Gradient descent doesn't converge - regression

Question

Here is my own implementation of gradient descent algorithm in matlab language
m = height(data_training); % number of samples
cols = {'x1', 'x2', 'x3', 'x4', 'x5', 'x6',...
'x7', 'x8','x9', 'x10', 'x11', 'x12', 'x13', 'x14', 'x15'};
y = data_training{:, {'y'}}';
X = [ones(m,1) data_training{:,cols}]';
theta = zeros(1,width(data_training));
alpha = 1e-2; % learning rate
iter = 400;
dJ = zeros(1,width(data_training));
J_seq = zeros(1, iter);
for n = 1:iter
err = (theta*X - y);
for j = 1:width(data_training)
dJ(j) = 1/m*sum(err*X(j,:)');
end
J = 1/(2*m)*sum((theta*X-y).^2);
theta = theta - alpha.*dJ;
J_seq(n) = J;
if mod(n,100) == 0
plot(1:iter, J_seq);
end
end
EDIT
WORKING ALGORITHM
I have applied this algorithm to the following training dataset. The last column is the output variable. Here we have 15 different features.
For a reason for me unknown, when I plot the cost function J after 50 iterations in order to check if it is going towards the convergence, I see it doesn't convergence. Can you help me to understand? is it the implementation wrong or should I make something?
36 27 71 8.1 3.34 11.4 81.5 3243 8.8 42.6 11.7 21 15 59 59 921.87
35 23 72 11.1 3.14 11 78.8 4281 3.6 50.7 14.4 8 10 39 57 997.88
44 29 74 10.4 3.21 9.8 81.6 4260 0.8 39.4 12.4 6 6 33 54 962.35
47 45 79 6.5 3.41 11.1 77.5 3125 27.1 50.2 20.6 18 8 24 56 982.29
43 35 77 7.6 3.44 9.6 84.6 6441 24.4 43.7 14.3 43 38 206 55 1071.3
53 45 80 7.7 3.45 10.2 66.8 3325 38.5 43.1 25.5 30 32 72 54 1030.4
43 30 74 10.9 3.23 12.1 83.9 4679 3.5 49.2 11.3 21 32 62 56 934.7
45 30 73 9.3 3.29 10.6 86 2140 5.3 40.4 10.5 6 4 4 56 899.53
36 24 70 9 3.31 10.5 83.2 6582 8.1 42.5 12.6 18 12 37 61 1001.9
36 27 72 9.5 3.36 10.7 79.3 4213 6.7 41 13.2 12 7 20 59 912.35
52 42 79 7.7 3.39 9.6 69.2 2302 22.2 41.3 24.2 18 8 27 56 1017.6
33 26 76 8.6 3.2 10.9 83.4 6122 16.3 44.9 10.7 88 63 278 58 1024.9
40 34 77 9.2 3.21 10.2 77 4101 13 45.7 15.1 26 26 146 57 970.47
35 28 71 8.8 3.29 11.1 86.3 3042 14.7 44.6 11.4 31 21 64 60 985.95
37 31 75 8 3.26 11.9 78.4 4259 13.1 49.6 13.9 23 9 15 58 958.84
35 46 85 7.1 3.22 11.8 79.9 1441 14.8 51.2 16.1 1 1 1 54 860.1
36 30 75 7.5 3.35 11.4 81.9 4029 12.4 44 12 6 4 16 58 936.23
15 30 73 8.2 3.15 12.2 84.2 4824 4.7 53.1 12.7 17 8 28 38 871.77
31 27 74 7.2 3.44 10.8 87 4834 15.8 43.5 13.6 52 35 124 59 959.22
30 24 72 6.5 3.53 10.8 79.5 3694 13.1 33.8 12.4 11 4 11 61 941.18
31 45 85 7.3 3.22 11.4 80.7 1844 11.5 48.1 18.5 1 1 1 53 891.71
31 24 72 9 3.37 10.9 82.8 3226 5.1 45.2 12.3 5 3 10 61 871.34
42 40 77 6.1 3.45 10.4 71.8 2269 22.7 41.4 19.5 8 3 5 53 971.12
43 27 72 9 3.25 11.5 87.1 2909 7.2 51.6 9.5 7 3 10 56 887.47
46 55 84 5.6 3.35 11.4 79.7 2647 21 46.9 17.9 6 5 1 59 952.53
39 29 76 8.7 3.23 11.4 78.6 4412 15.6 46.6 13.2 13 7 33 60 968.66
35 31 81 9.2 3.1 12 78.3 3262 12.6 48.6 13.9 7 4 4 55 919.73
43 32 74 10.1 3.38 9.5 79.2 3214 2.9 43.7 12 11 7 32 54 844.05
11 53 68 9.2 2.99 12.1 90.6 4700 7.8 48.9 12.3 648 319 130 47 861.83
30 35 71 8.3 3.37 9.9 77.4 4474 13.1 42.6 17.7 38 37 193 57 989.26
50 42 82 7.3 3.49 10.4 72.5 3497 36.7 43.3 26.4 15 10 34 59 1006.5
60 67 82 10 2.98 11.5 88.6 4657 13.6 47.3 22.4 3 1 1 60 861.44
30 20 69 8.8 3.26 11.1 85.4 2934 5.8 44 9.4 33 23 125 64 929.15
25 12 73 9.2 3.28 12.1 83.1 2095 2 51.9 9.8 20 11 26 50 857.62
45 40 80 8.3 3.32 10.1 70.3 2682 21 46.1 24.1 17 14 78 56 961.01
46 30 72 10.2 3.16 11.3 83.2 3327 8.8 45.3 12.2 4 3 8 58 923.23

Answer 1

Not sure I'm following your logic, but it's quite obvious that 'e' (the error) should not be squared.
Let's see what you should be using.
theta is a column vector of unknowns, y is a column vector of measurements and X is the model matrix where each row is an 'example'. So you need to find theta such that:
y = X*theta
Or equivalently, use an optimization method to find theta minimizing the current squared error (this is what makes this a convex optimization problem):
e[n] = (y - X*theta[n])
e[n]^2 --> minimize
Gradient descent uses the gradient of the error function (with respect to theta) to update the theta vector:
theta[n+1] = theta[n] - alpha*2*X'*e[n]
(Note that e[n] and theta[n] are vectors. This is math notation - not matlab's)
So you see that e[n] is not squared in the update equation.