (regParam) along with various
+parameters associated with stochastic gradient
+descent (stepSize, numIterations, miniBatchFraction).
+For each of them, we support all 3 possible regularizations (none, L1 or L2).

Available algorithms for binary classification:

* [SVMWithSGD](api/mllib/index.html#org.apache.spark.mllib.classification.SVMWithSGD)
* [LogisticRegressionWithSGD](api/mllib/index.html#org.apache.spark.mllib.classification.LogisticRegressionWithSGD)

-# Linear Regression
-
-Linear regression is another classical supervised learning setting.  In this
-problem, each entity is associated with a real-valued label (as opposed to a
-binary label as in binary classification), and we want to predict labels as
-closely as possible given numerical features representing entities.  MLlib
-supports linear regression as well as L1
-([lasso](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso_(statistics)#Lasso_method)) and L2
-([ridge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_regression)) regularized variants.
-The regression algorithms in MLlib also leverage the underlying gradient
-descent primitive (described [below](#gradient-descent-primitive)), and have
-the same parameters as the binary classification algorithms described above.
-
Available algorithms for linear regression:

* [LinearRegressionWithSGD](api/mllib/index.html#org.apache.spark.mllib.regression.LinearRegressionWithSGD)
@@ -59,6 +270,9 @@ gradient descent primitive in MLlib, see the

+
+
+
# Usage in Scala

Following code snippets can be executed in spark-shell.
@@ -115,9 +329,10 @@ val modelL1 = svmAlg.run(parsedData)
{% endhighlight %}

## Linear Regression
-The following example demonstrate how to load training data, parse it as an RDD of LabeledPoint. The
-example then uses LinearRegressionWithSGD to build a simple linear model to predict label values. We
-compute the Mean Squared Error at the end to evaluate
+
+The following example demonstrate how to load training data, parse it as an RDD of LabeledPoint.
+The example then uses LinearRegressionWithSGD to build a simple linear model to predict label
+values. We compute the Mean Squared Error at the end to evaluate
[goodness of fit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodness_of_fit)

{% highlight scala %}
@@ -157,6 +372,7 @@ Spark Java API uses a separate JavaRDD class. You can convert a Java RDD to a
calling .rdd() on your JavaRDD object.

# Usage in Python
+
Following examples can be tested in the PySpark shell.

## Binary Classification
@@ -182,9 +398,9 @@ print("Training Error = " + str(trainErr))
{% endhighlight %}

## Linear Regression
-The following example demonstrate how to load training data, parse it as an RDD of LabeledPoint. The
-example then uses LinearRegressionWithSGD to build a simple linear model to predict label values. We
-compute the Mean Squared Error at the end to evaluate
+The following example demonstrate how to load training data, parse it as an RDD of LabeledPoint.
+The example then uses LinearRegressionWithSGD to build a simple linear model to predict label
+values. We compute the Mean Squared Error at the end to evaluate
[goodness of fit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodness_of_fit)

{% highlight python %}

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/docs/mllib-optimization.md
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/docs/mllib-optimization.md b/docs/mllib-optimization.md
index 428284e..396b98d 100644
--- a/docs/mllib-optimization.md
+++ b/docs/mllib-optimization.md
@@ -6,35 +6,161 @@ title: MLlib - Optimization
{:toc}


-# Gradient Descent Primitive

-stochastic variants thereof) are first-order optimization methods that are
-well-suited for large-scale and distributed computation. Gradient descent
-methods aim to find a local minimum of a function by iteratively taking steps
-in the direction of the negative gradient of the function at the current point,
-i.e., the current parameter value. Gradient descent is included as a low-level
-primitive in MLlib, upon which various ML algorithms are developed, and has the
-following parameters:

-* *gradient* is a class that computes the stochastic gradient of the function
+# Mathematical Description
+
+The simplest method to solve optimization problems of the form $\min_{\wv \in\R^d} \; f(\wv)$
+Such first-order optimization methods (including gradient descent and stochastic variants
+thereof) are well-suited for large-scale and distributed computation.
+
+Gradient descent methods aim to find a local minimum of a function by iteratively taking steps in
+the direction of steepest descent, which is the negative of the derivative (called the
+[gradient](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient)) of the function at the current point, i.e., at
+the current parameter value.
+If the objective function $f$ is not differentiable at all arguments, but still convex, then a
+is the natural generalization of the gradient, and assumes the role of the step direction.
+In any case, computing a gradient or subgradient of $f$ is expensive --- it requires a full
+pass through the complete dataset, in order to compute the contributions from all loss terms.
+
+## Stochastic (Sub)Gradient Descent (SGD)
+Optimization problems whose objective function $f$ is written as a sum are particularly
+suitable to be solved using *stochastic subgradient descent (SGD)*.
+In our case, for the optimization formulations commonly used in <a
+href="mllib-classification-regression.html">supervised machine learning</a>,
+$$+ f(\wv) := + \lambda\, R(\wv) + + \frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n L(\wv;\x_i,y_i) + \label{eq:regPrimal} + \ . +$$
+this is especially natural, because the loss is written as an average of the individual losses
+coming from each datapoint.
+
+A stochastic subgradient is a randomized choice of a vector, such that in expectation, we obtain
+a true subgradient of the original objective function.
+Picking one datapoint $i\in[1..n]$ uniformly at random, we obtain a stochastic subgradient of
+$\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$, with respect to $\wv$ as follows:
+$+f'_{\wv,i} := L'_{\wv,i} + \lambda\, R'_\wv \ , +$
+where $L'_{\wv,i} \in \R^d$ is a subgradient of the part of the loss function determined by the
+$i$-th datapoint, that is $L'_{\wv,i} \in \frac{\partial}{\partial \wv} L(\wv;\x_i,y_i)$.
+Furthermore, $R'_\wv$ is a subgradient of the regularizer $R(\wv)$, i.e. $R'_\wv \in +\frac{\partial}{\partial \wv} R(\wv)$. The term $R'_\wv$ does not depend on which random
+datapoint is picked.
+Clearly, in expectation over the random choice of $i\in[1..n]$, we have that $f'_{\wv,i}$ is
+a subgradient of the original objective $f$, meaning that $\E\left[f'_{\wv,i}\right] \in +\frac{\partial}{\partial \wv} f(\wv)$.
+
+Running SGD now simply becomes walking in the direction of the negative stochastic subgradient
+$f'_{\wv,i}$, that is
+$$\label{eq:SGDupdate} +\wv^{(t+1)} := \wv^{(t)} - \gamma \; f'_{\wv,i} \ . +$$
+**Step-size.**
+The parameter $\gamma$ is the step-size, which in the default implementation is chosen
+decreasing with the square root of the iteration counter, i.e. $\gamma := \frac{s}{\sqrt{t}}$
+in the $t$-th iteration, with the input parameter $s=$ stepSize. Note that selecting the best
+step-size for SGD methods can often be delicate in practice and is a topic of active research.
+
+A table of (sub)gradients of the machine learning methods implemented in MLlib, is available in
+the <a href="mllib-classification-regression.html">classification and regression</a> section.
+
+
+As an alternative to just use the subgradient $R'(\wv)$ of the regularizer in the step
+direction, an improved update for some cases can be obtained by using the proximal operator
+For the L1-regularizer, the proximal operator is given by soft thresholding, as implemented in
+[L1Updater](api/mllib/index.html#org.apache.spark.mllib.optimization.L1Updater).
+
+
+## Update Schemes for Distributed SGD
+The SGD implementation in
+a simple (distributed) sampling of the data examples.
+We recall that the loss part of the optimization problem $\eqref{eq:regPrimal}$ is
+$\frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n L(\wv;\x_i,y_i)$, and therefore $\frac1n \sum_{i=1}^n L'_{\wv,i}$ would
+be the true (sub)gradient.
+Since this would require access to the full data set, the parameter miniBatchFraction specifies
+which fraction of the full data to use instead.
+The average of the gradients over this subset, i.e.
+$+\frac1{|S|} \sum_{i\in S} L'_{\wv,i} \ , +$
+is a stochastic gradient. Here $S$ is the sampled subset of size $|S|=$ miniBatchFraction
+$\cdot n$.
+
+In each iteration, the sampling over the distributed dataset
+([RDD](scala-programming-guide.html#resilient-distributed-datasets-rdds)), as well as the
+computation of the sum of the partial results from each worker machine is performed by the
+standard spark routines.
+
+If the fraction of points miniBatchFraction is set to 1 (default), then the resulting step in
+each iteration is exact (sub)gradient descent. In this case there is no randomness and no
+variance in the used step directions.
+On the other extreme, if miniBatchFraction is chosen very small, such that only a single point
+is sampled, i.e. $|S|=$ miniBatchFraction $\cdot n = 1$, then the algorithm is equivalent to
+standard SGD. In that case, the step direction depends from the uniformly random sampling of the
+point.
+
+
+
+# Implementation in MLlib
+
+Gradient descent methods including stochastic subgradient descent (SGD) as
+included as a low-level primitive in MLlib, upon which various ML algorithms
+are developed, see the
+<a href="mllib-classification-regression.html">classification and regression</a>
+section for example.
+
+The SGD method
+has the following parameters:
+
+* gradient is a class that computes the stochastic gradient of the function
being optimized, i.e., with respect to a single training example, at the
current parameter value. MLlib includes gradient classes for common loss
functions, e.g., hinge, logistic, least-squares.  The gradient class takes as
input a training example, its label, and the current parameter value.
-* *updater* is a class that updates weights in each iteration of gradient
-descent. MLlib includes updaters for cases without regularization, as well as
+* updater is a class that performs the actual gradient descent step, i.e.
+updating the weights in each iteration, for a given gradient of the loss part.
+The updater is also responsible to perform the update from the regularization
+part. MLlib includes updaters for cases without regularization, as well as
L1 and L2 regularizers.
-* *stepSize* is a scalar value denoting the initial step size for gradient
+* stepSize is a scalar value denoting the initial step size for gradient
descent. All updaters in MLlib use a step size at the t-th step equal to
-stepSize / sqrt(t).
-* *numIterations* is the number of iterations to run.
-* *regParam* is the regularization parameter when using L1 or L2 regularization.
-* *miniBatchFraction* is the fraction of the data used to compute the gradient
-at each iteration.
+stepSize $/ \sqrt{t}$.
+* numIterations is the number of iterations to run.
+* regParam is the regularization parameter when using L1 or L2 regularization.
+* miniBatchFraction is the fraction of the total data that is sampled in
+each iteration, to compute the gradient direction.

Available algorithms for gradient descent:

+

----------------------------------------------------------------------
index c590492..8212470 100644
@@ -24,10 +24,10 @@ import org.jblas.DoubleMatrix
*/
abstract class Gradient extends Serializable {
/**
-   * Compute the gradient and loss given features of a single data point.
+   * Compute the gradient and loss given the features of a single data point.
*
-   * @param data - Feature values for one data point. Column matrix of size nx1
-   *               where n is the number of features.
+   * @param data - Feature values for one data point. Column matrix of size dx1
+   *               where d is the number of features.
* @param label - Label for this data item.
* @param weights - Column matrix containing weights for every feature.
*
@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@ abstract class Gradient extends Serializable {
}

/**
- * Compute gradient and loss for a logistic loss function.
+ * Compute gradient and loss for a logistic loss function, as used in binary classification.
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
*/
override def compute(data: DoubleMatrix, label: Double, weights: DoubleMatrix):
@@ -61,22 +62,26 @@ class LogisticGradient extends Gradient {
}

/**
- * Compute gradient and loss for a Least-squared loss function.
+ * Compute gradient and loss for a Least-squared loss function, as used in linear regression.
+ * This is correct for the averaged least squares loss function (mean squared error)
+ *              L = 1/n ||A weights-y||^2
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
*/
override def compute(data: DoubleMatrix, label: Double, weights: DoubleMatrix):
(DoubleMatrix, Double) = {
val diff: Double = data.dot(weights) - label

-    val loss = 0.5 * diff * diff
-    val gradient = data.mul(diff)
+    val loss = diff * diff
+    val gradient =  data.mul(2.0 * diff)

}
}

/**
- * Compute gradient and loss for a Hinge loss function.
+ * Compute gradient and loss for a Hinge loss function, as used in SVM binary classification.
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
* NOTE: This assumes that the labels are {0,1}
*/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
index cd80134..8e87b98 100644
@@ -17,9 +17,8 @@

package org.apache.spark.mllib.optimization

-import org.apache.spark.{Logging, SparkContext}
+import org.apache.spark.Logging
import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
-import org.apache.spark.SparkContext._

import org.jblas.DoubleMatrix

@@ -39,7 +38,8 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)
private var miniBatchFraction: Double = 1.0

/**
-   * Set the step size per-iteration of SGD. Default 1.0.
+   * Set the initial step size of SGD for the first step. Default 1.0.
+   * In subsequent steps, the step size will decrease with stepSize/sqrt(t)
*/
def setStepSize(step: Double): this.type = {
this.stepSize = step
@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)
}

/**
-   * Set fraction of data to be used for each SGD iteration. Default 1.0.
+   * Set fraction of data to be used for each SGD iteration.
+   * Default 1.0 (corresponding to deterministic/classical gradient descent)
*/
def setMiniBatchFraction(fraction: Double): this.type = {
this.miniBatchFraction = fraction
@@ -63,7 +64,7 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)
}

/**
-   * Set the regularization parameter used for SGD. Default 0.0.
+   * Set the regularization parameter. Default 0.0.
*/
def setRegParam(regParam: Double): this.type = {
this.regParam = regParam
@@ -71,7 +72,8 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)
}

/**
-   * Set the gradient function to be used for SGD.
+   * Set the gradient function (of the loss function of one single data example)
+   * to be used for SGD.
*/
@@ -80,7 +82,9 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)

/**
-   * Set the updater function to be used for SGD.
+   * Set the updater function to actually perform a gradient step in a given direction.
+   * The updater is responsible to perform the update from the regularization term as well,
+   * and therefore determines what kind or regularization is used, if any.
*/
def setUpdater(updater: Updater): this.type = {
this.updater = updater
@@ -107,20 +111,26 @@ class GradientDescent(var gradient: Gradient, var updater: Updater)
// Top-level method to run gradient descent.
object GradientDescent extends Logging {
/**
-   * Run gradient descent in parallel using mini batches.
+   * Run stochastic gradient descent (SGD) in parallel using mini batches.
+   * In each iteration, we sample a subset (fraction miniBatchFraction) of the total data
+   * in order to compute a gradient estimate.
+   * Sampling, and averaging the subgradients over this subset is performed using one standard
+   * spark map-reduce in each iteration.
*
-   * @param data - Input data for SGD. RDD of form (label, [feature values]).
-   * @param gradient - Gradient object that will be used to compute the gradient.
-   * @param updater - Updater object that will be used to update the model.
-   * @param stepSize - stepSize to be used during update.
+   * @param data - Input data for SGD. RDD of the set of data examples, each of
+   *               the form (label, [feature values]).
+   * @param gradient - Gradient object (used to compute the gradient of the loss function of
+   *                   one single data example)
+   * @param updater - Updater function to actually perform a gradient step in a given direction.
+   * @param stepSize - initial step size for the first step
* @param numIterations - number of iterations that SGD should be run.
* @param regParam - regularization parameter
* @param miniBatchFraction - fraction of the input data set that should be used for
*                            one iteration of SGD. Default value 1.0.
*
* @return A tuple containing two elements. The first element is a column matrix containing
-   *         weights for every feature, and the second element is an array containing the stochastic
-   *         loss computed for every iteration.
+   *         weights for every feature, and the second element is an array containing the
+   *         stochastic loss computed for every iteration.
*/
def runMiniBatchSGD(
data: RDD[(Double, Array[Double])],
@@ -142,6 +152,8 @@ object GradientDescent extends Logging {
var regVal = 0.0

for (i <- 1 to numIterations) {
+      // Sample a subset (fraction miniBatchFraction) of the total data
+      // compute and sum up the subgradients on this subset (this is one map-reduce)
val (gradientSum, lossSum) = data.sample(false, miniBatchFraction, 42 + i).map {
case (y, features) =>
val featuresCol = new DoubleMatrix(features.length, 1, features:_*)
@@ -160,7 +172,7 @@ object GradientDescent extends Logging {
regVal = update._2
}

-    logInfo("GradientDescent finished. Last 10 stochastic losses %s".format(
+    logInfo("GradientDescent.runMiniBatchSGD finished. Last 10 stochastic losses %s".format(
stochasticLossHistory.takeRight(10).mkString(", ")))

(weights.toArray, stochasticLossHistory.toArray)

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala
index 37124f2..889a03e 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/Updater.scala
@@ -21,16 +21,25 @@ import scala.math._
import org.jblas.DoubleMatrix

/**
- * Class used to update weights used in Gradient Descent.
+ * Class used to perform steps (weight update) using Gradient Descent methods.
+ *
+ * For general minimization problems, or for regularized problems of the form
+ *         min  L(w) + regParam * R(w),
+ * the compute function performs the actual update step, when given some
+ * (e.g. stochastic) gradient direction for the loss L(w),
+ * and a desired step-size (learning rate).
+ *
+ * The updater is responsible to also perform the update coming from the
+ * regularization term R(w) (if any regularization is used).
*/
abstract class Updater extends Serializable {
/**
* Compute an updated value for weights given the gradient, stepSize, iteration number and
-   * regularization parameter. Also returns the regularization value computed using the
-   * *updated* weights.
+   * regularization parameter. Also returns the regularization value regParam * R(w)
+   * computed using the *updated* weights.
*
-   * @param weightsOld - Column matrix of size nx1 where n is the number of features.
-   * @param gradient - Column matrix of size nx1 where n is the number of features.
+   * @param weightsOld - Column matrix of size dx1 where d is the number of features.
+   * @param gradient - Column matrix of size dx1 where d is the number of features.
* @param stepSize - step size across iterations
* @param iter - Iteration number
* @param regParam - Regularization parameter
@@ -43,23 +52,29 @@ abstract class Updater extends Serializable {
}

/**
- * A simple updater that adaptively adjusts the learning rate the
- * square root of the number of iterations. Does not perform any regularization.
+ * A simple updater for gradient descent *without* any regularization.
+ * Uses a step-size decreasing with the square root of the number of iterations.
*/
class SimpleUpdater extends Updater {
override def compute(weightsOld: DoubleMatrix, gradient: DoubleMatrix,
stepSize: Double, iter: Int, regParam: Double): (DoubleMatrix, Double) = {
val thisIterStepSize = stepSize / math.sqrt(iter)
+    val step = gradient.mul(thisIterStepSize)
+    (weightsOld.sub(step), 0)
}
}

/**
- * Updater that adjusts learning rate and performs L1 regularization.
+ * Updater for L1 regularized problems.
+ *          R(w) = ||w||_1
+ * Uses a step-size decreasing with the square root of the number of iterations.
+
+ * Instead of subgradient of the regularizer, the proximal operator for the
+ * L1 regularization is applied after the gradient step. This is known to
+ * result in better sparsity of the intermediate solution.
*
- * The corresponding proximal operator used is the soft-thresholding function.
- * That is, each weight component is shrunk towards 0 by shrinkageVal.
+ * The corresponding proximal operator for the L1 norm is the soft-thresholding
+ * function. That is, each weight component is shrunk towards 0 by shrinkageVal.
*
* If w >  shrinkageVal, set weight component to w-shrinkageVal.
* If w < -shrinkageVal, set weight component to w+shrinkageVal.
@@ -71,10 +86,10 @@ class L1Updater extends Updater {
override def compute(weightsOld: DoubleMatrix, gradient: DoubleMatrix,
stepSize: Double, iter: Int, regParam: Double): (DoubleMatrix, Double) = {
val thisIterStepSize = stepSize / math.sqrt(iter)
+    val step = gradient.mul(thisIterStepSize)
// Take gradient step
-    val newWeights = weightsOld.sub(normGradient)
-    // Soft thresholding
+    val newWeights = weightsOld.sub(step)
+    // Apply proximal operator (soft thresholding)
val shrinkageVal = regParam * thisIterStepSize
(0 until newWeights.length).foreach { i =>
val wi = newWeights.get(i)
@@ -85,19 +100,19 @@ class L1Updater extends Updater {
}

/**
- * Updater that adjusts the learning rate and performs L2 regularization
- *
- * See, for example, explanation of gradient and loss with L2 regularization on slide 21-22
- * of <a href="http://people.cs.umass.edu/~sheldon/teaching/2012fa/ml/files/lec7-annotated.pdf">
- * these slides</a>.
+ * Updater for L2 regularized problems.
+ *          R(w) = 1/2 ||w||^2
+ * Uses a step-size decreasing with the square root of the number of iterations.
*/
class SquaredL2Updater extends Updater {
override def compute(weightsOld: DoubleMatrix, gradient: DoubleMatrix,
stepSize: Double, iter: Int, regParam: Double): (DoubleMatrix, Double) = {
val thisIterStepSize = stepSize / math.sqrt(iter)
-    val newWeights = weightsOld.mul(1.0 - 2.0 * thisIterStepSize * regParam).sub(normGradient)
-    (newWeights, pow(newWeights.norm2, 2.0) * regParam)
+    val step = gradient.mul(thisIterStepSize)
+    // add up both updates from the gradient of the loss (= step) as well as
+    // the gradient of the regularizer (= regParam * weightsOld)
+    val newWeights = weightsOld.mul(1.0 - thisIterStepSize * regParam).sub(step)
+    (newWeights, 0.5 * pow(newWeights.norm2, 2.0) * regParam)
}
}

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala
index 7c41793..fb2bc9b 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/Lasso.scala
@@ -44,6 +44,11 @@ class LassoModel(

/**
* Train a regression model with L1-regularization using Stochastic Gradient Descent.
+ * This solves the l1-regularized least squares regression formulation
+ *          f(weights) = 1/n ||A weights-y||^2  + regParam ||weights||_1
+ * Here the data matrix has n rows, and the input RDD holds the set of rows of A, each with
+ * its corresponding right hand side label y.
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
*/
class LassoWithSGD private (
var stepSize: Double,
@@ -53,7 +58,7 @@ class LassoWithSGD private (
extends GeneralizedLinearAlgorithm[LassoModel]
with Serializable {

val updater = new L1Updater()
@transient val optimizer = new GradientDescent(gradient, updater).setStepSize(stepSize)
.setNumIterations(numIterations)
@@ -113,12 +118,13 @@ object LassoWithSGD {
/**
* Train a Lasso model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient. The weights used in
-   * gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient. The weights used
+   * in gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
-   * @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of gradient descent.
+   * @param stepSize Step size scaling to be used for the iterations of gradient descent.
* @param regParam Regularization parameter.
* @param miniBatchFraction Fraction of data to be used per iteration.
* @param initialWeights Initial set of weights to be used. Array should be equal in size to
@@ -140,9 +146,10 @@ object LassoWithSGD {
/**
* Train a Lasso model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of gradient descent.
* @param regParam Regularization parameter.
@@ -162,9 +169,10 @@ object LassoWithSGD {
/**
* Train a Lasso model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * update the true gradient in each iteration.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of Gradient Descent.
* @param regParam Regularization parameter.
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
@@ -183,9 +191,10 @@ object LassoWithSGD {
/**
* Train a Lasso model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using a step size of 1.0. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * compute the true gradient in each iteration.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @return a LassoModel which has the weights and offset from training.
*/

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/LinearRegression.scala
@@ -44,6 +44,12 @@ class LinearRegressionModel(

/**
* Train a linear regression model with no regularization using Stochastic Gradient Descent.
+ * This solves the least squares regression formulation
+ *              f(weights) = 1/n ||A weights-y||^2
+ * (which is the mean squared error).
+ * Here the data matrix has n rows, and the input RDD holds the set of rows of A, each with
+ * its corresponding right hand side label y.
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
*/
class LinearRegressionWithSGD private (
var stepSize: Double,
@@ -52,7 +58,7 @@ class LinearRegressionWithSGD private (
extends GeneralizedLinearAlgorithm[LinearRegressionModel]
with Serializable {

val updater = new SimpleUpdater()
.setNumIterations(numIterations)
@@ -76,10 +82,11 @@ object LinearRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a Linear Regression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient. The weights used in
-   * gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient. The weights used
+   * in gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of gradient descent.
* @param miniBatchFraction Fraction of data to be used per iteration.
@@ -101,9 +108,10 @@ object LinearRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a LinearRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of gradient descent.
* @param miniBatchFraction Fraction of data to be used per iteration.
@@ -121,9 +129,10 @@ object LinearRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a LinearRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * compute the true gradient in each iteration.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of Gradient Descent.
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @return a LinearRegressionModel which has the weights and offset from training.
@@ -140,9 +149,10 @@ object LinearRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a LinearRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using a step size of 1.0. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * compute the true gradient in each iteration.
*
-   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
+   * @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs. Each pair describes a row of the data
+   *              matrix A as well as the corresponding right hand side label y
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
* @return a LinearRegressionModel which has the weights and offset from training.
*/

http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-spark/blob/2182aa3c/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala
----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala
index 0c0e67f..c504d3d 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/regression/RidgeRegression.scala
@@ -44,6 +44,11 @@ class RidgeRegressionModel(

/**
* Train a regression model with L2-regularization using Stochastic Gradient Descent.
+ * This solves the l1-regularized least squares regression formulation
+ *          f(weights) = 1/n ||A weights-y||^2  + regParam/2 ||weights||^2
+ * Here the data matrix has n rows, and the input RDD holds the set of rows of A, each with
+ * its corresponding right hand side label y.
+ * See also the documentation for the precise formulation.
*/
class RidgeRegressionWithSGD private (
var stepSize: Double,
@@ -53,7 +58,7 @@ class RidgeRegressionWithSGD private (
extends GeneralizedLinearAlgorithm[RidgeRegressionModel]
with Serializable {

val updater = new SquaredL2Updater()

@transient val optimizer = new GradientDescent(gradient, updater).setStepSize(stepSize)
@@ -114,8 +119,8 @@ object RidgeRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a RidgeRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient. The weights used in
-   * gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient. The weights used
+   * in gradient descent are initialized using the initial weights provided.
*
* @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
@@ -141,7 +146,7 @@ object RidgeRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a RidgeRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. Each iteration uses
-   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate the gradient.
+   * miniBatchFraction fraction of the data to calculate a stochastic gradient.
*
* @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.
@@ -163,7 +168,7 @@ object RidgeRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a RidgeRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using the specified step size. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * compute the true gradient in each iteration.
*
* @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
* @param stepSize Step size to be used for each iteration of Gradient Descent.
@@ -184,7 +189,7 @@ object RidgeRegressionWithSGD {
/**
* Train a RidgeRegression model given an RDD of (label, features) pairs. We run a fixed number
* of iterations of gradient descent using a step size of 1.0. We use the entire data set to
-   * update the gradient in each iteration.
+   * compute the true gradient in each iteration.
*
* @param input RDD of (label, array of features) pairs.
* @param numIterations Number of iterations of gradient descent to run.


Mime
View raw message