11 research outputs found
Low-rank Tensor Estimation via Riemannian Gauss-Newton: Statistical Optimality and Second-Order Convergence
In this paper, we consider the estimation of a low Tucker rank tensor from a
number of noisy linear measurements. The general problem covers many specific
examples arising from applications, including tensor regression, tensor
completion, and tensor PCA/SVD. We consider an efficient Riemannian
Gauss-Newton (RGN) method for low Tucker rank tensor estimation. Different from
the generic (super)linear convergence guarantee of RGN in the literature, we
prove the first local quadratic convergence guarantee of RGN for low-rank
tensor estimation in the noisy setting under some regularity conditions and
provide the corresponding estimation error upper bounds. A deterministic
estimation error lower bound, which matches the upper bound, is provided that
demonstrates the statistical optimality of RGN. The merit of RGN is illustrated
through two machine learning applications: tensor regression and tensor SVD.
Finally, we provide the simulation results to corroborate our theoretical
findings
Nonconvex Matrix Factorization is Geodesically Convex: Global Landscape Analysis for Fixed-rank Matrix Optimization From a Riemannian Perspective
We study a general matrix optimization problem with a fixed-rank positive
semidefinite (PSD) constraint. We perform the Burer-Monteiro factorization and
consider a particular Riemannian quotient geometry in a search space that has a
total space equipped with the Euclidean metric. When the original objective f
satisfies standard restricted strong convexity and smoothness properties, we
characterize the global landscape of the factorized objective under the
Riemannian quotient geometry. We show the entire search space can be divided
into three regions: (R1) the region near the target parameter of interest,
where the factorized objective is geodesically strongly convex and smooth; (R2)
the region containing neighborhoods of all strict saddle points; (R3) the
remaining regions, where the factorized objective has a large gradient. To our
best knowledge, this is the first global landscape analysis of the
Burer-Monteiro factorized objective under the Riemannian quotient geometry. Our
results provide a fully geometric explanation for the superior performance of
vanilla gradient descent under the Burer-Monteiro factorization. When f
satisfies a weaker restricted strict convexity property, we show there exists a
neighborhood near local minimizers such that the factorized objective is
geodesically convex. To prove our results we provide a comprehensive landscape
analysis of a matrix factorization problem with a least squares objective,
which serves as a critical bridge. Our conclusions are also based on a result
of independent interest stating that the geodesic ball centered at Y with a
radius 1/3 of the least singular value of Y is a geodesically convex set under
the Riemannian quotient geometry, which as a corollary, also implies a
quantitative bound of the convexity radius in the Bures-Wasserstein space. The
convexity radius obtained is sharp up to constants.Comment: The abstract is shortened to meet the arXiv submission requiremen
On Geometric Connections of Embedded and Quotient Geometries in Riemannian Fixed-rank Matrix Optimization
In this paper, we propose a general procedure for establishing the geometric
landscape connections of a Riemannian optimization problem under the embedded
and quotient geometries. By applying the general procedure to the fixed-rank
positive semidefinite (PSD) and general matrix optimization, we establish an
exact Riemannian gradient connection under two geometries at every point on the
manifold and sandwich inequalities between the spectra of Riemannian Hessians
at Riemannian first-order stationary points (FOSPs). These results immediately
imply an equivalence on the sets of Riemannian FOSPs, Riemannian second-order
stationary points (SOSPs), and strict saddles of fixed-rank matrix optimization
under the embedded and the quotient geometries. To the best of our knowledge,
this is the first geometric landscape connection between the embedded and the
quotient geometries for fixed-rank matrix optimization and it provides a
concrete example of how these two geometries are connected in Riemannian
optimization. In addition, the effects of the Riemannian metric and quotient
structure on the landscape connection are discussed. We also observe an
algorithmic connection between two geometries with some specific Riemannian
metrics in fixed-rank matrix optimization: there is an equivalence between
gradient flows under two geometries with shared spectra of Riemannian Hessians.
A number of novel ideas and technical ingredients including a unified treatment
for different Riemannian metrics, novel metrics for the Stiefel manifold, and
new horizontal space representations under quotient geometries are developed to
obtain our results. The results in this paper deepen our understanding of
geometric and algorithmic connections of Riemannian optimization under
different Riemannian geometries and provide a few new theoretical insights to
unanswered questions in the literature
Iterative Approximate Cross-Validation
Cross-validation (CV) is one of the most popular tools for assessing and
selecting predictive models. However, standard CV suffers from high
computational cost when the number of folds is large. Recently, under the
empirical risk minimization (ERM) framework, a line of works proposed efficient
methods to approximate CV based on the solution of the ERM problem trained on
the full dataset. However, in large-scale problems, it can be hard to obtain
the exact solution of the ERM problem, either due to limited computational
resources or due to early stopping as a way of preventing overfitting. In this
paper, we propose a new paradigm to efficiently approximate CV when the ERM
problem is solved via an iterative first-order algorithm, without running until
convergence. Our new method extends existing guarantees for CV approximation to
hold along the whole trajectory of the algorithm, including at convergence,
thus generalizing existing CV approximation methods. Finally, we illustrate the
accuracy and computational efficiency of our method through a range of
empirical studies
Recursive Importance Sketching for Rank Constrained Least Squares: Algorithms and High-order Convergence
In this paper, we propose a new {\it \underline{R}ecursive} {\it
\underline{I}mportance} {\it \underline{S}ketching} algorithm for {\it
\underline{R}ank} constrained least squares {\it \underline{O}ptimization}
(RISRO). As its name suggests, the algorithm is based on a new sketching
framework, recursive importance sketching. Several existing algorithms in the
literature can be reinterpreted under the new sketching framework and RISRO
offers clear advantages over them. RISRO is easy to implement and
computationally efficient, where the core procedure in each iteration is only
solving a dimension reduced least squares problem. Different from numerous
existing algorithms with locally geometric convergence rate, we establish the
local quadratic-linear and quadratic rate of convergence for RISRO under some
mild conditions. In addition, we discover a deep connection of RISRO to
Riemannian manifold optimization on fixed rank matrices. The effectiveness of
RISRO is demonstrated in two applications in machine learning and statistics:
low-rank matrix trace regression and phase retrieval. Simulation studies
demonstrate the superior numerical performance of RISRO
Exact Clustering in Tensor Block Model: Statistical Optimality and Computational Limit
High-order clustering aims to identify heterogeneous substructures in
multiway datasets that arise commonly in neuroimaging, genomics, social network
studies, etc. The non-convex and discontinuous nature of this problem pose
significant challenges in both statistics and computation. In this paper, we
propose a tensor block model and the computationally efficient methods,
\emph{high-order Lloyd algorithm} (HLloyd), and \emph{high-order spectral
clustering} (HSC), for high-order clustering. The convergence guarantees and
statistical optimality are established for the proposed procedure under a mild
sub-Gaussian noise assumption. Under the Gaussian tensor block model, we
completely characterize the statistical-computational trade-off for achieving
high-order exact clustering based on three different signal-to-noise ratio
regimes. The analysis relies on new techniques of high-order spectral
perturbation analysis and a "singular-value-gap-free" error bound in tensor
estimation, which are substantially different from the matrix spectral analyses
in the literature. Finally, we show the merits of the proposed procedures via
extensive experiments on both synthetic and real datasets.Comment: 65 page
Effect of Land Use/Cover Change on Soil Wind Erosion in the Yellow River Basin since the 1990s
“Ecological conservation and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin” is one of the fundamental national strategies related to national food security and ecological security in China. Evaluating the impact of land use/cover change (LUCC) on soil erosion is valuable to improving regional ecological environments and sustainable development. This study focused on the Yellow River Basin and used remote sensing data, the soil wind erosion modulus (SWEM) calculated with the revised wind erosion equation (RWEQ), to analyze the impact of regional scale LUCC from 1990 to 2018 on soil wind erosion. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The total area of cultivated land, grass land, and unused land decreased, with a total reduction of 11,038.86 km²; total areas of forest land and built-up areas increased, increased by 2746.61 and 8356.77 km2, respectively, with differences within the region in these LUCC trends at different periods. From 1990 to 2000, the area of cultivated land increased by 1958.36 km2 and built-up land area increased by 1331.90 km2. The areas of forestland, grass land, water area, and unused land decreased. From 2000 to 2010, the area of cultivated land and grass land decreased by 4553.77 and 2351.39 km², respectively, whereas the areas of forestland and built-up land significantly increased. From 2010 to 2018, the area of cultivated land and grass land continued to decrease, and the area of built-up land continued to increase. (2) Since the 1990s, the SWEM has generally declined (Slope1990–2018 = −0.38 t/(ha·a)). Total amount of wind erosion in 2018 decreased by more than 50% compared with the amount in 1990. During this period, the intensity of wind erosion first increased and then decreased. In terms of the SWEM, 90.63% of the study area showed a decrease. (3) From 1990 to 2018, LUCC reduced the total amount of soil wind erosion by 15.57 million tons. From 1990 to 2000, the conversion of grass land/forest land to cultivated land and the expansion of desert resulted in a significant increase in soil wind erosion. From 2000 to 2018, the amount of soil wind erosion decreased at a rate of about 1.22 million tons/year, and the total amount of soil wind erosion decreased by 17.8921 million tons. During this period, the contribution rate of ecological programs (e.g., conversion of cultivated land to forest land and grass land, ecological engineering construction projects, etc.) to reduction of regional soil wind erosion was 59.13%, indicating that ecological programs have a positive role in reducing soil wind erosion intensity. The sustainable development of the ecological environment of the Yellow River Basin should be continued through strengthening ecological restoration and protection, to further consolidate gains made in this fragile ecosystem. This study provides scientific and technological support and relevant policy recommendations for the sustainable development of the Yellow River ecosystem under global change