63,882 research outputs found
Paved with Good Intentions: Analysis of a Randomized Block Kaczmarz Method
The block Kaczmarz method is an iterative scheme for solving overdetermined
least-squares problems. At each step, the algorithm projects the current
iterate onto the solution space of a subset of the constraints. This paper
describes a block Kaczmarz algorithm that uses a randomized control scheme to
choose the subset at each step. This algorithm is the first block Kaczmarz
method with an (expected) linear rate of convergence that can be expressed in
terms of the geometric properties of the matrix and its submatrices. The
analysis reveals that the algorithm is most effective when it is given a good
row paving of the matrix, a partition of the rows into well-conditioned blocks.
The operator theory literature provides detailed information about the
existence and construction of good row pavings. Together, these results yield
an efficient block Kaczmarz scheme that applies to many overdetermined
least-squares problem
Quantifying dependencies for sensitivity analysis with multivariate input sample data
We present a novel method for quantifying dependencies in multivariate
datasets, based on estimating the R\'{e}nyi entropy by minimum spanning trees
(MSTs). The length of the MSTs can be used to order pairs of variables from
strongly to weakly dependent, making it a useful tool for sensitivity analysis
with dependent input variables. It is well-suited for cases where the input
distribution is unknown and only a sample of the inputs is available. We
introduce an estimator to quantify dependency based on the MST length, and
investigate its properties with several numerical examples. To reduce the
computational cost of constructing the exact MST for large datasets, we explore
methods to compute approximations to the exact MST, and find the multilevel
approach introduced recently by Zhong et al. (2015) to be the most accurate. We
apply our proposed method to an artificial testcase based on the Ishigami
function, as well as to a real-world testcase involving sediment transport in
the North Sea. The results are consistent with prior knowledge and heuristic
understanding, as well as with variance-based analysis using Sobol indices in
the case where these indices can be computed
- …