9,202 research outputs found
Structure-Based Bayesian Sparse Reconstruction
Sparse signal reconstruction algorithms have attracted research attention due
to their wide applications in various fields. In this paper, we present a
simple Bayesian approach that utilizes the sparsity constraint and a priori
statistical information (Gaussian or otherwise) to obtain near optimal
estimates. In addition, we make use of the rich structure of the sensing matrix
encountered in many signal processing applications to develop a fast sparse
recovery algorithm. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is
relatively low compared with the widely used convex relaxation methods as well
as greedy matching pursuit techniques, especially at a low sparsity rate.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figures, accepted in IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing (July 2012
Non-convex Optimization for Machine Learning
A vast majority of machine learning algorithms train their models and perform
inference by solving optimization problems. In order to capture the learning
and prediction problems accurately, structural constraints such as sparsity or
low rank are frequently imposed or else the objective itself is designed to be
a non-convex function. This is especially true of algorithms that operate in
high-dimensional spaces or that train non-linear models such as tensor models
and deep networks.
The freedom to express the learning problem as a non-convex optimization
problem gives immense modeling power to the algorithm designer, but often such
problems are NP-hard to solve. A popular workaround to this has been to relax
non-convex problems to convex ones and use traditional methods to solve the
(convex) relaxed optimization problems. However this approach may be lossy and
nevertheless presents significant challenges for large scale optimization.
On the other hand, direct approaches to non-convex optimization have met with
resounding success in several domains and remain the methods of choice for the
practitioner, as they frequently outperform relaxation-based techniques -
popular heuristics include projected gradient descent and alternating
minimization. However, these are often poorly understood in terms of their
convergence and other properties.
This monograph presents a selection of recent advances that bridge a
long-standing gap in our understanding of these heuristics. The monograph will
lead the reader through several widely used non-convex optimization techniques,
as well as applications thereof. The goal of this monograph is to both,
introduce the rich literature in this area, as well as equip the reader with
the tools and techniques needed to analyze these simple procedures for
non-convex problems.Comment: The official publication is available from now publishers via
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/220000005
Off-the-Grid Line Spectrum Denoising and Estimation with Multiple Measurement Vectors
Compressed Sensing suggests that the required number of samples for
reconstructing a signal can be greatly reduced if it is sparse in a known
discrete basis, yet many real-world signals are sparse in a continuous
dictionary. One example is the spectrally-sparse signal, which is composed of a
small number of spectral atoms with arbitrary frequencies on the unit interval.
In this paper we study the problem of line spectrum denoising and estimation
with an ensemble of spectrally-sparse signals composed of the same set of
continuous-valued frequencies from their partial and noisy observations. Two
approaches are developed based on atomic norm minimization and structured
covariance estimation, both of which can be solved efficiently via semidefinite
programming. The first approach aims to estimate and denoise the set of signals
from their partial and noisy observations via atomic norm minimization, and
recover the frequencies via examining the dual polynomial of the convex
program. We characterize the optimality condition of the proposed algorithm and
derive the expected convergence rate for denoising, demonstrating the benefit
of including multiple measurement vectors. The second approach aims to recover
the population covariance matrix from the partially observed sample covariance
matrix by motivating its low-rank Toeplitz structure without recovering the
signal ensemble. Performance guarantee is derived with a finite number of
measurement vectors. The frequencies can be recovered via conventional spectrum
estimation methods such as MUSIC from the estimated covariance matrix. Finally,
numerical examples are provided to validate the favorable performance of the
proposed algorithms, with comparisons against several existing approaches.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure
Bispectrum Inversion with Application to Multireference Alignment
We consider the problem of estimating a signal from noisy
circularly-translated versions of itself, called multireference alignment
(MRA). One natural approach to MRA could be to estimate the shifts of the
observations first, and infer the signal by aligning and averaging the data. In
contrast, we consider a method based on estimating the signal directly, using
features of the signal that are invariant under translations. Specifically, we
estimate the power spectrum and the bispectrum of the signal from the
observations. Under mild assumptions, these invariant features contain enough
information to infer the signal. In particular, the bispectrum can be used to
estimate the Fourier phases. To this end, we propose and analyze a few
algorithms. Our main methods consist of non-convex optimization over the smooth
manifold of phases. Empirically, in the absence of noise, these non-convex
algorithms appear to converge to the target signal with random initialization.
The algorithms are also robust to noise. We then suggest three additional
methods. These methods are based on frequency marching, semidefinite relaxation
and integer programming. The first two methods provably recover the phases
exactly in the absence of noise. In the high noise level regime, the invariant
features approach for MRA results in stable estimation if the number of
measurements scales like the cube of the noise variance, which is the
information-theoretic rate. Additionally, it requires only one pass over the
data which is important at low signal-to-noise ratio when the number of
observations must be large
Playing with Duality: An Overview of Recent Primal-Dual Approaches for Solving Large-Scale Optimization Problems
Optimization methods are at the core of many problems in signal/image
processing, computer vision, and machine learning. For a long time, it has been
recognized that looking at the dual of an optimization problem may drastically
simplify its solution. Deriving efficient strategies which jointly brings into
play the primal and the dual problems is however a more recent idea which has
generated many important new contributions in the last years. These novel
developments are grounded on recent advances in convex analysis, discrete
optimization, parallel processing, and non-smooth optimization with emphasis on
sparsity issues. In this paper, we aim at presenting the principles of
primal-dual approaches, while giving an overview of numerical methods which
have been proposed in different contexts. We show the benefits which can be
drawn from primal-dual algorithms both for solving large-scale convex
optimization problems and discrete ones, and we provide various application
examples to illustrate their usefulness
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