Minimum-volume-constrained nonnegative matrix factorization: enhanced ability of learning parts

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) with minimum-volume-constraint (MVC) is exploited in this paper. Our results show that MVC can actually improve the sparseness of the results of NMF. This sparseness is L(0)-norm oriented and can give desirable results even in very weak sparseness situations, thereby leading to the significantly enhanced ability of learning parts of NMF. The close relation between NMF, sparse NMF, and the MVC_NMF is discussed first. Then two algorithms are proposed to solve the MVC_NMF model. One is called quadratic programming_MVC_NMF (QP_MVC_NMF) which is based on quadratic programming and the other is called negative glow_MVC_NMF (NG_MVC_NMF) because it uses multiplicative updates incorporating natural gradient ingeniously. The QP_MVC_NMF algorithm is quite efficient for small-scale problems and the NG_MVC_NMF algorithm is more suitable for large-scale problems. Simulations show the efficiency and validity of the proposed methods in applications of blind source separation and human face images analysis.