kernel-independent component analysis
In statistics, kernel-independent component analysis (kernel ICA) is an efficient algorithm for independent component analysis which estimates source components by optimizing a generalized variance contrast function, which is based on representations in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space.{{Cite journal | last1 = Bach | first1 = Francis R. | last2 = Jordan | first2 = Michael I. | doi = 10.1162/153244303768966085 | title = Kernel independent component analysis | journal = The Journal of Machine Learning Research | volume = 3 | pages = 1–48 | year = 2003 | url = https://www.di.ens.fr/~fbach/kernelICA-jmlr.pdf}}{{Cite book | last1 = Bach | first1 = Francis R. | last2 = Jordan | first2 = Michael I. | title = 2003 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 2003. Proceedings. (ICASSP '03) | chapter = Kernel independent component analysis | doi = 10.1109/icassp.2003.1202783 | volume = 4 | pages = IV-876-9 | year = 2003 | url = https://www.di.ens.fr/~fbach/kernelICA-icassp03.pdf| isbn = 978-0-7803-7663-2 | s2cid = 7691428 }} Those contrast functions use the notion of mutual information as a measure of statistical independence.
Main idea
Kernel ICA is based on the idea that correlations between two random variables can be represented in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), denoted by , associated with a feature map defined for a fixed . The -correlation between two random variables and is defined as
:
where the functions range over and
:
for fixed . Note that the reproducing property implies that for fixed and .{{cite book |last=Saitoh |first=Saburou | title=Theory of Reproducing Kernels and Its Applications |publisher=Longman |year=1988|isbn = 978-0582035645}} It follows then that the -correlation between two independent random variables is zero.
This notion of -correlations is used for defining contrast functions that are optimized in the Kernel ICA algorithm. Specifically, if is a prewhitened data matrix, that is, the sample mean of each column is zero and the sample covariance of the rows is the dimensional identity matrix, Kernel ICA estimates a dimensional orthogonal matrix so as to minimize finite-sample -correlations between the columns of .