Free-Knot Spline Approximation of Stochastic Processes

We study optimal approximation of stochastic processes by polynomial splines with free knots. The number of free knots is either a priori fixed or may depend on the particular trajectory. For the $s$-fold integrated Wiener process as well as for scalar diffusion processes we determine the asymptotic behavior of the average $L_p$-distance to the splines spaces, as the (expected) number $k$ of free knots tends to infinity.Comment: 23 page

Wiener splines

We describe an alternative way of constructing interpolating B-spline curves, surfaces or volumes in Fourier space which can be used for visualization. In our approach the interpolation problem is considered from a signal processing point of view and is reduced to finding an inverse B-spline filter sequence. The Fourier approach encompasses some advantageous features, such as successive approximation, compression, fast convolution and hardware support. In addition, optimal Wiener filtering can be applied to remove noise and distortions from the initial data points and to compute a smooth, least-squares fitting ‘Wiener spline’. Unlike traditional fitting methods, the described algorithm is simple and easy to implement. The performance of the presented method is illustrated by some examples showing the restoration of surfaces corrupted by various types of distortions

On spherical averages of radial basis functions

A radial basis function (RBF) has the general form $$s(x)=\sum_{k=1}^{n}a_{k}\phi(x-b_{k}),\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^{d},$$ where the coefficients a 1,…,a n are real numbers, the points, or centres, b 1,…,b n lie in ℝ d , and φ:ℝ d →ℝ is a radially symmetric function. Such approximants are highly useful and enjoy rich theoretical properties; see, for instance (Buhmann, Radial Basis Functions: Theory and Implementations, [2003]; Fasshauer, Meshfree Approximation Methods with Matlab, [2007]; Light and Cheney, A Course in Approximation Theory, [2000]; or Wendland, Scattered Data Approximation, [2004]). The important special case of polyharmonic splines results when φ is the fundamental solution of the iterated Laplacian operator, and this class includes the Euclidean norm φ(x)=‖x‖ when d is an odd positive integer, the thin plate spline φ(x)=‖x‖2log  ‖x‖ when d is an even positive integer, and univariate splines. Now B-splines generate a compactly supported basis for univariate spline spaces, but an analyticity argument implies that a nontrivial polyharmonic spline generated by (1.1) cannot be compactly supported when d>1. However, a pioneering paper of Jackson (Constr. Approx. 4:243–264, [1988]) established that the spherical average of a radial basis function generated by the Euclidean norm can be compactly supported when the centres and coefficients satisfy certain moment conditions; Jackson then used this compactly supported spherical average to construct approximate identities, with which he was then able to derive some of the earliest uniform convergence results for a class of radial basis functions. Our work extends this earlier analysis, but our technique is entirely novel, and applies to all polyharmonic splines. Furthermore, we observe that the technique provides yet another way to generate compactly supported, radially symmetric, positive definite functions. Specifically, we find that the spherical averaging operator commutes with the Fourier transform operator, and we are then able to identify Fourier transforms of compactly supported functions using the Paley–Wiener theorem. Furthermore, the use of Haar measure on compact Lie groups would not have occurred without frequent exposure to Iserles’s study of geometric integration