Nicholas J. Higham

Bio: Nicholas J. Higham is an academic researcher from University of Manchester. The author has contributed to research in topics: Matrix (mathematics) & Matrix function. The author has an hindex of 63, co-authored 269 publications receiving 18871 citations. Previous affiliations of Nicholas J. Higham include Cornell University & Matra.

Functions of Matrices: Theory and Computation

Abstract: A thorough and elegant treatment of the theory of matrix functions and numerical methods for computing them, including an overview of applications, new and unpublished research results, and improved algorithms. Key features include a detailed treatment of the matrix sign function and matrix roots; a development of the theory of conditioning and properties of the Frechet derivative; Schur decomposition; block Parlett recurrence; a thorough analysis of the accuracy, stability, and computational cost of numerical methods; general results on convergence and stability of matrix iterations; and a chapter devoted to the f(A)b problem. Ideal for advanced courses and for self-study, its broad content, references and appendix also make this book a convenient general reference. Contains an extensive collection of problems with solutions and MATLAB implementations of key algorithms.

Accuracy and stability of numerical algorithms

Abstract: From the Publisher: What is the most accurate way to sum floating point numbers? What are the advantages of IEEE arithmetic? How accurate is Gaussian elimination and what were the key breakthroughs in the development of error analysis for the method? The answers to these and many related questions are included here. This book gives a thorough, up-to-date treatment of the behavior of numerical algorithms in finite precision arithmetic. It combines algorithmic derivations, perturbation theory, and rounding error analysis. Software practicalities are emphasized throughout, with particular reference to LAPACK and MATLAB. The best available error bounds, some of them new, are presented in a unified format with a minimum of jargon. Because of its central role in revealing problem sensitivity and providing error bounds, perturbation theory is treated in detail. Historical perspective and insight are given, with particular reference to the fundamental work of Wilkinson and Turing, and the many quotations provide further information in an accessible format. The book is unique in that algorithmic developments and motivations are given succinctly and implementation details minimized, so that attention can be concentrated on accuracy and stability results. Here, in one place and in a unified notation, is error analysis for most of the standard algorithms in matrix computations. Not since Wilkinson's Rounding Errors in Algebraic Processes (1963) and The Algebraic Eigenvalue Problem (1965) has any volume treated this subject in such depth. A number of topics are treated that are not usually covered in numerical analysis textbooks, including floating point summation, block LU factorization, condition number estimation, the Sylvester equation, powers of matrices, finite precision behavior of stationary iterative methods, Vandermonde systems, and fast matrix multiplication. Although not designed specifically as a textbook, this volume is a suitable reference for an advanced course, and could be used by instructors at all levels as a supplementary text from which to draw examples, historical perspective, statements of results, and exercises (many of which have never before appeared in textbooks). The book is designed to be a comprehensive reference and its bibliography contains more than 1100 references from the research literature. Audience Specialists in numerical analysis as well as computational scientists and engineers concerned about the accuracy of their results will benefit from this book. Much of the book can be understood with only a basic grounding in numerical analysis and linear algebra. About the Author Nicholas J. Higham is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester, England. He is the author of more than 40 publications and is a member of the editorial boards of the SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications and the IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis. His book Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences was published by SIAM in 1993.

Accuracy and Stability of Numerical Algorithms

Abstract: From the Publisher: What is the most accurate way to sum floating point numbers? What are the advantages of IEEE arithmetic? How accurate is Gaussian elimination and what were the key breakthroughs in the development of error analysis for the method? The answers to these and many related questions are included here. This book gives a thorough, up-to-date treatment of the behavior of numerical algorithms in finite precision arithmetic. It combines algorithmic derivations, perturbation theory, and rounding error analysis. Software practicalities are emphasized throughout, with particular reference to LAPACK and MATLAB. The best available error bounds, some of them new, are presented in a unified format with a minimum of jargon. Because of its central role in revealing problem sensitivity and providing error bounds, perturbation theory is treated in detail. Historical perspective and insight are given, with particular reference to the fundamental work of Wilkinson and Turing, and the many quotations provide further information in an accessible format. The book is unique in that algorithmic developments and motivations are given succinctly and implementation details minimized, so that attention can be concentrated on accuracy and stability results. Here, in one place and in a unified notation, is error analysis for most of the standard algorithms in matrix computations. Not since Wilkinson's Rounding Errors in Algebraic Processes (1963) and The Algebraic Eigenvalue Problem (1965) has any volume treated this subject in such depth. A number of topics are treated that are not usually covered in numerical analysis textbooks, including floating point summation, block LU factorization, condition number estimation, the Sylvester equation, powers of matrices, finite precision behavior of stationary iterative methods, Vandermonde systems, and fast matrix multiplication. Although not designed specifically as a textbook, this volume is a suitable reference for an advanced course, and could be used by instructors at all levels as a supplementary text from which to draw examples, historical perspective, statements of results, and exercises (many of which have never before appeared in textbooks). The book is designed to be a comprehensive reference and its bibliography contains more than 1100 references from the research literature. Audience Specialists in numerical analysis as well as computational scientists and engineers concerned about the accuracy of their results will benefit from this book. Much of the book can be understood with only a basic grounding in numerical analysis and linear algebra. About the Author Nicholas J. Higham is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester, England. He is the author of more than 40 publications and is a member of the editorial boards of the SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications and the IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis. His book Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences was published by SIAM in 1993.

Computing the nearest correlation matrix—a problem from finance

Abstract: Given a symmetric matrix what is the nearest correlation matrix, that is, the nearest symmetric positive semidefinite matrix with unit diagonal? This problem arises in the finance industry, where the correlations are between stocks. For distance measured in two weighted Frobenius norms we characterize the solution using convex analysis. We show how the modified alternating projections method can be used to compute the solution for the more commonly used of the weighted Frobenius norms. In the finance application the original matrix has many zero or negative eigenvalues; we show that for a certain class of weights the nearest correlation matrix has correspondingly many zero eigenvalues and that this fact can be exploited in the computation.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Numerical Optimization

Abstract: Numerical Optimization presents a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the most effective methods in continuous optimization. It responds to the growing interest in optimization in engineering, science, and business by focusing on the methods that are best suited to practical problems. For this new edition the book has been thoroughly updated throughout. There are new chapters on nonlinear interior methods and derivative-free methods for optimization, both of which are used widely in practice and the focus of much current research. Because of the emphasis on practical methods, as well as the extensive illustrations and exercises, the book is accessible to a wide audience. It can be used as a graduate text in engineering, operations research, mathematics, computer science, and business. It also serves as a handbook for researchers and practitioners in the field. The authors have strived to produce a text that is pleasant to read, informative, and rigorous - one that reveals both the beautiful nature of the discipline and its practical side.

A Singular Value Thresholding Algorithm for Matrix Completion

Abstract: This paper introduces a novel algorithm to approximate the matrix with minimum nuclear norm among all matrices obeying a set of convex constraints. This problem may be understood as the convex relaxation of a rank minimization problem and arises in many important applications as in the task of recovering a large matrix from a small subset of its entries (the famous Netflix problem). Off-the-shelf algorithms such as interior point methods are not directly amenable to large problems of this kind with over a million unknown entries. This paper develops a simple first-order and easy-to-implement algorithm that is extremely efficient at addressing problems in which the optimal solution has low rank. The algorithm is iterative, produces a sequence of matrices $\{\boldsymbol{X}^k,\boldsymbol{Y}^k\}$, and at each step mainly performs a soft-thresholding operation on the singular values of the matrix $\boldsymbol{Y}^k$. There are two remarkable features making this attractive for low-rank matrix completion problems. The first is that the soft-thresholding operation is applied to a sparse matrix; the second is that the rank of the iterates $\{\boldsymbol{X}^k\}$ is empirically nondecreasing. Both these facts allow the algorithm to make use of very minimal storage space and keep the computational cost of each iteration low. On the theoretical side, we provide a convergence analysis showing that the sequence of iterates converges. On the practical side, we provide numerical examples in which $1,000\times1,000$ matrices are recovered in less than a minute on a modest desktop computer. We also demonstrate that our approach is amenable to very large scale problems by recovering matrices of rank about 10 with nearly a billion unknowns from just about 0.4% of their sampled entries. Our methods are connected with the recent literature on linearized Bregman iterations for $\ell_1$ minimization, and we develop a framework in which one can understand these algorithms in terms of well-known Lagrange multiplier algorithms.

Benchmarking optimization software with performance profiles

Abstract: We propose performance profiles — distribution functions for a performance metric — as a tool for benchmarking and comparing optimization software. We show that performance profiles combine the best features of other tools for performance evaluation.