# Incremental Gradient, Subgradient, and Proximal Methods for Convex Optimization: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.01030 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1507.01030/

## Key facts

- Cited by 45 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jul 2015.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 45)

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- [Single-shot Star-convex Polygon-based Instance Segmentation for Spatially-correlated Biomedical Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12078/) (2025)
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## Abstract (arXiv)

We survey incremental methods for minimizing a sum sumi=1mfi(x) consisting of a large number of convex component functions fi. Our methods consist of iterations applied to single components, and have proved very effective in practice. We introduce a unified algorithmic framework for a variety of such methods, some involving gradient and subgradient iterations, which are known, and some involving combinations of subgradient and proximal methods, which are new and offer greater flexibility in exploiting the special structure of fi. We provide an analysis of the convergence and rate of convergence properties of these methods, including the advantages offered by randomization in the selection of components. We also survey applications in inference/machine learning, signal processing, and large-scale and distributed optimization.
