Our algorithm is based on the semidefinite program (SDP) relaxation of the non-convexl1-regularized PCA problem.

Sparse principal component analysis (PCA) is a well-established dimensionality reduction technique that is often used for unsupervised feature selection (UFS). However, determining the regularization parameters is rather challenging, and conventional approaches, including grid search and Bayesian optimization, not only bring great computational costs but also exhibit high sensitivity. To address these limitations, we first establish a structured sparse PCA formulation by integrating $\ell_1$-norm and $\ell_{2,1}$-norm to capture the local and global structures, respectively. Building upon the off-the-shelf alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) optimization framework, we then design an interpretable deep unfolding network that translates iterative optimization steps into trainable neural architectures. This innovation enables automatic learning of the regularization parameters, effectively bypassing the empirical tuning requirements of conventional methods. Numerical experiments on benchmark datasets validate the advantages of our proposed method over the existing state-of-the-art methods. Our code will be accessible at https://github.com/xianchaoxiu/SPCA-Net.

Since its first descriptions by Pearson (1901) and by Hotelling (1933), principal component analysis (PCA) has been one of the main multivariate analysis techniques for dimension reduction and feature extraction. PCA has become an essential tool for not just independent and identically distributed (iid) multivariate data, but also for serially correlated multivariate time series data in both the time and frequency domains. In the frequency domain, PCA as a sequential method for finding directions of maximum variability appeared in the work of Brillinger (1964) and Goodman (1967). Brillinger (1969) formulated the principal component series through an optimal linear filtering that transmit a p-dimensional signal through a d-dimensional channel and recovers it with minimum loss of information. A foundational discussion of theory and applications of PCA in frequency domain can be found in Brillinger (2001); recent applications of this framework include uncovering non-coherent block structures (Sundararajan, 2021), time-frequency analysis (Ombao et al., 2005) and change point detection (Jiao et al., 2021). PCA for the frequency domain analysis of high-dimensional multivariate time series faces several challenges. The first challenge, which is not unique to frequency domain PCA and is a challenge for PCA in general, is high-dimensionality. When the dimension is fixed, sample eigenvectors, and consequently sample estimates of the principal components, are consistent and asymptotically normally distributed (Anderson, 1958). However, in highdimensional regimes, where the dimension of the random variable grows, sample PCs fail to be consistent.

Sparse PCA provides a linear combination of small number of features that maximizes variance across data. Although Sparse PCA has apparent advantages compared to PCA, such as better interpretability, it is generally thought to be computationally much more expensive. In this paper, we demonstrate the surprising fact that sparse PCA can be easier than PCA in practice, and that it can be reliably applied to very large data sets. This comes from a rigorous feature elimination pre-processing result, coupled with the favorable fact that features in real-life data typically have exponentially decreasing variances, which allows for many features to be eliminated. We introduce a fast block coordinate ascent algorithm with much better computational complexity than the existing first-order ones. We provide experimental results obtained on text corpora involving millions of documents and hundreds of thousands of features. These results illustrate how Sparse PCA can help organize a large corpus of text data in a user-interpretable way, providing an attractive alternative approach to topic models.

In the rapidly evolving realm of machine learning, algorithm effectiveness often faces limitations due to data quality and availability. Traditional approaches grapple with data sharing due to legal and privacy concerns. The federated learning framework addresses this challenge. Federated learning is a decentralized approach where model training occurs on client sides, preserving privacy by keeping data localized. Instead of sending raw data to a central server, only model updates are exchanged, enhancing data security. We apply this framework to Sparse Principal Component Analysis (SPCA) in this work. SPCA aims to attain sparse component loadings while maximizing data variance for improved interpretability. Beside the L1 norm regularization term in conventional SPCA, we add a smoothing function to facilitate gradient-based optimization methods. Moreover, in order to improve computational efficiency, we introduce a least squares approximation to original SPCA. This enables analytic solutions on the optimization processes, leading to substantial computational improvements. Within the federated framework, we formulate SPCA as a consensus optimization problem, which can be solved using the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). Our extensive experiments involve both IID and non-IID random features across various data owners. Results on synthetic and public datasets affirm the efficacy of our federated SPCA approach.

We analyze a practical algorithm for sparse PCA on incomplete and noisy data under a general non-random sampling scheme. The algorithm is based on a semidefinite relaxation of the $\ell_1$-regularized PCA problem. We provide theoretical justification that under certain conditions, we can recover the support of the sparse leading eigenvector with high probability by obtaining a unique solution. The conditions involve the spectral gap between the largest and second-largest eigenvalues of the true data matrix, the magnitude of the noise, and the structural properties of the observed entries. The concepts of algebraic connectivity and irregularity are used to describe the structural properties of the observed entries. We empirically justify our theorem with synthetic and real data analysis. We also show that our algorithm outperforms several other sparse PCA approaches especially when the observed entries have good structural properties. As a by-product of our analysis, we provide two theorems to handle a deterministic sampling scheme, which can be applied to other matrix-related problems.

Sparse Principal Component Analysis (SPCA) is widely used in data processing and dimension reduction; it uses the lasso to produce modified principal components with sparse loadings for better interpretability. However, sparse PCA never considers an additional grouping structure where the loadings share similar coefficients (i.e., feature grouping), besides a special group with all coefficients being zero (i.e., feature selection). In this paper, we propose a novel method called Feature Grouping and Sparse Principal Component Analysis (FGSPCA) which allows the loadings to belong to disjoint homogeneous groups, with sparsity as a special case. The proposed FGSPCA is a subspace learning method designed to simultaneously perform grouping pursuit and feature selection, by imposing a non-convex regularization with naturally adjustable sparsity and grouping effect. To solve the resulting non-convex optimization problem, we propose an alternating algorithm that incorporates the difference-of-convex programming, augmented Lagrange and coordinate descent methods. Additionally, the experimental results on real data sets show that the proposed FGSPCA benefits from the grouping effect compared with methods without grouping effect.

Sparse principal component analysis (SPCA) has emerged as a powerful technique for modern data analysis. We discuss a robust and scalable algorithm for computing sparse principal component analysis. Specifically, we model SPCA as a matrix factorization problem with orthogonality constraints, and develop specialized optimization algorithms that partially minimize a subset of the variables (variable projection). The framework incorporates a wide variety of sparsity-inducing regularizers for SPCA. We also extend the variable projection approach to robust SPCA, for any robust loss that can be expressed as the Moreau envelope of a simple function, with the canonical example of the Huber loss. Finally, randomized methods for linear algebra are used to extend the approach to the large-scale (big data) setting. The proposed algorithms are demonstrated using both synthetic and real world data.

We propose and investigate selective reduced rank regression for constructing optimal explanatory factors from a parsimonious subset of input features. The proposed estimators enjoy sharp oracle inequalities, and with a predictive information criterion for model selection, they adapt to unknown sparsity by controlling both rank and row support of the coefficient matrix. A class of algorithms is developed that can accommodate various convex and nonconvex sparsity-inducing penalties, and can be used for rank-constrained variable screening in high-dimensional multivariate data. The paper also showcases applications in macroeconomics and computer vision to demonstrate how low-dimensional data structures can be effectively captured by joint variable selection and projection.

Approximate inference via information projection has been recently introduced as a general-purpose approach for efficient probabilistic inference given sparse variables. This manuscript goes beyond classical sparsity by proposing efficient algorithms for approximate inference via information projection that are applicable to any structure on the set of variables that admits enumeration using a \emph{matroid}. We show that the resulting information projection can be reduced to combinatorial submodular optimization subject to matroid constraints. Further, leveraging recent advances in submodular optimization, we provide an efficient greedy algorithm with strong optimization-theoretic guarantees. The class of probabilistic models that can be expressed in this way is quite broad and, as we show, includes group sparse regression, group sparse principal components analysis and sparse canonical correlation analysis, among others. Moreover, empirical results on simulated data and high dimensional neuroimaging data highlight the superior performance of the information projection approach as compared to established baselines for a range of probabilistic models.