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High-dimensional systems that have a low-dimensional dominant behavior allow for model reduction and simplified analysis. We use differential analysis to formalize this important concept in a nonlinear setting. We show that dominance can be studied through linear dissipation inequalities and an interconnection theory that closely mimics the classical analysis of stability by means of dissipativity theory. In this approach, stability is seen as the limiting situation where the dominant behavior is 0-dimensional. The generalization opens novel tractable avenues to study multistability through 1-dominance and limit cycle oscillations through 2-dominance., 11 pages, 7 figures, IEEE Transaction of Automatic control

The implicit objective of the biennial "international - Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST) is to foster collaboration between international scientific teams by disseminating ideas through both specific oral/poster presentations and free discussions. For its second edition, the iTWIST workshop took place in the medieval and picturesque town of Namur in Belgium, from Wednesday August 27th till Friday August 29th, 2014. The workshop was conveniently located in "The Arsenal" building within walking distance of both hotels and town center. iTWIST'14 has gathered about 70 international participants and has featured 9 invited talks, 10 oral presentations, and 14 posters on the following themes, all related to the theory, application and generalization of the "sparsity paradigm": Sparsity-driven data sensing and processing; Union of low dimensional subspaces; Beyond linear and convex inverse problem; Matrix/manifold/graph sensing/processing; Blind inverse problems and dictionary learning; Sparsity and computational neuroscience; Information theory, geometry and randomness; Complexity/accuracy tradeoffs in numerical methods; Sparsity? What's next?; Sparse machine learning and inference., 69 pages, 24 extended abstracts, iTWIST'14 website: http://sites.google.com/site/itwist14

We propose a new Riemannian geometry for fixed-rank matrices that is specifically tailored to the low-rank matrix completion problem. Exploiting the degree of freedom of a quotient space, we tune the metric on our search space to the particular least square cost function. At one level, it illustrates in a novel way how to exploit the versatile framework of optimization on quotient manifold. At another level, our algorithm can be considered as an improved version of LMaFit, the state-of-the-art Gauss-Seidel algorithm. We develop necessary tools needed to perform both first-order and second-order optimization. In particular, we propose gradient descent schemes (steepest descent and conjugate gradient) and trust-region algorithms. We also show that, thanks to the simplicity of the cost function, it is numerically cheap to perform an exact linesearch given a search direction, which makes our algorithms competitive with the state-of-the-art on standard low-rank matrix completion instances., Comment: Title modified, Typos removed. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1209.0430

We propose an algorithm for solving nonlinear convex programs defined in terms of a symmetric positive semidefinite matrix variable $X$. This algorithm rests on the factorization $X=Y Y^T$, where the number of columns of Y fixes the rank of $X$. It is thus very effective for solving programs that have a low rank solution. The factorization $X=Y Y^T$ evokes a reformulation of the original problem as an optimization on a particular quotient manifold. The present paper discusses the geometry of that manifold and derives a second order optimization method. It furthermore provides some conditions on the rank of the factorization to ensure equivalence with the original problem. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is illustrated on two applications: the maximal cut of a graph and the sparse principal component analysis problem., Comment: submitted

Optimization on manifolds is a rapidly developing branch of nonlinear optimization. Its focus is on problems where the smooth geometry of the search space can be leveraged to design effcient numerical algorithms. In particular, optimization on manifolds is well-suited to deal with rank and orthogonality constraints. Such structured constraints appear pervasively in machine learning applications, including low-rank matrix completion, sensor network localization, camera network registration, independent component analysis, metric learning, dimensionality reduction and so on. The Manopt toolbox, available at www.manopt.org, is a user-friendly, documented piece of software dedicated to simplify experimenting with state of the art Riemannian optimization algorithms. By dealing internally with most of the differential geometry, the package aims particularly at lowering the entrance barrier. © 2014 Nicolas Boumal.

This paper considers balanced truncation of discrete-time Hankel $k$-positive systems, characterized by Hankel matrices whose minors up to order k are nonnegative. Our main result shows that if the truncated system has order $k$ or less, then it is Hankel totally positive ($\infty$-positive), meaning that it is a sum of first order lags. This result can be understood as a bridge between two known results: the property that the first-order truncation of a positive system is positive ($k=1$), and the property that balanced truncation preserves state-space symmetry. It provides a broad class of systems where balanced truncation is guaranteed to result in a minimal internally positive system.