Sufficient Conditions for Uniform Stability of Regularization Algorithms

In this paper, we study the stability and generalization properties of penalized empirical-risk minimization algorithms. We propose a set of properties of the penalty term that is sufficient to ensure uniform ?-stability: we show that if the penalty function satisfies a suitable convexity property,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Poggio, Tomaso, Rosasco, Lorenzo, Wibisono, Andre
Other Authors: Tomaso Poggio
Published: 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49868
Description
Summary:In this paper, we study the stability and generalization properties of penalized empirical-risk minimization algorithms. We propose a set of properties of the penalty term that is sufficient to ensure uniform ?-stability: we show that if the penalty function satisfies a suitable convexity property, then the induced regularization algorithm is uniformly ?-stable. In particular, our results imply that regularization algorithms with penalty functions which are strongly convex on bounded domains are ?-stable. In view of the results in [3], uniform stability implies generalization, and moreover, consistency results can be easily obtained. We apply our results to show that â p regularization for 1 < p <= 2 and elastic-net regularization are uniformly ?-stable, and therefore generalize.