1,283 research outputs found
Robust Subspace Learning: Robust PCA, Robust Subspace Tracking, and Robust Subspace Recovery
PCA is one of the most widely used dimension reduction techniques. A related
easier problem is "subspace learning" or "subspace estimation". Given
relatively clean data, both are easily solved via singular value decomposition
(SVD). The problem of subspace learning or PCA in the presence of outliers is
called robust subspace learning or robust PCA (RPCA). For long data sequences,
if one tries to use a single lower dimensional subspace to represent the data,
the required subspace dimension may end up being quite large. For such data, a
better model is to assume that it lies in a low-dimensional subspace that can
change over time, albeit gradually. The problem of tracking such data (and the
subspaces) while being robust to outliers is called robust subspace tracking
(RST). This article provides a magazine-style overview of the entire field of
robust subspace learning and tracking. In particular solutions for three
problems are discussed in detail: RPCA via sparse+low-rank matrix decomposition
(S+LR), RST via S+LR, and "robust subspace recovery (RSR)". RSR assumes that an
entire data vector is either an outlier or an inlier. The S+LR formulation
instead assumes that outliers occur on only a few data vector indices and hence
are well modeled as sparse corruptions.Comment: To appear, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, July 201
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
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